Gracias Mujer

Throughout my life, my relationship to womanhood has been an ever-changing phenomenon. In reflecting on the instances that have come to define this relationship, I wrote “Gracias Mujer,” an homage to the women who have shaped my womanhood and a simultaneous rejection of all that has burdened me. In light of the gendered dynamics within Latino culture, this piece reflects on my complex relationship with my parents and my desire to find healing from personal experiences. Incorporating themes of womanhood, memory, childhood, and family, “Gracias Mujer” is an acknowledgement of my traumas, a love letter to my mother, and a validation of my desires as a Latina woman within an often-confined space. In this poem, without romanticizing them, I try to honour the sacrifices the women and ancestors in my life have had to make, expressing a gratitude for their contribution to my personhood, but also explicitly stating that the trauma that has resulted stops within me.