Nonnative Species
By Patricia Asuncion

Then, neighborhoods of immigrants wrestled
with American repackaging—a trimming
of fat for better sales in a new world market.

Italians in guinea-tees muscled to the prime case
of the butcher shop with popular pepperoni
and prosciutto;

behind storefront homes, Poles peddled
blood soup and pierogis; Jews pushed
bagels, pastrami and chicken soup
in corner mama-and-papa delicatessens.

All-American eats, their distinct tastes
are wrapped in US-standard paper.

My Filipino father started
as a dishwasher but became a chef
in first-class restaurants, my dark-skinned uncle
a business owner. My cousin, a dropout,
became department head of a national airline.

Their brown skin bleached
enough to be welcomed in the White world.

Now, 65 million worldwide, 24 per minute,
(more than half children) escape
Arab, African, Spanish dead-end borders, adapt
identities like the Darwin survivors
from two world wars.

Newcomers still sputter English, rely
on community houses to interpret
fast-talking landscapes.

Public schools promise the same gold-starred
futures to foreign-born children as their parents
who take pride in entry-level jobs, like bragging pigeons pleased to find crumbs on a park bench.

They survive and thrive to flood
a kicking-and-screaming mainstream with
a robust, diverse gene pool
85% working inside five months—

Congolese Charly Ngoma, promoted
to general manager of the Phoenix Chipotle
eighteen months after his US arrival.

In my home town,

Iranians, Parvin and Yadollah Jamalraza, own
a tailor shop; Dominican Tony Pollanco runs
his own catering business, Algerian Moauadh
Benamar researches cancer.