Accent Wall Poem by Susan Valencia

Apologies
to HGTV
but the GOP
just pitched the world's biggest
"accent" wall.
A 2,000-mile smile,
splitting the Southwest
like a sliced neck.
Everyone on this side
of the bricks
must slick
their tongues,
wet their whistles,
massage their mouths
until vowels
are pronounced properly
until consonants are constructed
with concrete precision
until tildes are deported,
El-yays are ixnayed,
and hola has the same H
as hanged.
Forget ID,
your voice
has all the identification
they'll need.
Your passport can stay in your pocket.
Your Greencard need not say "hello."
Your inflection is the only evidence
needed for prosecution.
So open wide,
stick out your tongue
and say "Ahh-merica!
When they hand you the peroxide
that died
German hair blonde
do not swallow it.
Refuse to use that bleach
on your words,
to hide your accent in the attic
of your memory.
Do not confuse this for conformity.
They aren't demanding sameness
but silence.
So we must carry our inflections
like torches
at the tips of our tongues.
We must preserve our pronunciations
at all costs.
We must turn our mouths
into underground railroads.
We must protect
our way home.