Review: There will be days, Brown boy

Review: Alejandro Jiménez. There will be days, Brown boy. Mouthfeel Press, © 2024. (link)

By Guest Reviewer Rey M. Rodríguez

 

            Any reader of Alejandro Jiménez’s thought provoking and compassionate new book of poetry entitled, “There will be days, Brown boy,” should disavow all preconceived notions of what they may think it means to be Brown in the United States and simply let the words on the page touch their soul.

The book is divided into four parts: For those days when your belonging is questioned; For the days when all you want is to return home; For the days when you forget who you come from; and For the days we need to be gentle with ourselves. These divisions and the book’s title beg the question who should read it. Of course, Brown boys and by extension Brown people, but I would argue all people should, because it is both an expression of Jiménez’s writing and a culmination of a long history of personal and societal pain and trauma that we must all be aware of and confront with the same grace, moral anger and dignity that Jiménez accomplishes with his writings.

            To understand why this book had to be written, it must be put into context. Why would a Brown boy’s belonging be brought into context at all? Jiménez describes what it means not to belong throughout the book, but it is especially personal in “You’re Mexican” when he writes:

You’re Mexican until you make your way toward the dinner table [a white college], and one of them loudly says, here comes the beaner, and they all laugh and one of them tries to have your back: he’s not that much of a beaner. They laugh. You sit with them and eat your dinner anyway because this is the price of the American Dream.

 

Jiménez does not state it explicitly, but the price to pay is racism that was planted by Europeans when African slaves were brought to what is now the United States in 1619. For Brown people it is also that seed of hatred planted by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and, more importantly, by Cortes in 1519 when he invaded what is now Mexico. Cortes instead of embracing the indigenous cultures of this “New World'' attempted to destroy and erase the civilizations of the Mexica and Maya, among many others, through disease, burning of books, and war and destruction of major cities such as Tenochtitlan — all in pursuit of gold.

            These perverse notions of race persist today and explain why Jiménez's book had to be written. His poetry when read serves as a shield for that Brown boy who must confront and combat this more than 500 year old stain on the Americas. The verses also provide comfort to the reader that he is not alone in the battle to conquer these backward, racist notions and give hope for a day when the color of one's skin is celebrated equally regardless of the amount of melanin it might contain.

            Until that day, Jiménez’s poetry, and many books like it, are necessary to highlight both that racism exists and they serve as a guide post to how far we have yet to go to arrive at our reimagined world free of such bigotry. Jiménez quotes Eduardo Hughes Galeano, “My memory will retain what is worthwhile. My memory knows more about me than I do; it doesn’t lose what deserves to be saved,” and then on the next page the poet wrestles with this notion. What happens if memory is based on a false mythology, such as Cortes ``conquered” the Mixeca with 300 white men? Of course, they could not do it alone; they needed the allies of the Tlaxcalans and others, including disease and good luck to succeed. Memory to Jiménez can be a weapon, not only to do harm to others but something that brings pain and joy to the poet. In Colima, Mexico, where he is from, Jiménez can be free to be himself. In the United States where he lives, he experiences a country that rounds up people like him and puts them in cages – “adult and little ones alike.” For Jiménez the memory of his heart has room for many countries. The response to Galeano’s quote is to explain the complicated experience of an immigrant who still remembers living and existing freely in a country that is not the United States of America.

            A white person rarely needs to confront this notion of not belonging or somehow being a stranger in his own country. A Brown person does on a daily basis. But this reality does not absolve the white person from confronting this unfair and unjust situation. Quite the contrary, it requires that all explore it so that all may live in a more abundant world where all stories are free to be celebrated. And it is the pursuit of this American Dream where Jiménez’s book plays a critical role, because until this country achieves this dream then he must write his poetry to that Brown boy for those days when his belonging is questioned.

A poem that reflects in strong terms the hatred that Jiménez must have experienced is “[beaner].” He begins the poem as follows:

When you say it, mean it.

Your tongue must not stumble.

Wrap your whole mouth around it.

 

The poet is writing directly to anyone thinking about using this derogatory term that Anglos use to make Mexican Americans feel less than because beans are a staple of Mexican cuisine. Even as I write this sophomoric reality, it is laughable that it is a hateful term, but context is everything. If the speaker has power and privilege then use of a word, even a stupid one, can carry hateful weight.  Jiménez continues:

What a privilege, murdering,

       [beaner]

knowing you have those borders

and those politicians and all those 

courts and all the constitution protecting you.

This stanza shows the power of a word to chill any idea that the Brown boy belongs. Regardless, Jiménez with the power of his pen challenges those who wish to use it and shields the Brown child from feeling the sting of its intent.

            Despite this need to shield, Jiménez also reminds the Brown boy (and any reader of his work) that he is loved and that he must carry on. It is the last stanza of the last poem of the book that conveys this message of persistence and hope. Jiménez writes in “If the Brown body”:

If the Brown body has no papers / exists where it is not wanted/ speaks broken En-

glish / speaks broken [whatever language is their mother tongue] / is deported/ is detained / is trafficked / is wronged / is silenced; If the Brown body disappears; If the 

Brown body reappears;

 

After we reemerge from these waters:

 

                                                                                 let us   mourn;

                                                                                 let us   grief;

                                                                                 let us   rejoice;

                                                                                 let us   create;

                                                                                 let us   try again;

                                                                                 let us   rebuild;

                                                                                 let us   rebuild;

                                                                                 let us   rebuild.

 

This is the world I want to live in for myself, my children and my children’s children.

 

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Meet La Bloga's Guest Reviewer: Rey Rodriguez

Rey is a writer, advocate and attorney, who lives in Pasadena, CA.  He is currently working on a novel set in Mexico City and the Mayan Underworld and a nonfiction book on Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission, a nonprofit serving the immigrant community of Boyle Heights for over 30 years.