@ b i p o c l e n s e s O b e r l i n BIPOC LENSES ISSUE2
BIPOC LENSES
Martina Novajas Donoso
Ezra Pruitt
Graciela Fernandez
A collaboration of colors under one roof
Lily Baeza Rangel
Jonathan Bruzon
Sam Llanillo
Becky Trigo
Sofia Ullman
Lila Sanchez
Chris Valles
Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón
Alana Florêncio Wain
Jimena Granados
The September issue was supposed to be the most challenging. I secretly feared it was too early in the school year for people to engage and that the student body would be too busy with new things to remember a tiny magazine. But I’ve never been more wrong. The POC community showed up and I felt the support of many POC students and staff. I can’t thank you enough for the encouragement because this issue wrote itself.
Alexander Saint Franqui
Maya Irizarry Lambright
EDITORS NOTE
Thank you for joining me on this journey. Nikki Keating editor in chief
Angelina Martinez
Melissa Nova
Sophie Winner
Alvaro Barquero Rodriguez
Main Photographer and Editor
Contributors/Staff/Models 1
I’ve made such wonderful connections with both students and staff andI hope you will grow and learn from each issue as well. I promise to continue to tell the stories of POCs and look forward to you joining me along the way.
Anna Sophia Abundis
CONTENTS INDUSTRY > B I P O C L E N S E S Issue 2 1 Editors Note 2 Latinx Heritage Month 5 Island Cowboy 8 Looking at Conflict 12 Island Rhythm 14 My Memory Never Served Me Well 15 La Lesbiana 16 Huellas 21 Good People 18 Your Culture 25 How to Get Involved
This p ntries they ar untry in the asing only a nate
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Thursday, September 15 and ends on Saturday, October 15
LatinX Heritage Month
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You might say the Island Cowboy isn’t a real cowboy, at least not anymore, and maybe he never was. He’s a lot smaller than the other cowboys, and he thinks one of these days, they’re all going to finally kill him. He never could beat Joe at his own game, but he likes to think he won just by playing it.
Island Cowboy
One thing you need to know about the Island Cowboy is that he is not like Joe. Joe wants to tame the Indian’s land for himself. The Island Cowboy only cares about his island. It was a good island, lush greens and shallow blues and sandy yellows. But he doesn’t live on his island any more, he lives on the Indian’s land. So he pays the Indian and he tries to stay away from Joe.
You can probably tell by now that the Island Cowboy doesn’t like Joe very much. In fact, the Island Cowboy hates Joe, but he loves Joe’s things. Joe has so many wonderful things, like baseball and apple pie and a red cadillac. Joe doesn’t really like to give his things for free, though. He only likes to barter and trade. So it was decided one day that the Island Cowboy would trade his island for some things.
The Island Cowboy is probably the strangest of the bunch. The least important reason is that he looks more like an Indian than a cowboy, but not for lack of trying. He dresses like John Wayne staring through a cloudless blue sky, rescuing a white girl from a group of savages. Oh yes, the Island Cowboy is a regular John Wayne; his stetson is his prized possession, and he carries a .22 revolver with six scratches on it, one for each Joe. Joe can’t see the scratches or even begin to decipher their meaning before he becomes the seventh. The Island Cowboy has a quick hand.
By Sam Llanillo
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“In 1986, the guerilla had attacked a quartel in La Palma, Chalatenango. Sandra volunteered to go and take photos as part of her student job The military had said that the guerilla had come to take over the quartel, and that all of the dead bodies surrounding the area were guerrilleros However, Sandra recounts seeing soldiers take off the military uniforms of the dead bodies and replace them with guerrillero clothes. Sandra describes the amount of bodies she saw as “multitudes”. She reflects on how hard it was to witness since she could recognize these people as part of the pueblo, the citizens. Sandra retells the interaction between her and a military officer after he had seen her take a roll of film out of her camera. The man almost hit her and threatened the people accompanying her. They would often have to hide film they had taken so as to not have it ruined The men would take rolls and pull out the film, destroying any images on it in the process Sandra would use those same ruined rolls to show to the men, pretending to "surrender" their images by giving them blank rolls. The soldiers were ignorant. Sometimes, Sandra remembers, the men would ask for proof of identity and they would hold the identification cards upside down. If it weren't for images on the cards, they probably would never have noticed. Sandra mentioned they most likely didn't know how to read.”
Looking at Conflict
Becky Trigo
Sandra De La O interviewed by Becky Trigo, Recorded Jan. 2022.
Sandra De La O
Sandra De La O, my mother.
