Raquel Gutiérrez
“In Spanish the phrase “Nos Vemos” is a See You Later. As our days are contoured more and more with uncertainty the later keeps getting pushed further and further away. Yet that is what underscores the material reality of children, women, and men who live in a never-ending wait for release and a wait for reunion in the detention centers that dot the landscape of stolen land. We cannot wait any longer. It has already been too late. Families have been separated and people are slowly but surely disappeared by a government controlled by one of the most xenophobic administrations in this century. But we see you through these forced disappearances. I wanted to send the message, brief yet packed with a longing that we will be free and we will see each other basking in that desire. We see each other as witness. We see ourselves free and in freedom we will be together. See you later, in freedom.”
BIO
Raquel Gutiérrez writes personal essays, memoir, art criticism, and poetry. An adult child of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants, Raquel was born and raised in Los Angeles and currently lives in Tucson, Arizona where she/they just completed two MFAs in Poetry and Non-Fiction from the University of Arizona. Raquel is a 2017 recipient of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Raquel also runs the tiny press, Econo Textual Objects (est. 2014), which publishes intimate works by QTPOC poets.
OWN WORDS
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