Skip to main content

Literary Riot: Giving a Voice to Immigrants' Struggles

Support Provided By
Get Lit Logo

In collaboration with Get LitGet Lit – Words Ignite unites classic and spoken word poetry to empower youth and inspire communities. By engaging youth in literature in and after school, Get Lit allows teens to become engaged in their own futures and unearth their potential. "Claim your poem, claim your life.”

Karla Gutierrez
Animo Inglewood Charter High School, 18 years old
Paola Gonzalez
Animo Inglewood Charter High School, 17 years old

"At the Cemetery, Walnut Grove Plantation, South Carolina, 1989" by Lucille Clifton

Why did you write this poem and what does it mean to you?
PG: "At The Wall" is an opportunity for Karla and me to be a voice for all of those who have recently been bashed in the media by certain people running for the presidency. It’s also a way for us to show all the hard work that these people, our parents, uncles, aunts, and relatives, have been doing.
KG: Yes! I feel like this is something that not a lot of people like to talk about or not a lot of people realize is going on. They don’t really understand all the work that goes into it and how long this has been happening. My grandpa, for example, was a bracero in the 1940s and my grandma would tell me stories of how he used to live and it seems that all of that hard work doesn’t really get appreciated as much as it should.

Do you feel Get Lit has allowed you to have a voice that you wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity to share? Would you have written this poem without the program?
KG: Well, our teacher originally made us write poems for his class. He then told us we could be a part of the poetry slam team and that our poems would be recorded when we were competing with Get Lit. I think that's really what allowed us to have our poem written and heard. Get Lit was able to show it to everybody. Even our own school recorded it and put it on their YouTube page. I think it’s really great that they could actually record this and show it to people because I feel like something like what we wrote should be heard.
PG: Yea! I think prior to Get Lit I never saw myself as a poet. I wasn’t even going to do the poetry slam team because I was very anxious about joining and about performing in front of a large audience, even just my school. But I think performing with Get Lit has allowed me to find my voice through poetry, which is something I never saw myself doing. Prior to this, I had not written poetry on my own to express how I felt and now I feel like Karla and I have found a new outlet to express ourselves.

As young Hispanic women, how do you feel about the recognition and reaction that you are getting for your poem? How does it feel to be able to have this platform and share your voice and for it to be doing so well?
KG: As far as how many people have heard it, a lot of them tell us that they really liked it and that some people can even relate to it. For example, people that go to our school understand it because they have also had similar experiences. They know it’s going on but since no one ever talks about it, they didn’t really know that this is something that can get talked about like this.
PG: I think that it definitely feels empowering to be able to do so, especially at such a young age. We never saw ourselves performing poetry and being able to speak on a topic that is so sensitive and important, especially in this country which was built off of immigrants, African American slaves, and so many other cultures. It was very important for Karla and me to speak on that.
KG: Yea! When we were writing our poems my dad would tell me, “Oh! I am really happy that you are writing about this," because they feel unappreciated for what they have done and people don’t understand it. It feels nice to know that we are speaking for our own parents because that is what we came from.
PG: I agree. I remember my parents attending the semi-finals and finals and Karla’s parents attending the finals. Once we got off stage and finally got the opportunity to hug them, they congratulated us for our accomplishment of simply performing at that theater. My dad told me that coming into this country, he had walked past that theater so many times as a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant and he never thought he would see his daughter and her friends performing there. When I heard that from my dad, I knew that was the greatest accomplishment that I had achieved that night; the ability to perform for our parents, people who have supported us throughout our lives and have done the work that we speak about in our poems.

Support Provided By
Read More
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.
blue themed graphic including electric vehicles are charging stations, wind turbines and trees, 2023 in reference to year

A Look Back at Climate Solutions In 2023

The U.S. may have a long way to go in its decarbonization goals, but these stories show signs of progress in climate solutions.