Esperanza

In the next room sleeps my niece, Esperanza. She’s five months old and cepa, not like me, a lean machine, but we are tight. Her name means hope.

What I hope for her is that she won’t have to grow up on the rez. The rez life is not something I want her to go through – the drugs that happen at basketball games out in the parking lot, in cars; the alcohol, mixed with soda pop to disguise what my friends are really drinking, their eyes bloodshot and misty, their words slurring, and the smell is the worst part.

I want her to go to a big school, far from the rez. I want her to be as strong as I am, to sit by herself on the bleachers when her friends ask her to go out and smoke up in the parking lot. I want her to be strong and never lose hope of a straight life.

Sam Mendoza