Immigrant Blues

People have been trying to kill me since I was born, a man tells his son, trying to explain the wisdom of learning a second tongue. It’s an old story from the previous century about my father and me. The same old story from yesterday morning about me and my son. It’s called “Survival Strategies and the Melancholy of Racial Assimilation.” It’s called “Psychological Paradigms of Displaced Persons,” called “The Child Who’d Rather Play than Study.” Practice until you feel the language inside you,