As part of Hispanic Heritage Month, Springfield Technical Community College welcomed Springfield poet laureate Magdalena Gómez on Tuesday, Sept. 27.
Student Trustee Glerisbed Garcia-Figueroa introduced Gómez, who offered a warm and engaging presentation in the auditorium of Scibelli Hall. She read her poetry in a theatrical and compelling style. She sometimes extended her arms as she recited her poems and modulated her voice to emphasize words and phrases.
She dedicated her first poem to Karolyn Burgos Toribio, Student Success Navigator at STCC who read one of her poems, and Garcia-Figueroa. The poem was from her book, “Shameless Woman.”
“This is meant to grab a drum and read aloud,” she said.
The event was presented by the Hispanic Association in Higher Education and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
According to her bio on her website, Gómez, the daughter of a Spanish Gitano (Romaní “gypsy”) father and a Puerto Rican mother, was raised to be a storyteller. The intellectually gifted child of unschooled parents, she discovered the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and translations of Chinese women poets on her own at the age of eight in a South Bronx library and has been writing ever since.
Ms. Gómez is an award-winning performance poet, playwright, performer and teaching artist. Her original series, Writing from the Belly, which she facilitated for women for over a decade at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, was the training ground for the now yearly performance of Body Politics at the university.
Burgos-Toribio opened the event with a reading of her poem “Conditioning.” She offered to share the poem below:
“Conditioning”
Not until later in life and until we can think for ourselves
Do we realize what society has done with our mentality
Let me tell you what I mean
You see we are conditioned from a very young age to aspire to
Be lesser-than a man and that our purpose is to raise a family
Have you ever realized that when we were given those
Kitchen sets, dolls, and fake babies as toys
It was more so for practice than to actually enjoy
We are conditioned by an environment that tells us we’re not good enough and
We could never possibly be as successful as we want to be
Because when we turn on the TV most of what we see is us as maids, caretakers, or night dancers
Not as business women or big money-makers
We are conditioned to be insecure about our accents
The beauty marks we can pronounce as our
Culture exudes off our tongues when we speak
but what’s unique is you can hear our background when we speak, literally.
We are conditioned to think that men are more important than us
That they will be the “bread-winners” of the house
They are supposed to have the better job, perhaps the better car
I mean I don’t even have to get into much about the wage gap
We can aspire to succeed but not more than them
Because if you do God forbid you stay single because
You’re doing good, and making money, and not worrying
About his money or calling him honey
True story, a guy that liked me once said
“Aww you poor thing, you shouldn’t be working
All day, I’m a very successful man I can just spoil you”
I’m thinking well I will keep working all day
Until one day I have more than enough to spoil myself
Then we can see who spoils who
Then there’s some of us who are conditioned to think our curly hair is unprofessional
That our hair should be straightened and combed
But excuse me as I condition these curls
Cause I won’t curl into your norms
The expectations aren’t stacked upon us
They are stacked below us
We are perceived as underachievers
But it’s not what it seems it’s..
We come here, we learn English then when we do learn it
You keep us in ESOL classes while at the same time we’re taking honors English
Doesn’t make sense does it?
See the expectations are below us
but they stack all the barriers on top of us
We are conditioned to strive for a lot less
And struggle a lot more
But I know we’re strong, intelligent, and powerful,
And that’s why we’ll continue to work hard and succeed
I know we have to continue with the rest of the show now
But I hope you learned something from my point of view of life
As a Hispanic woman
