As a child,

I was immersed in the traditional art 

of a mystical land I couldn’t reach for.

The artwork was on our walls,

at our dining tables,

within our bedrooms,

meant to be seen, touched and witnessed.

I would graze the tips of my fingers

through paintings and textiles 

from this other world

and I’d let them tell me a story.

The land depicted on our walls 

teemed with dragons and wyverns with bright

feathered wings. 

Rows and rows of stars grew from the soil. 

There were undying fields of cotton candy

spun gold. 

The gold was exploited in creative ways. 

I told myself this land was a home I was ripped

away from

I was a princess of great inheritance, in a

futuristic exile

They called me Chawa and I grew into a vessel,

comfortable with

opportunity

Motherland is a visual language from which many of us stand. It is the latinx experience we breathe, every breath carved out of space that isn’t ours. We don’t belong here and we are not welcome back. We are too foreign for the other. We are too queer for our past. We live in a liminal space of color and struggle, of offensive contrast, of nature turned strange. We reach for our mother but she reaches for us too and there is nothing we can do to soothe.