Ellie Lopez is a Mexican America poet/writer from the 209 who writes poems about feelings, current events, pop culture, chismes and their Mexican American Bay Area experiences. Ellie's book "Chillona" was published by Sampaguita Press in 2025.
When the NFL announce Bad Bunny as the halftime performance
On Sunday September 25, 2025 Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl headliner
Mami said be careful when speaking the mother tongue. The ease at which our tongues can code switch dentre de dos idiomas. La gente se enferman, se vuelven locos. They tell us that— we who have been here we don’t really belong. How our blood and raices aren’t strong enough to compare to their lifetimes of ambition and power. How we shouldn’t be proud of where we come from. How we shouldn’t fly flags of our home country because it makes us nothing more than ungrateful visitors. We are not ungrateful visitors, we are a bigger part of the stories that our ancestors repeated to us of this land. And still, we can’t be too loud, too proud, too much. We can't, is all I hear when I speak with clarity and ambition that my dreams are only dreams that can be achieved behind the watchful eyes of the corporate ladders. Corporations that turn their eyes away when families are being ripped apart on the street. Is this the America so great they speak of? A soulless vocabulary of words that were beat to the backs of our families and I won’t take it. Be mad. Watch me hablar con el cantadito de donde veine mi familia. And I'll watch the world follow suit. I’ll watch the fists raise to the skies, flags waved so hard we can feel it in our chests and the next time you ask what makes America so great look at our community. Remember that those who built this America spoke languages beyond white comprehension and when they question whether or not we belong, somos mas americanos Que todito los gringos
