Saying goodbye to Maria

In love with the story of love
that crosses boundaries, my youngest 

cousin on my father's side names his
first-born Maria, after the heroine 

in West Side Story who sings a duet
with Tony while their fates are hot-

pressed into the seams of time. The song
is "Somewhere," & Maria is an immigrant 

just like my cousin, just like me. 
But his daughter's American-born, first 

generation, like Natalie Wood who played 
Maria in the film. Natalie's parents

were immigrants too, from Russia: the father 
a chocolate factory worker, the mother 

apparently more well-off, having come 
from family who owned soap & candle 

factories. America is where they all go, 
where we've come, each with some vague 

idea of how to make it in very big deal 
America. But no one's particularly impressed 

with immigrants these days; or they've 
always been that way, except the current 

climate is more enabling for white people 
to say anything they want to anyone who 

doesn't look like them, & get away with it. 
When I raised my right hand & swore 

allegiance with a roomful of other people 
who looked mostly like me, it was another 

version of that idea of a new way of living, 
somewhere. I also filled out a form to drop

"Maria" from the two names I was given 
at birth; I didn't want to be seen as just 

another generic girl from a tropical 
country lashed by storms & misfortune.