The Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy\u2019s 2023 Poetry Contest<\/p>\n
Third Place<\/p>\n
By Shlagha Borah, University of Tennessee, Knoxville<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
| My homies ask me to teach my American friends how to cuss in our tongue. \nI say: profanity is only for myself. \nMy friend from LA says they can turn me into a brown Kylie Jenner. \nI look at my skin and don’t see brown. \nMy professor insists I am. \nI say, can you teach me how to pronounce this? \nI always pick the wrong syllables to stress on. \nI laugh before they laugh. \nI stand for hours in the social security office. \nI write Assamese in English. \nMy parents think in Assamese and translate every word into English. \nThey are worried they might fail their Visa interview. \nI have not even been here long enough to qualify as an immigrant. \nI have always been a daughter of place. \nI cannot see Ma\u2019s face for three minutes without freezing. \nWe are oceans apart. \nData is so expensive and it is only one thing. \nI pay thirty dollars to draw my palms. \nMy aunt grinds jetuka every Bihu. \nI think of the borpitha Ma fries on Uruka night. \nI barf the American-Mexican burrito bowl. \nI make my White roommate try paan & her mouth explodes. \nI cook paratha and buy lassi for lunch. \nI am running towards and away from my Indianness at the same time. \nI go to Target and Walmart and Trader Joe\u2019s and I practice small talk. \nI eat everything bagels and cream cheese and croissants and pop tarts and cheez-its.<\/span>and \nfrozen pizza for dinner and I forget \nI didn\u2019t pack Aaita\u2019s bogori<\/em> pickle. \nI see cereal on both sides of the aisle. \nI gape & gape & gape<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy\u2019s 2023 Poetry Contest Third Place By Shlagha Borah, University of Tennessee, Knoxville My homies ask me to teach my American friends how to cuss in our tongue. I say: profanity is only for myself. My friend from LA says they can turn me into a brown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[78],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4PW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18596"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18601,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18596\/revisions\/18601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |