Manual High Student Poetry: Yearning to Breathe

Yearning to Breathe Free

-Nieves Delgado

Students from Manual High School in Denver visited KGNU recently to record some of their poetry. In their 10th grade American Literature class, the students have been writing, discussing, and reading about “The American Dream”. They’ve been inspired to write their own poetry on this theme. KGNU will be featuring these poems throughout January.

Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore
send these, the homeless, tempested-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door

Mojados.
Illegal aliens.
Border hoppers.

Racing through the veins
of little ones living
the fear of
calling la migra.

A dad, a mom, and siblings,
then realizing one of them is missing.
Incomplete families who came to America
whole
in search of
something more,
in search of the
American Dream.

Looking for freedom
around every corner like shadows.

Looking to learn, to grow, to live.
But getting cuffed
in the hall of my school.
Why is it that just my presence
is a trespass?
Illegal.

My identity split,
Mexican American
American Mexican
I am divided,
like the border
that cuts through the sprawling landscape,
dividing
earth,
sky,
air
into two.

My two halves
never seem to feel whole.

Deported
like trash collected and dumped
somewhere out sight.

We are the tired, poor, and huddled masses.
We are yearning to breath free.
Searching for the wretched refuse of this teeming shore,
Will you lift the lamp for us?

When will you see
that your liberty is bound with mine?
We are connected like the moon and the tide,
An endless push and pull.

Todos somos hermanos y hermanas.
There is no true freedom until
we
are
all
free.