Vintage Colorado Poetry / National Poetry Month / Poems of Protest / Poem of the Week / April 10, 2006 Vintage Colorado Poetry / National Poetry Month / Poems of Protest / Poem of the Week / April 10, 2006                        "Who are these people?" the poet asks.                        Louis Lucero's "America's Wrath Upon the New Brown-Faced                        People" was published in the Urban Spectrum (Denver) in May                        2005 and reprinted by permission of the publisher. It originally                        appeared in the November 2004 Denver Voice newspaper.                America's Wrath Upon the New Brown-Faced People       by               Louis Lucero                                                   I Who are these new brown-faced people coming into America? Those invisible faces darting in and out of our lives everyday along the urban and rural streets of America traveling in large families these tongue-tied people impinging on our American ways riding on our public transit system ending up on crowded buses, trains and subways clogging up our American highways and byways, with their ethnic traditions & customs disguised in bright-colored American T-shirts and designer jeans impersonating the local brown-faced people of the Mexican American hood flaunting American icons and symbols sporting baseball caps with Boston Red Sox emblazoned on the brim twisted to the back cautiously peeking around as if they have something to hide bearing a mask of deceit to conceal who they truly are a frightened face in a new world ashamed to speak their native tongue afraid to speak broken English, instead using gestures and non-verbal cues to safeguard themselves from being sought after by the gringo.                                                  II Who are these new brown-faced people coming to this country? With only the clothes on their back roaming nonchalantly to a foreign place through the back door drifting through deserts and rough terrain slogging through murky waters and baron lands trekking through hot cactus backdrops wriggling through unsecured fences and leaky borders exposed to scorching heat with death knocking at its door jeopardizing their lives just to get a taste of paradise as they make their way deep into the bowels of American cities along with their anchor babies strapped on their backs with little ones dangling in the air, lamenting without direction protected by their guardian-God-Mother Mary-Jesus a tiny innocent offspring inadvertently breaking America's immigration laws setting off into a wonderland of ambiguity, packed into tractor trailers like sardines ripped-off by coyotes with meager markdowns intended for a mass exodus into America's job market headed for our boundaries by the thousands and millions off to an unabashed ruthless civilization called paradise "America."                                                   Part III, please click