Si Fueran Tuyos ~ (If they were yours) Spanish Poem in Trenzas-Braids

(English Version Follows With Overview )

¿Qué diferente sería si fueran tuyos?

¿Qué diferente sería?
Si fueran de tu sangre
nacidos de tu vientre
mamando de tus pechos
oyendo sus llantos
¿Qué diferente sería?

¡Qué diferente cuando no son los tuyos!
de tu carne y hueso
de tu piel marfil
de tu reflexión
de tu imagen
¿Qué diferente sería?

¡Qué diferente cuando valorizamos!
que uno es de oro y otro de bronce
que el pardo merece menos
que uno camina en la sombra del otro
sin que uno conozca al otro
¿Qué diferente sería?

¡Qué diferente cuando pensamos de igualdad!
que la infancia es la infancia
que todos son inocentes
que ninguno merece sufrir
que el mio es tuyo y el tuyo es mio
¿Qué diferente sería?

If They Were Yours
(English Poem in Trenzas ~ Braids 2017)

How different would it be if they were yours?

How different would it be?
If they were of your blood
born of your womb
suckling from your breasts
hearing their cries
How different would it be?

How different when they are not yours!
of your flesh and bone
of your ivory skin
of your reflection of your image
How different would it be?

What a difference when we value!
that one is gold and the other silver
that brown deserves less
that one walks in the shadow of the other
without one knowing the other
How different would  it be?

What a difference when we don’t think of difference!
that infancy is infancy
that all are innocent
that none deserve to suffer
that mine is yours and yours is mine
How different would it be?

Si Fueran Tuyos
Empathy Personified ~ If mine were yours and yours were mine

There is an old refrain used to depict the essence of empathy . . . “If you would only walk in my shoes.” Maybe we are now at another stage, “May I please walk with you?”

America is coming to terms with civil-civic empathy, asking critical questions upon seeing in HD children being separated from their parent(s) – children behind cages. Yet again America is coming to terms with its conscience – its soul – with a yen to find the nature of its better angels. The lessons are bitterly painful.

America is hearing, in surround sound, children crying placed with strangers in caged buildings.

America has been asking the empathy question now for quite some time and yet it has not been answered with the same empathy from the perspective of the other. Regardless of the desperate circumstances that created the reasons why, “How would it feel if it was my child?”

In 1995 Dr. Lisa Delpit reminded educators to focus on, “Other People’s Children.” The book focused on the homogeneity of teachers increasingly teaching an increasing heterogeneous student body. The book was not only relevant for educators, counselors and mentors but also to every parent, every citizen as schools are homes away from homes.

Si Fueran Tuyos (if they were yours) focuses on the empathy for the other.

Imagine if your children were mine, and mine yours. What would you expect of me – what would I expect from you? Would each child not be loved to the fullest?