In my last post, I included some of 'Ana Castillo's poem, "Daddy with the Chesterfields Rolled up in a Sleeve." The speaker in the poem is an adult woman who, throughout the poem, talks about the difficulties of being female, for herself, her mother and grandmother, in the family and culture she grew up in. Particularly of being Chicana and working class in Chicago in 60s. The last lines of the poem are:
Daddy with the Chesterfields rolled up in a sleeve,
you got a woman for a son.
It is only at this moment, sitting among various homeless men in the public library, listening to intimate conversations between dear friends, "Where were you Silas, I saved you your favorite sandwich, I was praying you were ok," or the annoying guy behind me looking at porn on his lap top, "Yes! You're a wicked bitch!," that this poem helps me to dare to think deeper about my relationship with my father.
In Tongan culture, it is taboo to talk about your father in any other way but to praise him as the head of your household and the patriarchal stronghold of the family.
In my very first post on this blog, in beginning to explore why I want to go to law school, I started to tell a story about my father when he was a child in 1949. It is a telling that was too hard for me because I don't know many of the details, except between my dad and I, we still feel the pain and loss as if it was just yesterday, lodged and framed tightly in this story that needs to be free.
i'll finish this post later, the library is closing.
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