November 15, 2015

• Updates to University Heights website:
  
  
  • Updated City Council Page
  • November 10 council meeting WEBSTREAM
  • Updated U-Heights in News page
  
  
  • Isabelle Robles Poem takes first place in International Youth Food Culture Contest
  • 

Dollop of Sour Cream
By Isabelle Robles

While in Arizona, grandma tries to teach me
how to master making tortillas.
Every one I make is awkward and confused,
stuck between shapes,
and overdone in all the wrong places.
“It’s okay mija,” she says.
“You’re not used to this.”

During roll call in Iowa the substitute’s
furrowed brow
wide eyes on my last name.
Thank god middle names aren’t required.
Natividad doesn’t really
roll off a rigid tongue.

I’m chorizo with a dollop of sour cream.

While dad perfectly draws out his r’s on “cerdo” and
laughs with the butcher
there I stand,
arms intertwined behind my back,
trying to catch words from their
rapid, joyful conversation
I can’t understand.rows,

During Spanish class a girl and my teacher laugh.
“Oh, it’s a Mexican thing,” the girl says.
“You wouldn’t get it.”
Does she not know in Arizona I’m surrounded by a
mob of Robleses and I’m the
only one that’s
not a “Mexican thing?”

I’m chorizo with a dollop of sour cream.

What the girl doesn’t know is that
I am as Mexican as her,
even with my blonde hair, green eyes and fair skin.
Bet you a hundred pesos my dad and I
could whip up a mean pozole
that could rival hers any day
and win.

What no one knows is that green chiles taste delicious in
scrambled eggs with a pack of
warm tortillas on the side,
and there’s
nothing wrong
with a little bit of
sour cream in your chorizo.

Because I am chorizo with a dollop of sour cream.