“En El Salvador, han habido tantos desastres naturales como desastres causados por el hombre”
Observation 9
This past year I recorded and wrote down my mothers testimonio of the events that lead up to her emigrating from El Salvador in the late 1980s Through this process, we also went through boxes of photographs in order to find pictures of our family in order for me to contextualize her narrative. We found images she took from her visit to El Salvador after the 7.6 earthquake that occurred in January of 2001. With her help, I scanned these images and created collages that would reflect the destruction and reconstruction of El Salvador as a nation. In my opinion it is filled with hypocrisy and misidentity.
I wanted to highlight the people in the photos rather than the debris. I think some people might be wary of treating images of destruction as something that can only exist within themselves due to the emotional weight they hold I find these collages to explore these histories through an intimate perspective rather than as a spectator decades later. I hesitated putting direct images of myself into the colleges since my place as the first generation born in America inherently distances me from what happened, but I think that my place in its creation reflects the undoing of trauma that has followed us since. I also reflect on both my mother and I being connected through photography.
The context of the final image has been changed; the destruction of war is different from that of natural disasters. My mom tells me that people from the countryside came to towns to offer help after the earthquake. The soldiers in the image are receiving tomatoes to distribute while two old men are fixing something up that was left
Reconstruction 10
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radio brings The siren song, sung in Spanish, through the static daily prayer, First one at six, made it through the night,thank you,God
By cane sugar, smoothed by whole milk accompanied By a crossword. Her routine, the sun, brings day, to me
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Red numbers flash there,then not there beating hearts go ba bum ba bum devotion flows through her, always, from religion To her coffee strained through nylon stockings,sweetened
Alexander Saint Franqui
Island Rhythm
trees scream listen this heat is like home. breathe the warmth that these streets bring her perfume a herald, prelude to an offer ing, served, “Mira.” soda crackers and coffee, light and sweet, I eat and make messes she anoints me island kisses reminiscent Puerto Rico
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“Yes Please,grandma.”
“¿Y con leche?”
“Ahhuh,”I nod. the balcony welcomes burning asphalt, daylight through plastic blinds
Now, four years old Baby feet beat cold tile, walking to The pink kitchen
“¿Quieres café?”
Anna
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My Memory Never Served Me Well Sophia Abundis
Lila Sanchez La Lesbiana
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Al igual que al resto de la población humana, la tecnología me facilita la vida todos los días. La electricidad me da la luz que necesito para completar mis tareas en las horas más inconvenientes de la noche; mi computadora me facilita escalar la montaña de tareas que nunca termina de acumularse, y mi teléfono inteligente pone el mundo entero al alcance de las yemas de mis dedos. Literalmente las yemas de mis dedos pueden desbloquear la información de todo el mundo gracias a la tecnología de lectura dactilar instalada en los dispositivos. Aunque esta función hace del diseño de los teléfonos iPhone uno de los más impecables inventos vistos por la humanidad, lo que Steve Jobs no tomó en cuenta es la desaparición mensual de mis huellas. No puedo decir exactamente a lo que se atribuye este raro fenómeno que le pasa a las yemas de mis dedos cada mes; quizá tocó muchas cosas y esto hace que se desvanezcan, o quizás es debido a la resequedad de mi piel causada por el frío terrible de Ohio combinado con el olvido constante de ponerme crema. Sin falla, una semana de cada mes me la paso en guerra conmigo misma porque no puedo desbloquear ninguno de mis dispositivos y porque soy terrible para recordar las contraseñas. Mis huellas inconfiables, que un día están y al otro no. Las que me causaron tanto estrés ese lindo día de Mayo cuando quería estar en cualquier lugar, menos rumbo a la cita de biometría en las oficinas de immgracion. Todavía me acuerdo como se me enchino la piel cuando el oficial tomó cada uno de mis dedos sobre tinta negra para presionarlos sobre el papel blanco. El papel blanco, como los oficiales blancos, que ahora tenían mis huellas. Pero en si no tenían nada. Pues ellos no saben mi secreto mensual y ni de chiste se los diría.
A Short Story Written By
Huellas Lily Baeza-Rangel
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Mi única explicación para esta intratable condición es que es la única conexión con mi querida abuela a quien no he visto en dieciséis años. Al parecer es la única otra persona en la familia quien también sufre de este problema mensual. Mi querida abuela, o ‘Abi’ como le decimos, cuya cara me cuesta recordar después de 16 años sin verla. La que cuido de mi desde que nací mientras mi madre averiguó cómo seguir adelante sin la persona que le ayudó a crearme. Con cada foto que nos manda parece más desgastada, como si la cámara le exigiera una onza de su juventud por cada retrato que se toma. La extraño mucho pero al mismo tiempo no sé en verdad quien es. No sé cuál es su color favorito, su platillo preferido, ni el sonido de su voz al decirme que me ama. Porque si me ama, ¿verdad? En estos momentos cuando la memoria me falla, trato de mirarme al espejo; me dicen que soy la viva imagen de ella en su juventud. Tenemos el mismo pelo rebelde, ni alisado, ni encolochado; la misma sonrisa desigual. Soy ella y ella es yo, pero aun así no se quien es. Ella como mis huellas desaparece, la única diferencia es que eso regresa y Abi no.
