Danny Romero
I write poetry about the world around me.
Danny Romero was born and raised in Los Angeles. He earned a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and an MA from Temple University in Philadelphia. His poems and short stories have been published in many anthologies and journals. He is the author of the novel Calle 10 (Mercury House) and a book of poetry Traces (Bilingual Review Press). He teaches at Sacramento City College.
Professor at Sacramento City College, (Autobiography Writing Workshop/Chicano Literature/ Composition / UC Davis College Writing / Developmental Writing/ Fiction Writing Workshop/ Poetry Writing Workshop).
Pachuco Heart: This American Experience Called Chicano
If my father were still alive, he would be turning one hundred years old next month. Unfortunately, he is long dead, 40 years now. The same number that separated me in age from my father separate me in age from my son now about to turn 20 next month. I will be 60 later this year, God willing.
My father was born in Goodyear, Arizona. His parents were from Mexico. I don’t know when they migrated to Arizona. I don’t know much about them. I do know that they made their way to the Watts area of Los Angeles by the early 1930s.
My mother was born in Los Angeles in 1926. She is still alive and living there. Her mother was from Mexico, her father from southern Arizona.
Much like the characters in the seminal Chicano drama Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez set in Los Angeles, my parents also came up during that time and in that place, right in the pachuco heart. And like those characters, the war would define them.
My mother graduated from Banning High School in 1944. My father was in the USMC from the beginning to the end of WWII. They were married in 1947 in Watts and lived there for a number of years, beginning their family. They found jobs; the family grew. They did the best they could. By the time I was born we had already moved a couple of miles north to the Florence area.
Three of my four grandparents were immigrants, a part of another wave that moved across the border, the same way they had for many years before, the same way they have even before there was a border And the one grandfather who lived into his 90s, he could very well have always lived in that land between America and Mexico. Whatever they may have called themselves, today all their children are American.
My Father’s Friends
My father’s friends are my friends now,
older men, round and gray.
They stop by after work,
a beer or two, smoking frajos
and speaking words in Spanish
and English in the same sentence.
My father’s friends are my friends now.
They stand outside and laugh loudly.
Some are long haired still,
family men all in their 50s, 60s,
married and divorced and
all the places in between.
We pull over with the kids
when we see each other on the street,
stop and chat for a minute still.
“Say hello to Mr. Salas, mijo.
He used to live in L.A.”
“Say hello to Mr. Torres, mijo.
He is a teacher.”
My father’s friends are my friends now.
They use words like “mota” and “chota,”
“cuete” and “filero,“ “vato”
and “ruca” and “carnal.”
I can see the resemblance clearly.
autobiography of a latino male suspect
the county sheriffs want to
lock me up all of my life I
have been illegal no matter
where I was born brown and
poor that has made me a
criminal through the years…
I am a zoot suiter in the
night can you pick me out
of a line up? behind my
Pancho Villa mustache
my face lined and cracked
scarred as the life of
the outsider…
images traveling over the
AP wire 1 May 1992 newspapers
across the country show a 12
year old face like my own
down in the broken glass and
asphalt of los angeles laying
prostrate near my brother our
hands cuffed behind our backs
by a dark deputy while his
superior (and ours too I
suppose) stands over us with
a shotgun pointed at our
heads (light finger on
the trigger) though there is no
evidence of our crime there
should be no question who
is in charge…
Still later as a street
corner teenager long haired
dark with crooked teeth and a
glazed look in my eyes I talk
to a reporter and television
crew asking questions to barely
articulate answers to questions
difficult to answer
as I grow older can you see
me running through that
trashcan alleyway at night?
helicopter buzz above lights
shining down on me as I dodge
and scramble to make my way
each day I live in this
country of my birth.
This Life
My mother made tortillas
each morning while
I watched from her hip
together for the day
before school before
friends and enemies
before sorrow and death
I watched from her hip
a world unfold
beneath palote
comal fires
always burning
day and after day
like indios in the sun
Esta vida
Mi madre hacía tortillas
cada mana mientras
yo observaba desde su cadera
junto con ella todo el día
antes de la escuela antes
de los amigos y los enemigos
antes de la tristeza y la muerte
observaba desde su cadera
un mundo abrirse
bajo un fuego
de palote y comal
siempre ardiendo
día tras día
como indios bajo el sol
Ode to WiIlie’s Burgers
Gracias, señora for all
the years at the griddle
making hamburgers for us
on Friday night
How many other fathers
and sons have you satisfied?
with just a few simple ingredients
burger and bun lechuga y tomate
queso maybe the secret sauce
I trust the night
like it was your own kitchen
and we your own people
I have no doubts about my money
nor inevitable return
señora, muchas gracias!
todos sus hijos tan afortunados
Por Vida
One
I live in a barrio
in my head never very
far from a taco truck
on the corner of Florence
and Holmes Avenues
It makes no difference
if I stroll down Rodeo
Drive the surrounding
opulence worlds away
from el remate on Saturday
afternoon where families
with five or six or seven
children each sweat for
the ninety-nine cent
bargains and afterwards
una raspada de limon
Still I live
in a barrio in my
head never very far
from my mother’s
tortillas hot off the
fire and the little
ones she made especially
for me when I was
just a boy
Most every meal in my
house now comes wrapped
en harina o maiz warm
as memories and as good
as life get (it seems
just about at times)
I will never forget
houses too small for
families too large
enchiladas de queso
on Fridays during Lent
comida made with love
and kindness in my
grandfather’s kitchen
nor the smell of crude
oil in the Wilmington air
Two
I left Los Angeles in a
flurry of rifle shots
from a passing car
18 years old and high
on Angel Dust I followed
those railroad tracks
into the world ready
for life or death
I will never forget
Sunday morning drunks
Mexican men on horseback
galloping through the
back alleys of our
lives I can still hear
KGFJ radio from the
heart of Watts Angeles
pinche chota chase me
home at night stop
me search me “to
protect and serve”
So I live in a barrio
in my head always just
an arm’s length from
jail it makes no
difference if I walk
across Independence Mall
these stolen streets still
stained with blood of
slave and Indian before
me I hear the air still
filled with their screams
Murals of La Virgen swirl
‘round this barrio in my
head not Capitol Hill
those seats of power so
far from my reach standing
at this end of a long and
unyielding American night
el gigante
for Frank Sapien Sr.
Olmec heads outside my door
watch the night
lines on your fae
tell a 10,000-year-old tale
you have grown so
over these years
you carry us along
shuffling barrio streets
to Mass each day
before the sun comes up
whatever you may
call yourselves
the first people
throughout this vast civilization