As I Am
I think the first time I felt voiceless was my senior year in high school. My family had been living motel to motel for the four years leading up to this and the clerk at Motel 6 asked us to leave. My parents didn’t have the money to pay the $68 for that day. Sitting on the sidewalk with my life in a laundry basket and school backpack, I knew the cops were coming for us when I saw their car pull into the driveway.
A homeless family on the side of a motel… a sore eye for business and a bummer for society.
The white officer approached and asked what was going on. In the hundreds of interactions like this we experienced in those years, I learned to keep my mouth shut and let my father speak.
That day I understood the danger is speaking up. I recognized the challenge that my voice would carry if I said anything. Dry mouth, tight stomach, I watched my father lower himself while his children watched.
Have you ever wondered what you could say to explain to someone with a gun that you really are not a bad person?
Flash forward to today, October 4, 2016. It is my 20th birthday and I am sitting in a vintage sunflower dress on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. I look beautiful.
There are not many days here that the sun reminds me of Southern California and even less days that this world reminds me of my worth.
My voice is still dangerous.
I think the danger comes from the little girl in me, la chingona, who is emotional and vocal. I think that the danger is rooted in our fear of being emotional and hesitation to be vocal.
But when your mouth is a land mine in the eyes of others, I feel that there are two options.
Listen. Assimilate. Sometimes for survival, sometimes for gain.
Scream. Question. Fight. Challenge. Write.
This is what juniperangelica.com is all about. This is me screaming, questioning, fighting, challenging. This is me writing. This is me living.
There is power in a brown trans femme finding her voice and there is power in this.
I look forward to writing my words down for history, making history.
My work is not an apology. It’s an assertion that I’m still here.