Aman and Xiomara agree to listen to a Kendrick Lamar album one Friday afternoon. It’s moving, but Xiomara declares she could never perform. Galiano shows a clip of a black female poet.
Galiano about the poetry club and learns what spoken word is when Ms. Xiomara’s biology class begins doing labs and her lab partner is a handsome boy named Aman.
She wants to go, but she has confirmation class on Tuesday too. At school, Xiomara finds a poster for a spoken word poetry club that Ms. For the next week, Xiomara attends Mass with Mami, but she spits her communion wafer out. Mami tries to force Xiomara, but Xiomara refuses. She thinks it’s not worth thanking God for giving her life when she can’t live. That Sunday, Xiomara doesn’t take communion. She’s upset that Twin never stands up for her. Xiomara writes poems about what she wishes she’d said and thinks about how she’s taunted no matter what she does or wears. One weekend, Xiomara has to stand up to a guy at the basketball park when he aggressively taunts her and Twin for staring, and Twin in particular for not being manly. Xiomara writes about how lonely she feels and how guys at school catcall her, making her want to disappear. Twin doesn’t help because Mami doesn’t make him, but Mami still likes him better-he’s devout and very smart. Xiomara’s final draft is about receiving a poetry notebook from Twin for her birthday.Įvery day, Xiomara does chores after school. Mami spat that tampons were for cueros (whores). Mami slapped her when she tried to use tampons, even though Xiomara had no idea what her period even was. As a rough draft, Xiomara writes about starting her period. Galiano pronounces Xiomara’s name right on the first try, and then seems genuinely interested to see her class’s answers to what the most impactful day of their life was. Galiano for English, who has a reputation for being tough. Twin attends a fancy “genius school,” but Xiomara attends her local school. The next day, Xiomara starts tenth grade. During class, Xiomara whispers to her friend Caridad about kissing boys. Confirmation class is horrible from the start, especially when Father Sean says that the students need to devote themselves of their own volition-something that Xiomara has never been able to do. Mami wanted to be a nun as a young person, but her parents forced her to marry Papi so she could move to the United States. Papi stopped drinking, listening to music, and flirting after the twins were born, but Xiomara nonetheless feels like a burden. Because Mami and Papi were old when Xiomara and Twin were born, Xiomara and Twin are considered miracles. Mami refuses to consider allowing Xiomara to put off confirmation and threatens to send her to the Dominican Republic, where the nuns beat Mami. Xiomara doesn’t want to be confirmed: she’s not sure she wants to worship God, since God doesn’t seem to care about her. This year, Xiomara is taking confirmation class with her best friend Caridad. Her twin brother, whom she calls Twin, was born first with no complications, but Xiomara’s birth was difficult and she hasn’t lived up to her parents’ expectations since then. She explains that her name means “one who is ready for war,” and she’s lived up to it spectacularly. Xiomara explains that she’s tall, curvy, and gets a lot of attention on the street-but Mami tells her that it’s her responsibility to not let men catcall her. Xiomara sneaks back upstairs before Mami gets home from work. Even the drug dealers seem more pleasant as they catcall her. 15-year-old Xiomara sits on the stoop of her building in Harlem in the last week before school starts.