Alison McGhee

Is it pure racism? Is that the only reason? I asked a friend late Thursday night, after they voted the repulsive bill into being. Do they not know any immigrants? I ask myself, do they not know their doctors, their teachers, their cooks, servers, friends? What about the people who pick their food, landscape their lawns, line up at the day labor pickup sites, or used to, before they were too scared to do anything but hide? Do they not know anything about their own families?

Because unless you’re Indigenous or your ancestors were brought here in chains, you yourself are descended from immigrants, people who left everything behind for a dream. There’s strength in that for me. If they had that kind of determination and strength to make things better, Alison, I tell myself, then so do you.

Immigrant Picnic, by Gregory Djanikian

It’s the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.

And I’m grilling, I’ve got my apron,
I’ve got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I’ve got a hat shaped   
like the state of Pennsylvania.

I ask my father what’s his pleasure
and he says, “Hot dog, medium rare,”
and then, “Hamburger, sure,   
what’s the big difference,”   
as if he’s really asking.

I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,   
slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,
uncap the condiments. The paper napkins   
are fluttering away like lost messages.

“You’re running around,” my mother says,   
“like a chicken with its head loose.”

“Ma,” I say, “you mean cut off,
loose and cut off  being as far apart   
as, say, son and daughter.”

She gives me a quizzical look as though   
I’ve been caught in some impropriety.
“I love you and your sister just the same,” she says,
“Sure,” my grandmother pipes in,
“you’re both our children, so why worry?”

That’s not the point I begin telling them,
and I’m comparing words to fish now,   
like the ones in the sea at Port Said,   
or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,
unrepentantly elusive, wild.   

“Sonia,” my father says to my mother,
“what the hell is he talking about?”
“He’s on a ball,” my mother says.

“That’s roll!” I say, throwing up my hands,
“as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll….”

“And what about roll out the barrels?” my mother asks,
and my father claps his hands, “Why sure,” he says,
“let’s have some fun,” and launches   
into a polka, twirling my mother   
around and around like the happiest top,  
 
and my uncle is shaking his head, saying
“You could grow nuts listening to us,”  
 
and I’m thinking of pistachios in the Sinai
burgeoning without end,   
pecans in the South, the jumbled
flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,
wordless, confusing,
crowding out everything else.

Click here for more information about Gregory Djanikian.
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter