lessons on expulsion | by erika l sanchez

This was a book that I really took my time to get through—six months, to be more exact. The reason for that? Very rarely, almost never, do I come upon any literature that I can relate to in such a complete sense. Written by Erika Sánchez, a daughter of Mexican immigrants born in the midwest (exactly like myself), Lessons on Expulsion is an exploration in rawness and vulnerability via poetry. I felt that I really needed to take my time with this. There are so many lines and stanzas that left me breathless with their commonality to my own experiences. Her writing is heady and intoxicating and so heavy with the her own dark history and suffering (and those of her ancestors) and yet she is unafraid to explore it and share it.

“487 years ago
people here crossed the ocean
and savagely fused with the inhabitants.
467 years later
my parents crossed the border
in the trunk of a Cadillac.
I was born in Chicago.”