I had previously used the phrase “Taco Trucks, Every Corner” in my poem “Custers,” and my friend and frequent collaborator David A. Romero encouraged me to write this. Generally speaking, I write in a three-act structure: pride, pain, and triumph.
In act 1, I tell you how to make a tortilla, and I reference the anthems “México Lindo y Querido” and “El Rey.” In the first part of act 2, I invoke what is believed to be Aztec ruler Cuauhtémoc’s final speech, a series of conquistadores, and the work of historian Jack D. Forbes. In the second part of act 2, I allude to “America the Beautiful” in the context of manifest destiny. For act 3, I summon the flight of the monarch butterfly, the proposed return of jaguars to the American Southwest, the Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor, and another reference to the work of Forbes. The poem concludes with a celebration of the taco.
The poem begins with a tortilla, covers Mexican history, Chicano history, and ends with a taco. Full circle, full meal.•
This poem appears in Issue 28 of Alta Journal.
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Iron cast, hand pressed, the heat
A pinch of salt, a cup of water, masa de maíz
The steel, the bridle, the cactus, the eagle
The meadows, the volcanoes
A stone on the road, destined to roll
The children of the sun, the people of the corn
We didn’t ask to be born
Mexican
We just got lucky
This is the story of what has survived, what has endured
Centuries of rights and doctrine, discovery and conquest
De Landa and Cortés, suns that set and left us in complete darkness
Junípero, Pizzaro, Columbus, and Other Cannibals
This story began long before we met
But you don’t know that
About anything
I mean you said it first, you said it best
America the beautiful, America the exceptional
Pilgrim’s pride, each gain divine providence
The promised land, the sweet land of liberty, opportunity, the free
Free land, land rush, guns up, go west young Manifest Destiny
Broken treaty, empty promise, the Rio Grande is not Ellis Island
We will never be a part of your nation of immigrants
We will always be
Dirty Mexican
Good dead Indian
This is a story of recovery and restoration, prophecy and legend
Eagle and condor, the flight of the butterfly, the return of the jaguar
Aztecas del Norte, A Peer-Reviewed Socioeconomic Study
On How Block by Block, Lot by Lot Reinforcements Showed Up
Locked and loaded con asada, lengua, al pastor, carnitas, cabeza, chicharrón
Cebolla y limón, salsa y chile, rojo y verde
Más, más, mmmmmaaaaaaaaassss caliente
You didn’t ask to be born when the Mexicans
Took
Back
Over
You
Just
Got
Lucky
Taco Trucks, Every Corner
Matt Sedillo is the literary programs director of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, a World Poetry Movement North America national coordinator, and a cofounder and the CEO of El Martillo Press. He is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass and City on the Second Floor. Sedillo was honored with Dante’s Laurel in 2022 and the Joe Hill Award in 2017.
