What was coming to me

I have let’s see,
a desire to be included
in the Diaspora that gave birth to me.
I have a case of mistaken Cuban identity
I have a Cuban police officer asking to see my documents
expecting to get money as bribery.

I have, let’s see,
I have an M Card
A student I.D. from Casa de las Americas
A medical expense card
I carry oddities in my speech
I have a bag full of unexpected things.

When I see and touch myself,
I have a face full of ambiguities
I am a Diaspora unmet.
I am a garden prone to transplant.
Again, today, I touch a new land
Jose Marti, terminal 3
A trip made by my own volition
I am a repository of experience.

I have Havana Vieja, a walled city in my memory.
I have a disguise that even with lips painted shut can speak.
I have a blackness defined by a different country code.
Looking very closely, I am not who you think.
I can say Americana
I can say turista
I can say negra
I can say raza
I can say revolución
In any context
I have “already had enough sun.”
These are the frames of my experience,
My research, work and writing.

I have, let’s see
I have a stereotyped familiarity
That you know my name and my intentions
That I already know this type of oppression.
I have the pain of not being acknowledged
Not as a student
Not as a visitor
But as someone rehearsed to insignificance.

I have, let’s see,
That being Black,
No one will stop me
On the bus,
On the street,
But, In a hotel lobby.
In my room, the workers are surprised that I have a key
In a tourist locale, a place for which I should not have money
What is the worth of the people who accompany me?

I have let’s see
A blue collar Havana police
To question me
To uproot me from a group
And throw me in the middle of their assumptions.
I have the right to be angry?
I have the right to consent?
I have the right to discredit “racial utopia” rhetoric.
No protest
No defense
And this is the consequence
Gigantic, blue, socialist
Cuba and sea.

I had, lets see
an experience well known by many Cubans who look like me .
In this skin,
I had access to the entrails of this beautiful country.
In this skin,
I had what was coming to me.