CONFUSED

BIENVENIDA

Michigan, 2006

My parents left Mexico

after big corporations

pushed small family farms out of business,

so they could no longer afford to grow corn

for a living.

Now Mamá and Papá are being deported.

I’ll be here alone in my own birthplace,

a United States citizen trying to finish high school

without my parents

and my older sister, Matilde, who was born

across the border.

Will any of my loved ones ever be able

to return here, to my natural home?