By Jose Hernandez Diaz
Heredities* A man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt walked along the shore. It started to rain. The rain soaked his hat. The man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt took off his hat and threw it into the ocean. When the man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt was a boy, he’d ride the bus to the beach in the summer with his tío. His tío taught him how to surf and draw. His tío was a surfer and a painter. Now, the man watched the sunset on the west coast of southern California. His tío eventually became a teacher for his community. The man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt became a muralist and poet. * "Heredities" has been previously published in The Museum of Americana and it is published in Latin@ Literatures with written consent.
El Mural A man in a Chicano Batman shirt painted a mural on an abandoned building. He started by painting a Chicanx Dr. who had come from the neighborhood. Then he painted a Chicanx boxer who went to the Olympics. Next, he painted a Chicanx nurse. Then a Chicanx painter. A Chicanx electrician. A Chicanx teacher. The man stepped back from the mural and wiped the sweat from his brow. As he looked at the faces of the folks in the mural, he realized what was missing. In his best lettering he’d been practicing since grade school in that same barrio, he wrote: Welcome to Southeast Los Angeles! ¡Bienvenidos a todos!
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, The Delinquent (UK), Georgia Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, The Moth (Ireland), The Nation, Poetry, Red Ogre Review (UK), The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011. He has a forthcoming full collection, Bad Mexican, Bad American, with Acre Books in 2024. He teaches, writes, and edits in Southeast Los Angeles County.