Reagonomics
in 1986,
president reagan passes a bill granting amnesty to all undocumented people in the united states
who arrived before 1982. this is in exchange for increased border security funding and tougher
laws against incoming mexican immigrants. $185, proof of well learned english and green
lawned intentions earns 3 million people residencies. reagan is seen as a kind yet firm handed
leader of the people and garners support from his constituents. the bill comes to be seen as a
failure; provisions to penalize employers hiring undocumented immigrants are cut for the bill to
pass, and in the 8 years of reagan’s presidency, the number of foreign-born people in the united
states increases by nearly half. my stepdad loves it though. it gives him the slip of paper he needs
to walk into a painters’ union office con orgullo. my birth father balseros from Guantanamo to
Miami before clinton’s wet foot dry foot policy (i.e. dry foot). since the kennedy administration,
my mother’s parents work for months at a time in Chicago under false names to shoebox cash for
their twelve hungry kids in Mexico. reagan finesses immigrants for reelection votes. my mother
is finessed into single parenthood the summer before the century sours — no, it moreso curdles
the skin on the hands of the people i love, though i don’t notice as a kid in a carseat, throat bright
with selena letras. i don’t even notice it when the sounds of helicopters make me look at my tías
as if they will poof from the lotería table. it’s the only thing i think of after looking into the shaky
blue eyes of a rookie ice agent in an airport named after george bush who won’t tell me when i’ll
see my stepdad again, per the rules of the trump administration. liver spots and wrist scars gone
wrinkly in a country they’ve not been allowed to vote in for two decades, oils and ointments for
stomach pains they can only get from visitors from their old blocks. they reach deep into
their jars of turmeric and ginger and liquid horsehair and rub the bellies of their toddlers, tucking
them in bed and holding their tender heads close how a country could never care to — except for
reagan’s. the only government my stepdad says he’s ever felt love from. they won’t let him leave
now.
but it’s not so much a perfection
of self as it is a striving for the perfect dream —
to dust one’s hands in as much product as it takes
until the body’s sweat reveals it to be the true product —
to move up a wall or a ladder or across a river
is to know God will be no closer at the other
end, but to trust Him when one’s arms give out,
or Them, or It, whatever wound one serves to heal,
and it is a worship of the wounds one carries
which make a name across flesh in the loss —
a study of scars is also one of mathematics,
to know how much blood can be subtracted
and survived, to subtract oneself from one’s blood is to turn away,
to turn on foot under pursuit of the law into a dead end,
to turn oneself into a staircase cops smoke inside of,
to fold into an envelope of cash sent off to one’s eldest
while hiding out with fake documents and scabbing flesh,
stuck at the one drywall job that won’t report aliens —
movement is never not a question of borders,
the answer is always borders and the body disappears into data
because the body is the true product
in the half-real freedom deal, bodies taxed
more than they take in federal revenue,
laying each brick for the buildings
judges rule to deport them from —
a people who built pyramids,
invented the number zero,
born to divide themselves,
born to science.
It Felt Like Winning the Lottery
– a Golden Shovel after billy woods
When the first disability benefit check came
on my mom’s bank app, she excused herself from our dinner table and back
-ed into the bathroom wall – her signal to
breathe. On impact, she laughed: 18 months praying to God
over my stepdad’s thinned legs as he slept, voicemails to Social Security every day like
the savings-drained family we were. Our case agent was the coolest motherfucker.
The last time I got ahold of him, I asked if we should apply for food stamps. He said you
better not hold your breath. That’s another long line. He whistled. He promised.
Julián Martinez
Julián Martinez (he/him) is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants and is from Waukegan, IL. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrio Panther, HAD and others, including La Cascada, his family hometown paper in El Salto, Jalisco, México. His music esés received The Society of Professional Journalists' 2021 Mark of Excellence. In 2022, his work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find him online @martinezfjulian. As a DJ, he goes under the name DJ Guadalupe (a.k.a. A Vato With A Serato) and can be heard rocking a party near you.