Fourth of July

Hey APC! I’m Gabriela Alvarado, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m seventeen years old and identify as female, Chicana, and Latina. My maternal side is from El Salvador; my paternal is from Mexico. 

My life experience and two quotes make up “The Wards.” The first quote is from the 1965 James Baldwin and William Buckley debate: “I am not a ward of America. . . . I am one of the people who built the country.” The second quote is from the beginning of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis, which I just started reading: “Others carried a simple something in their hands: a branch in full flower, a stalk of sugar cane, a yellow bird in a cage.” I tried to tie in two very different topics in this piece, and they intersect with guns. 

My instagram handle is gabriela.p.alvarado

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The Wards 

“I am not a ward of America. . . . I am one of the people who built the country.”

— James Baldwin

it’s fourth of july 

and small children hold 

red white blue flags

they hold toy machine guns and rifles

they make those little popping noises with their mouths

and i write about what i know 

it’s fourth of july

it’s fourth of july

—cue the machine gun sound bite—

two children hold up their hands

with extended thumbs

and pointed pointer fingers

they point at each other, they point at us,

they go: “pow!” “pow!” 

—cue the machine gun sound bite—

they go, with glee, they go: “you’re dead! i killed you!”

i write about what i know

it’s fourth of july

it’s fourth of july

as it was some years ago in the safest hood of the city

i mean, the whitest hood in the city, and

some black man was told to go back

to his own hood. you don’t belong here

some white man threw a firework

some white man threw a firework

at his car at him

and it exploded beneath him

but he can still breathe

it’s fourth of july

it’s fourth of july

and that was the whitest part of a city 

a city in which a white cop shot a black man

in his own grandmother’s backyard

he was shot in part for holding a cellphone

but more for the color of his skin

and his name was Stephon Clarke

and he can never breathe 

it’s fourth of july

it’s fourth of july

and those /machine gun sound bite/s

are the real deal and

those pointed fingers are the real deal

they were real for my cousin, who’s name was on a train

they were death for Memo, who’s name his cousins saw

graffitied on a train in a war-stricken country

they did not see his body; they saw many bodies

(and they can never breathe)

and tugging at their mother’s clothes

they cried, “Memo’s famous! He’s on the train!”

and their mother looked down with widened eyes

(could she breathe?)

their mother reached out in an attempt to silence them

and their mother told them to be quiet

(could they breathe? could they breathe?)

it’s fourth of july

it’s fourth of july

in a country that funded a war that created those bodies

that put Memo’s name on a train

in a country where black men holding cell phones

get shot for being black men holding cell phones

and its flag doesn’t come in size small and

those children should stagger under the weight of its flag

this country should crumble under the weight of its flag

for this flag is no small thing and

a pointed finger is no small thing and

a firework is no small thing and 

a cell phone is no small thing and 

a name on a train is no small thing and

i write about what i know and

it’s fourth of july

it’s fourth of july

someone said that a bird in a cage is a small thing

but a bird in a cage is no small thing

i live in AMERICA and i’ll never treat 

a bird in a cage as such and—

and i am no small thing

because i live in AMERICA

and i can mostly breathe 

and i can write this poem

(this poem is no small thing)

and i can read it aloud

because i live in AMERICA

and maybe i am free

and i can mostly breathe 

and that is no small thing

i write about what i know

it’s fourth of july