Staceyann and Yojancer Ramirez

I initially was attracted to this poem by its title. On page 90 of Crossfire by Staceyann Chin.  To me, thirty would mean I am getting old, and it is something I am afraid to face.  I was impressed that she finds that age a time of deeper self-discovery, in which she no longer fears who she is becoming but realizes that she stands in the linage of strong women who made it through their own perseverance.  The second thing that attracted me is that the author is Jamaican American.  Like her, I am Caribbean American.  The author seems torn between her roots, and the people who stayed behind, and her mother, who had the courage to immigrate for economic opportunity.  My father and I are the first in our family to move to the United States.  Even though I became an American citizen, I find myself torn between the opportunity America offers me and my family and people l love in my native country.  But the third thing about the poem that moves me is the idea of lineage.  I know she is writing as a woman, who is receiving all the best of the women who have shaped her.  But I was raised by a very strong stepmother.  She had lupus, and she died of a heart attack when I was sixteen years old (16).  Even though we were very poor, I never felt poor, because she always found a way to take care of us.  She insisted that we study hard.  She dreamed of a future for us. Even now, when I get discouraged, she is my motivation.  I love that the author sees herself as a part of this flow of story.  I hope to be a part of a similar flow as I grow older and make my way through life.