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“Legal Alien” By Pat Mora Bi-lingual, Bi-culturalable to slip from “How’s life?”to “Me’stan volviendo loca,”able to sit in a paneled officedrafting memos in smooth English,able to order in fluent Spanishat a Mexican restaurant, American but hyphenated,viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic,perhaps inferior, definitely different,viewed by Mexicans as alien,(their eyes say, “You may speakSpanish but you’re not like me”)an American to Mexicansa Mexican to Americansa handy tokensliding back and forthbetween the fringes of both worldsby smilingby masking the discomfortof being pre-judgedBi-laterally.
Coca-Cola and Coco Fríoby Martin Espada On his first visit to Puerto Rico,island of family folklore,the fat boy wanderedfrom table to tablewith his mouth open.At every table, some great-auntwould steer him with cool spotted handsto a glass of Coca-Cola.One even sang to him, in all the Englishshe could remember, a Coca-Cola jinglefrom the forties. He drank obediently, thoughhe was bored with this potion, familiarfrom soda fountains in Brooklyn.
Coca-Cola and Coco Fríoby Martin Espada Then, at a roadside stand off the beach, the fat boyopened his mouth to coco frío, a coconutchilled, then scalped by a macheteso that a straw could inhale the clear milk.The boy tilted the green shell overheadand drooled coconut milk down his chin;suddenly, Puerto Rico was not Coca-Colaor Brooklyn, and neither was he.For years afterward, the boy marveled at an islandwhere the people drank Coca-Colaand sang jingles from World War IIin a language they did not speak,while so many coconuts in the treessagged heavy with milk, swollenand unsuckled.
