Hybridity

Hybridity Ximena Keogh Serrano (bio) In the 19th century,the term Hybrid becomes the noun used to connote a person of mixed race;rooted in the botanical and zoological conception of cross-breeding,Hybrid does what it saysshifts habitat Like European colonizers, settling over the Americascenturies before,the linguistic sign daggers into dictionaries—keen to address the biological and cultural spheres of human contact Contact such a beautiful word that sense of with-ness so lovelyand yet, how its underside shrivelsperverse Like when Contactcame to denote what emergedfrom the arrival of shitface to today’s so-called America [& here, as always, I mean the continent]Where other names include:Discovery Invasion Creation Encounter Disaster DICED is what we are : : [End Page 302] In hybriditythere is always a winning racethrough embodiment, the winner surfaces via codesascribed to levels of pigmentation In a family, the possibilities of color are infinitesimalHues, like reproductive history, mount across the genealogical pool& so, symbolic wins and losses shape our so-called human form Even as you strive to renounce itto shame its contemptable constructHybridity clings to our skins, to our mouths, to our speech actsJust as the fabricated scale of the Great Chain of Being told us white wasabove all,we believed it& so our complicity with harm Mine, came in tiny explosionsbarbarous acts Before I could even name it—as in that wish for wholeness, that wanting to be that which I was notI, impure mix For impurity is an element of hybridityThe want drilled a hunter in me In the fold of an in-between carnal coatI could be a questionwhile keeping my mouth closed In the observation field, I would learn just howto renounce my Andean lines, cut them coldso as to ennoble the European switchblade in me We all become half-experts in the duties of the colonial enterpriseWe are so very well trained [End Page 303] I for one have killed so many parts of me,I can’t even remember where I left her herher [End Page 304] Ximena Keogh Serrano Ximena Keogh Serrano is a poet and scholar of Latin American and U.S. Latinx literary and cultural studies. Her research and writing move across genres of literary criticism, visual culture, and studies in gender and sexuality. She is an assistant professor at Pacific University, and lives in Portland, Oregon. She can be reached at xkserrano@pacificu.edu. Copyright © 2023 Ximena Keogh Serrano