By c.r. glasgow

none of the above.

pat down please.

                                         female assist!

the AIT only gets looked through 
as i track the day pack to the end of the steel lane

is this yours?

i nod, hugging the wall of the x-ray machine as two male tsa agents look at  me. i wait. and i wait.

(Editor: proper formatting of this poem in the ‘read more’ section)

By James Quadra

In 2019, Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan teenager, died in the custody of US immigration authorities. Video evidence showed that the U.S. Border Patrol, operating under Trump’s campaign of hate toward Latino immigrants, held Carlos, who was sick with the flu and had a high fever, in a concrete cell without proper medical attention or any supervision. Border Patrol agents discovered his body only after his cellmate called for them. 

When I read about Carlos’ heartbreaking death, I was struck by how fortunate my parents were to be able to legally emigrate from Nicaragua to the U.S. in search of a better future.

By Melony McGant

Beautiful People, 

Take a moment to Breathe Deeply and Exhale Slowly Ten Times. 

Will you listen to me with your heart?   Please don't try to intellectualize my pain.  All of My Ancestors Live In Me.  I Am Angry and Crying America.  

In the United States you celebrate the 4th of July, Independence Day.  Have you forgotten that you are living on a land stolen from Native Americans, and that you benefited by enslaved labor? 

You called this a Land of Opportunity.  Yes, it was an opportunity for you to steal the land of the Cherokee, Hopi, Navajo, Pequot and all the Indigenous Tribes that were already here. 

By Jessica Mehta

i never knew Your arms 

as cages ‘till this 

 morning. the scent 

of marzipan, or is it 

paskha, infiltrating too soon 

for the season of Your 

restraint. the fear You breed becomes  

my own, softens 

in, fluxes like fingers 

By Otissus

A name created 

from imagination’s 

Figment is Otissus 

From the Northwest 

Up a hill from the 

lake’s isthmus

Of the Duwamish Tribe’s 

would otherwise be known as 

Kingdom

Who expresses regress 

from those foreign 

Who trespassed & 

caused pandemonium

By Scott Bentley

Number of “Indigenous crafts” workers in El Paso approved for aid to US workers laid off because of NAFTA in 1995: 26

Number of the world’s 6,000 living languages that are Indigenous to Papua New Guinea: 1,000

Number of excerpts from the Harper’s Index archive with the word “Indigenous”: 3

Number of excerpts from the Harpers Index archive that capitalize the “I” in the word Indigenous: 0 

Number of federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States: 567

Number of Native Americans sought by a Pilgrim descendants’ group in 2000 to re-create the first Thanksgiving: 90