Jake Vermaas
Jake Vermaas is a 1.5 or 0.5-generation immigrant or a natural-born citizen, depending on who you ask. A poet and engineer in Portland, OR, he co-founded (with friends) the Whitenoise Project, a reading and discussion series aiming to center writers of color and underrepresented voices. He has won a couple contests and been published in the occasional literary journal, but none of those was more meaningful than getting asked to read with 9 rockstar Filipinx poets at this March's AWP conference.
excerpt from: [ first fruits ]
for Exequiel Verry 1921-2007
(this poem was first published as part of APANO's Families, Reimagined project)
//
you didn't
even need papers
the first time you almost
went stateside they needed
coolies from an Orient
more like the East
Indies
//
it was
either Alta California
or Hawaii or Mindanao no
difference between them empire
ically so you chose
the latter
//
you were
not a ward of the
State but later became
one of two childless Americans
the Verrys you took their
name after another em
pire took every
thing else
//
no longer
a Nunag or Pineda
your family tried to make
you their slave after your
parents passed so
you ran
//
the resist
ance came calling
but you would have fought
without the offer of citizenship
which was good since
they took it away
anyway
//
soon after
the bodies were cold you
had to look up what “rescission”
meant your education ended
at ten forget about
benefits
//
you had
nothing to inherit in the
ruins no papers your folks claimed
you with no reparations paid
to anyone that looked
like you
//
one spring
break a college
friend joked about seeing
the server's immigration papers
& i ghosted her after but
regret not calling
it out
//
your boy
R—- and his wife went
TnT in the 80s cause my cousin had
epilepsy so bad it might kill him
but it shouldn’t have
mattered
//
when we
flew back what was
left when you left to the banks of
the Rio Grande de Pampanga was
it home? what did it
look like?
//
on my
trips back to your
town later i couldn’t help
but see other selves: half asians
whose first world dads
didn’t care to
file papers
//
when i
hear ppl rail about “illegals”
i think of you and how you had
nothing
how you always made sure
my cousins and i knew we
were citizens of
your nation.
//