Who will Be This Land

In our class, the instructor wrote a saying on the whiteboard: If I leave my land, I am nothing.
She asked us to think about it.

I have left my homeland, is it true I am nothing? What I have right now? The only is this land I stand to the future.
This land, the North America, which is called New Landmass, I have landed several years.
What is the meaning of this land for people new coming?
What kind of question is for the people new coming?
It is:
Who will be this land?
Let us review the tow poems were written by the poets when they came to this land.

One is named: Nostalgia. The poet, Puerto Rican, who describes his nostalgia, which a feeling people get when they long for something good from past such the childhood or homeland, for his homeland.

“ Mamma, Borinquen calls me,
this land is not mine,
Borinquen is pure flame and here
I am dying of the cold.
In search of a better future
I left the native home,
and established my store
in the middle of New York.
What I see around me
is a sad panorama,
and my spirit calls out,
wounded by much nostalgia,
for the return to the home nest,
Mamma, Borinquen calls me!

Where will I find here like in my criollo land
a dish of chicken and rice,
A cup of good coffee?
Where, oh where I will see
radiant in their attire
the girls, rich in vigor,
Whose glances bedazzle?
Here eyes do not bedazzle,
This country is not mine!

If I listen to a song here
Of those I learned at home,
or a danza by Tavarez,
Campos, or Dueno Colon,
My sensitive heart
Is more enflamed with patriotic love,
And a hearald that faithful proclaims
This holy feeling
The wail “Borinquen is pure flame!”
Comes to my ears.

In my land, what beauty!
In the hardest winter
not a tree is seen bare,
not a vale without green.
The flower rules the garden,
the river meanders talkative,
the bird in the shadowy wood
sings his arbitrary song,
and here…The snow is a shroud,
Here I am dying of the cold.

Another is the poem, Ndakinna(Our Land) was written by poet Joseph Bruchac of the Abenaski tribe from the Northeastern United States.

“You cannot understand this land with maps,
lines drawn as if earth were an animal’s carcass
cut into pieces, skinned,
though always less eaten than thrown away.
See this land instead with wind-eagle’s eyes,
linked with rivers and streams like sinews through leather,
sewed strong to hold the people to the earth.

Do not try to know the land by roads.
Let your feet instead caress the soil in the way of deer,
whose trails follow the ways of least resistance.
When you feel this land when you taste this land.
when you hold this land as lungs hold breath
when your songs see this land,
when your ears sing this land,
you will be this land.”

Do not wonder what opposite feeling for the same land. It is the answer for who will be this land. People who finally chose this land with their passion for this land will be this land. It does not matter where you from are and who you are.
This land is a mystical wonderland not only has rich natural resources to feed the body, also has endless spirited source to nourish the mind.
The amazing New Civilization was created in this land after Renaissance of Europe. .
This broad land has embraced number of races who wanted to seek freewill from the old world.
When I luckily stepped on this land, when I widely touch this land, when I deeply rooted this land, I believed it is true.
What kind of impression I have gotten when I stood on this land?
It is like sighting the wide prairie after trekking on the rough path.
It is like finally reach the solid land from the marsh.
Do not worry we cannot enjoy this land. Now we are as weak as baby, the fulgent culture as the milk of land, will feed us strong as the cowboy.
You will be this land.
I will be this land.