Latinx in Publishing is pleased to exclusively reveal an excerpt from When We Make It by debut author and critically acclaimed poet Elisabet Velasquez.
An unforgettable young adult debut novel-in-verse that redefines what it means to “make it,” touching on themes of mental illness, sexual assault, food insecurity and gentrification, in the Nuyorican literary tradition of Nicholasa Mohr and the work of contemporary writer Elizabeth Acevedo.
Sarai is a first-generation Puerto Rican eighth grader who can see with clarity the truth, pain, and beauty of the world both inside and outside her Bushwick apartment. Together with her older sister Estrella, she navigates the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn. Sarai questions the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives with determination and an open heart, learning to celebrate herself in a way that she has been denied.
When We Make It is a love letter to girls who were taught to believe they would not make it at all. The verse is evocative and insightful, and readers are sure to be swept into Sarai’s world and rooting for her long after they close the book.
Read on for an exclusive excerpt of When We Make It by Elisabet Vasquez!
Lucky
In Bushwick, the reporters double park
to shoot the latest crime scene & then bounce
quick before their news vans get tagged up.
The teachers find their car radios missing
and blame the worst student they have.
Pero, the teachers and the reporters, they get to leave.
Back to their “good” neighborhoods
with boring-ass walls and vehicles
they don’t have to piece back together like a puzzle.
They’ll have a nice dinner with their predictable family
and talk about their wack-ass day in Bushwick
& somebody will say: You’re lucky you don’t live there.
Someone else will echo: Imagine?!
& they think they can imagine because fear
got them believing they know what it means to be safe.
I mean, it’s one thing to feel danger.
& maybe it’s another thing
to work in it.
& maybe it’s another thing altogether
to live with it.
But it’s something else completely
to be the thing everyone is afraid of.
We Ain’t Afraid
Estrella says:
We ain’t afraid of nothing.
We ain’t afraid of nothing.
We ain’t afraid of nothing.
I say:
Some days though,
shit is scary.
Not gonna front
like shit ain’t scary.
Estrella says:
Damn, yo, what’s so scary?
That’s just Corner Boy Jesus and his friends.
I say:
Shit. That’s 5-0. Ayo!
They’re creeping around the corner.
I tell Estrella & the corner boys to run. Run!
Estrella & the corner boys say:
Run? We ain’t running.
Snitch? We ain’t snitching.
Estrella says:
Yo, chill, we’ll be aight.
Yo, chill, we’ll be okay.
& even when we not
we are. You know what I mean?
& I know exactly what she means
’cause it’s just like being afraid.
Even when we not we are.
Even when we not we are.
But I don’t say that.
Nah.
I don’t say that.
Neighbors
Bushwick is full of hip-hop & salsa.
Cuchifritos & soul food.
Nail & hair salons.
Bootleg CD vendors & tamale ladies on the corner.
We are all the same in our difference.
No matter how we got to be neighbors here
We all know we lived somewhere else first.
I know this because on the occasion that
Our eyes lock for more than a moment
Our mouths ask each other the same question.
Where you from? Like nice to meet you.
Where you from? Like what block?
Where you from? Like what country?
Where you from? Like what God?
Where you from? Like where you been?
Where you from? Like where you going?
Where you from? Like who you missing?
Where you from? Like why you here?
Where you from? Like have you gone back?
Where you from? Like what did you leave behind?
Pronunciation
We can tell who is from the neighborhood
and who isn’t by the way they pronounce
street names. We pronounce Graham Avenue
not like the cracker (GRAM) but like if
the first half of the word got stuck in your mouth
and you had to breathe out to let out the second
(GRAA-HAM). Some people say we are saying
it wrong but they are just jealous our accents
want every letter to be heard because isn’t that the worst
thing? To exist so plainly in sight and still be ignored.
Used with permission from Penguin Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Copyright (c) Elisabet Velasquez, 2021.
Elisabet Velasquez is a Boricua writer born in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Her work has been featured in Muzzle Magazine, Winter Tangerine, Latina Magazine, We Are Mitú, Tidal and more. She is a 2017 Poets House fellow and the 2017 winner of the Button Poetry Video Contest. Her work is featured in Martín Espada’s anthology What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump. Elisabet lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, and When We Make It is her debut novel.
