AustLit

''Once you see the cemetery, you get off the bus,' my tio abuelo (greatuncle) Lucio said in Spanish with his Portuguese twang, his foggy eyes blinded by cataracts looking over my shoulder as he spoke to me, between his fingers a cigarette burning. 'Then you go to any local and ask for a Figueroa. All the Figueroas in Rivera are your relatives and we come in all shades and shapes.' Exhaling smoke, he flicked ash over the balcony, took another puff and continued, 'We're Black, Brown, White. Light eyes, dark eyes. Short, tall. Blonde, brunettes. With afros, curls, waves or straight hair like yours.' He cleared his throat, stubbed the butt into an ashtray then added sarcastically, 'But we're all Figueroas and you can thank colonisation for that. Those conquistadores couldn't keep their hands off our women or our land.' He belly-laughed as he pulled his blue comb out of his white shirt's front pocket and repositioned his storm-cloud-coloured afro behind his ears. I breathed in the past trauma, imagining the women who came before me, because of whom I am here, women of my blood being forced to submit to White supremacy and the patriarchy, their bodies capitalised.' (Publication abstract)