I'm Afraid of Brazilians or Visiting the Ancestral Homeland is Not the Great Ethnic Experience Promised by Other Memoirs
Against all political correctness,
I must say it,
I must admit:
I'm afraid of Brazilians.
I don't like them.
I don't like this country.
I don't like this language.
I don't even like this currency.
And not in the mystical sense.
Or the abstract.
Or the perfectly hypothetical.
I can't blame this fear
on movies, or television programming,
or the front covers
of Time magazine.
No.
I'm afraid of Brazilians.
I am visiting Brazil
(my mother's country)
and I'm afraid, truly afraid
of every Brazilian I meet.
This is not something you can say
in a poem, you tell me.
Please don't compose this poem
here: in broad daylight
where any self-respecting Brazilian
could feel perfectly justified
peeking over your shoulder
to see what you've written.
Please, not so loud, you say.
You haven't given them a chance.
You're right, I admit.
(I can certainly admit it.)
I've given them no chance
to please me. Don't you
understand, this is the nature
of being afraid, and this is
the nature of the poem
I am writing, which must
get written, no matter
what the climate
or the reception
(here, in my mother's country
or abroad
or in my own ears).
—Priscila Uppal
____
from Ontological Necessities (Exile Editions, 2006)