I never got to be in the contest
for the beauty queens even though I was
nominated every year since I started
school with the Mexicans. I bet
I would have won too—everyone here
is in love with rubias. I just got to bake
cupcakes for the fundraiser. I didn't
march in the Independence Day parade
or dance folklórico either. My parents
wrote letters saying it was against
our religion, but I still had to help
decorate during art class. I loved
cutting out hearts and flowers for
the floats and getting to use spray
glitter. No matter how hard I tried
I always ended up covered in sparkles.
About the Author
Abigail Carl-Klassen is a writer, researcher, poet, educator, translator, and activist living in El Paso, Texas. She grew up in the oil fields of the Permian Basin alongside Old Colony Mennonite immigrants from Mexico and has worked in education, language services, community development, social science research, and agriculture in a a variety of contexts across the USA and Latin America. She earned an MFA in Bilingual Creative Writing at the University of Texas El Paso, and her work has been published widely in English and Spanish, appearing in ZYZZYVA, Catapult, Cimarron Review, Rhubarb, Guernica, Aster(ix) Huizache, and others. She has published two poetry chapbooks, Ain't Country Like You (Digging Press) and Shelter Management (dancing girl press) and her full-length poetry collection, Village Mechanics, is forthcoming from FlowerSong Press in 2023. Recordings of her oral history project, “Rebels, Exiles, and Bridge Builders: Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Campos Menonitas of Chihuahua” can be found on the Darp Stories YouTube channel.