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You are a product of humans, made from roots and their stems
A duty, you have, to spread their old legend
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You see them each day in the homes and the faces
Their prayers were answered and their ancestors now smile
You work everyday to spread their fair story
Your Culture
Of battles for glory and their homes that were threatened
Thank them each day for their trials and power Honor their graves with great stones and bright flowers
The blood that they shed added valor to your gain
From broad river backs and mountain church steeples
Of painted glass plates and towering vases
Your culture is beautiful, it’s fun and unique
Chris Valles
Stories of freedom and honor and tales of old glory
You cling to it dearly when you’re battered and weak
You thank them each day for their suffering and pain
You’re a little scared for the future and your duty to them
Your people, they suffered and traveled for miles
Proud, you are, to come from these people
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Good People
Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies Translated by the author
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aritere walked into the Caguas branch of The Creamery where ice cream meets heaven with the baby in her arms and María C., her cousin, to her side, and there she was once again talking the latter’s ear off with the same indiscriminate ardor that she put into anything, whether it was that beautiful purple dress she wore for prom two years ago, or that bendita grocery list that she always forgot when she actually went shopping, but which, even if she had taken with her, she wouldn’t have been able to purchase in its entirety because, like she repeated over and over,
las cosas están bien malas. That said, perhaps that one Wednesday the tone was right It just so happened that, as she was in the process of revealing, she hadn’t gotten her period that week, nor the previous one, and let’s not even mention the one before that. This could only mean one thing, and that one thing, you can imagine, would’ve definitely thrown a wrench into any well oiled machine, and hers was far from well oiled and already pretty wrenched out. She whispered that last part, and nudged her head to the tender bag of skin and bones held warmly against her chest, hoping to not wake it up. If awake, it would start asking to be fed and she couldn’t bear it anymore. She didn’t say it out loud. She’d done so two days ago and her mother, with whom she lived, had overheard and slapped her across the face and gave her a sermon and that was the first time that had happened in a long, long time. But the truth was that her nipples were so sore and whenever the baby was sucking on her it made her feel like a huge, silver, scrunched up Capri sun. That image actually came up in her nightmares and it scared her senseless. She knew it wasn’t logical, but she was afraid she would run dry and the baby would continue sucking and sucking and she’d be emptied out. And being emptied out and sola was the worst thing she could imagine in the whole world That’s also part of it, she said, that she was supposed to be “alone”. She tried to pull off the scare quotes with her one free hand, but failed Almost everybody knew that the father of the baby had left her well before she gave birth, and Maritere was still dealing with that betrayal, of which she hadn’t heard until about thirty six hours after it happened, when she received a collect call from Philadelphia at her mom’s landline, from her boyfriend’s older sister, who wanted to let her know that her younger sibling wasn’t ready to bear the responsibilities of being a dad The woman, whom she hadn’t really ever met, apologized and said goodbye with a dios te bendiga a ti y a la criatura.
He’d never even checked Isabel out, the most beautiful of them all, with her dark skin and green eyes. It had always been Maritere, ever since they were kids. And, yes, of course, Maritere thought that it was sweet and still remembers the day she considered it, when she was about fourteen Back then, she’d told herself that she didn’t have to work all that hard, that she could simply accept the love that was offered and concentrate on having a boyfriend and getting kissed for the first time and losing her virginity and all of that, instead of starving herself, instead of insulting herself to sleep on days she stumbled into a delicious bottle of Malta India or a bowl of whatever the generic brand of Lucky Charms was called. But some people were just simply not meant to be fat, and Maritere really believed herself to be one of them She also believed that anybody who was fat at fourteen would always think like a fat person and, in that sense,
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unlike her now ex boyfriend, who’d abandoned her without any consideration, Bimbo would never ever leave her while she was pregnant. In fact, if it were on him, he’d stick to her side for the rest of their existence and probably after. That, she said, scared the hell out of her Maritere stopped, took a deep breath, and confessed that what she was about to say she’d never tell anybody that wasn’t her cousin, but she had to say it even if sounded terrible: what overwhelmed her, even more so than the fact he’d never leave her, was Bimbo’s size, he was huge, and, like her cousin knew, she’d been huge, too, and so had spent each and every one of her teen age years, until she turned seventeen and succeeded, fighting with her weight, skipping breakfast, eating chicken breast sandwiches for lunch and dinner, and running around the block under the oppressing sun of Puerto Rican summers, with a sweat belt tightened around her abdomen and, underneath it, a dozen black plastic bags bound together with masking tape, a technology she’d perfected to melt the fat away, day in and day out. She had struggled against her excesses until finally her outside matched the image of herself she’d always known possible. It had been so hard, but oh so worth it. Bimbo had pined for her even then, avoiding the most accidental of glances at las flacas del barrio.
