The unwanted Mexican child who grew up and became a mother
This work is an invitation to get curious about how we think about family and family making. For those of us who have been separated from their families and land by way of family policing systems, adoption, foster care, and fake borders, I speak directly to you.
I invite you to fill in the crossed out words with your own words. We can set each other free by building together and connecting our stories to each other, and to other struggles for freedom.
Collective liberation now.
I. “Mother”
My mother doesn’t want to meet me.
My mother doesn’t want to meet me
though I called her insides
my home
for however long she
held me.
There.
Maybe I’ll never know.
I want to know.
My mother doesn’t want to meet me.
She just needs more time.
We all need more time
we can take our time
there’s not enough time
there’s too much lost time
What fucking time is it?
I’m so dizzy.
My mother doesn’t want to meet me.
But, maybe that’s just right now.
She just needs to be pushed
cats outta the bag
skeletons are out of the closet
we can work together
and
grieve
and
grow
and
repair.
Now!
Who cares what others think?
We can move forward together.
My mother doesn’t want to meet me.
and
I am choking on the
shame and violence
we both carry
I took some with me on my way out
and
life gave me some more
after.
Born of violence
sold to violence
shaped in violence.
This bitch is tired.
I want to connect
I want connection
I want information
I want what’s mine
I want release
I want support
I want love
I want my family
My mother does not want to meet me
and I hope she changes her mind
because I want to meet her.
I want to meet my mother.
I want to set us both free.
II. “Unmothered”
I was raised by a woman
who taught me to call her mother
but she was not my mother.
Only women like her
can travel across fake borders
on stolen land
and come back home
with a baby
of their
own.
Babies.
Blank pieces of human matter.
Moldable meat and bones
to be commodified
to be moved around
and around
and around.
There's so much money to be made
you were worth every penny
be grateful for this new life
you get to have.
Babies
moved around like chess pieces on a board
carved out of imaginary lines
drawn by men
with see through flesh
placed in homes
built on slavery and genocide.
There was no safety or softness in mother for this baby.
This baby landed somewhere hard.
This baby called for mother but someone else answered.
This baby grew up too fast.
This baby was worth every penny.
This baby is grateful for this better life.
This baby is ready to hold her frozen parts and set them free.
III. “Mothering Unmothered”
My children
are the first
biological
relatives
I have memories of
the first
beings
I met
that looked like me
these tender little hearts
from my genetic makeup
grown in my belly
cut from my body
like a sweet piece of cake.
Oh, how I love them!
It was scary at first
I didn’t know how
my frame of reference is so warped.
To be a mother
who was unmothered
who didn't know mother
who feared mother
who cried for mother
whose mother was a ghost
whose mother is still a ghost
Oh, how hard it was!
Oh, how hard it is!
I found my people
my people
found me
we are mothering each other
across time and distance.
The world works so hard to keep us separate
but we have found each other.
Mothering unmothered is a string of texts
and fotos
shared amongst other
bought and sold
displaced
and separated
hearts
who are now grown
who stay up late
and alchemize
collective liberation.
We grow up.
We are tending to each other.
Mothering unmothered
is tears on the phone
late at night
to a heart
who knows loss like mine
and they hold
me
and love me
and share the weight
I carry.
To stay alive.
Not surviving
but thriving
and loving
and healing
and agitating
and building
I know how to love now
because I have been held
in ways
I didn’t think were possible.
I feel so full of love.
It’s so loud now
I can barely
hear the pain
and violence my body holds.
We will tear down
what shaped our conditions
and build new together.
Written by Shannon Hardt