Hey Brooklyn girl
Let me open my arms and hug you gently
Touch your tough dark skin
Embrace the curves of your dark body
Hey Brooklyn girl
Body carrying bloody history that still hits you
Still carrying
The burden of your grandmother
You speak singing like a Brooklyn girl
No matter where you come from
And I am a Brooklyn girl too
No citizen, no nation land
Staring at the window watching you pass by, my Brooklyn girl
Brooklyn girl you share the moment of the past
You wear clothes of the present
Paisana of whom
Sista of where
Brooklyn girl made me crazy
She is crazy girl now
Travel from so far just to become a Brooklyn ghetto girl
Share the streets, share the fight
To remain girl
No Mexicana, no musulmana nigga or inmigrante
Hey Brooklyn girl
Now you have long dark straight hair
And sell tamales at the corner
Brooklyn girl are you native of somewhere
Indigenous, original of what far, far land
Hey Brooklyn girl you cover your head, you dance like an African
Just plain pretty Brooklyn girl turning around the corner at the end of the street
BORN IN PERU, Natalia migrated to the United States to complete a Master's in human geography at Syracuse University, NY. Since 2002 she lives in Brooklyn and divides her time between legal advocacy for migrant youth, music, writing and traveling. “Brooklyn Girl” is one of her first compositions. She was inspired to write the lyrics one summer afternoon in 2005, sitting on the steps of her brownstone in Clinton Hill with her Jamaican landlady. Under the Coney Island sun. The music came another afternoon singing with Tania Murphy and her guitar. Natalia now lives in Sunset Park but also forever belongs to Lima and the Andean landscape of her mother’s heritage. She is intrigued and inspired by displaced identities, and those reclaimed and reinvented in new local spaces.
DRAWINGS BY MARIA TAPIA: Born in Lima-Peru in 1977. She is an emerging artist with a Bachelor´s of Fine Arts in drawing and painting. María is also an illustrator and make-up artist. Living in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park since July 2007, she defines herself as an Inmigrante Peruana.
meri_musik@hotmail.com
www.flickr.com/photos/meri_musik
www.flickr.com/photos/MERIMUSIK
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