It was precisely because she couldn’t deal with all of this that had happened that she hadn’t been careful with Bimbo. Bimbo had been her neighbor her whole life. He’d been into her for almost as long, even though she’d only ever thought of him as a shoulder to cry on And with good reason He was buena gente, good people. The sweetest boy she’d met so far, and also the most decent Much like María C., the cousin who listened to her with encouraging nods as they progressed in the line towards the ice cream counter, Bimbo was a great listener and somehow always said just about the rightest thing in the world. When “just about the rightest thing” had to do with Maritere and came out of Bimbo’s mouth, it also happened to always be the sweetest and most loving words in the whole wide universe. The one bad thing was that, and Maritere lowered her voice once more, even if this time it wasn’t for the baby’s sake, Bimbo was a fatty, un gordito. Their relationship changed last month, Maritere continued. There was this one Friday night when Maritere gave the baby to her mom, and went to her neighbor’s house. She needed some warmth, some loving, and, yes, some heavy petting. She was in luck, she said. She’d seen that Bimbo’s aunt, with whom he lived, wasn’t there. This wouldn’t have been the first time, she told her cousin. You know how it is with that one friend one always has, right? María C didn’t and shrugged, and Maritere continued, saying that one thing led to another and she had miscalculated how much warmth she needed. Suddenly she just let go and, surprisingly, Bimbo didn’t stop either, as he had in the past. The whole deal didn’t last long, and that is great in retrospect, she said, but she came out feeling really good about herself, and really satisfied, which is what mattered, right?
When she stepped out of the bathroom after cleaning herself, she saw Bimbo smiling widely and felt as if she’d earned un pedacito del cielo, dios nos bediga. Seeing her friend that happy made her finally understand what real saintly charity was about. She used protection and all, of course, she clarified, unlike the one time that led to the baby. And this isn’t even the complicated part, she added and pointed through the child and into the general direction of her womb.
she had to always preempt herself, even now, She also believed that anybody who was fat at fourteen would always think like a fat person and, in that sense, she had to always preempt herself, even now, and she should’ve done so that one day she was feeling more bothered than usual and thought that being charitable was a great idea. She was still the gordita who wore her mom’s old cashmere sweaters in July and locked herself in her room with her windows shut, and ran in place until she slipped on the sweat that accumulated in the floor tiles. That’s why she dieted even through the pregnancy, against the doctor’s orders That’s why she started exercising as soon the last stitch of her C Section settled and perhaps a bit before that That’s why she got to the counter and ordered the one fat free ice cream they sold at The Creamery, and she asked the boy serving her, whose name was Carlos, to add small pieces of guineo but nothing more. That’s why she was still hurting for the boyfriend who knocked her up and then left her, even after everybody sighed in relief and whispered “good riddance, ese tipo es un cabrón”. Sure, he was, but he was also oh so beautiful, oh so in shape, and he had the most perfect six pack that she’d ever seen in her life. On the days when they’d driven up the Carretera #1 and checked into one of the many Caguas motels, not with the intention of spending a quick hour, bang bang, but of lazily staying for all of the eight your twenty five bucks got you, she spent at least one third of that time with her head on his chest and her fingers tracing that dream like set of abs. If that arroz con huevos of admiration and desire wasn’t love, she didn’t want to know what love was. There was no doubt about it: she was still that chubby girl and, in fact, that was precisely the reason she was struggling right then and there with all of this. If Bimbo happened to her, she could see herself letting go of her body, of all that suffering, of all
This story, an except from the novel Los días hábiles (2020), was originally published in the November 2016 issue of The Brooklyn Rail.
The baby did so, too, quiet. The device slid through the metallic surface, drawing strange circles, like the eye of a Ouija board, and, soon enough, defenestrated itself down the edge It continued vibrating on the floor, like a thing possessed Eventually it stopped moving and the name BIMBO disappeared from the screen Maritere sighed
that drive, of all that passion , and if that occurred what would be left of her? She’d be just as good as that emptied out pouch of Capri sun that haunted her at night. Maritere handed the baby to her cousin and put her phone down on the table, so she could eat her ice cream, which started to melt almost immediately. The oppressing July heat seeped into the store even against the will of the AC unit just above their heads. María C. hadn’t ordered anything. She was actually there because she worked at the shop and had asked for a ride. As Maritere ate, the cellphone began to vibrate. Both cousins stared at it for what seemed like an eternity.
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BIPOC Lenses is an Oberlin Student run magazine that unites many different POC organizations under one publication to showcase the beauty, talent, and art thats students of color create on campus.
BIPOC LENSES
