Your last name is the badge
For every brown face around
For umpteen pages in the yellowbooks
Between pages of docile names
Of New Jersey Amreekans who can't tell where you're from
And those who can tell
They call you curryfaced Hindu dothead
Patel.
You came here from Gujarat to live a cliche
To open a corner store and sweat all day
Pinching pennies and making profits off
Groceries of Indian food and other stuff
Knowing you'd have to make your name
Earning hard money was all in your game
Enduring smiles of your fellow NRI desis
And the hate-crusted grimace of xenophobe crazies.
Your kem chos mesh with hey-yos
On the concrete-hedged streets
On low-down graffiti'd subway stops
Where you and your silk sari'd wife
Get stares from inevitable bystanders
Reminding you that you're still
Just that shadowy foreigner named
Patel.
Your business lifts itself up all of the way
To clothe you in success and shine for display
The merits of hard work that can pay off
In your struggle through the grime and the rough
But when you find a window shattered by rocks
A scribbled-up hate-note in the mailbox
You feel you're a victim of some cruel game
That lunges on your brown skin and your odd name
You get letters from your family back home
Asking about your new-found fortunes
Asking about your success that
Has left you so quickly
And they don't know of your downfall
Which you can't bear to tell
Was the result of being an Indian, of being a
Patel.
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