FROM: Our Californa
Contested ground I live on
roots thousands of years old
severed,
but not erased.
Los Ángeles
invented a story it tells the world,
that its residents
are rootless. There is no
there there.
Yet, I was born on this land,
raised in its soil,
feet rooted
in its dirt.
Your legacy hidden beneath myth making
turned stereotypes turned clichés,
inventing a palatable history,
building wealth,
power,
by dividing,
confining,
ignoring.
Peaceful Tongva made slaves
by the Spanish. The LGBTQIA
rights movement began
at the Black Cat Tavern in Silver Lake.
Japanese Americans waiting in line
at the corner of Venice and Lincoln
to be processed, then
sent to internment camps.
Civil uprisings in 1965,
1992.
My whole life
I’ve walked on your contested land.
Your myths unraveling
bit by bit
as we slowly confront
our true selves.
Brian Dunlap 