Ode to Provo City
(Provo you make me weep)
Have you ever felt tied up, unable
to breathe comfortably?
This city makes me feel that way,
Todos los dias
How dare you make my skin a curse?
Sin considerar me persona,
How dare you offer me a golden
goblet?
Al borrar mi cultura,
Have you seen our elders, braid
stories
in their long jet black hair? Yet you
shut them away.
Disfranzas mentiras usando
inocencia pura, y vendes
“Salvación” barata.
Provo, you said our language
doesn’t fit your budget?
Nos borras sin escucharnos
I have dreamed of the day I leave
this judgment.
No, no soy victima,
I simply refuse to put on your
blindfold.
¿Que dices?
Other “Latins” say different, they
love Provo!
¡Que bien!
Maybe they don’t have a choice but
to drink from your goblet to
survive.
Provo espero no verte de nuevo.
and that you empire falls one day,
Porque a mis hijos no los tocará tu
mancha.
Twenty years ago, Latina poet, Laura Ruiz-Ortega immigrated from Mexico City to southeast Los Angeles. Her father, a biochemist, migrated after facing financial strain following the 1994 NAFTA agreement. He established residence and sent for his wife, a nurse, and their three daughters. Ruiz-Ortega, their eldest, was thirteen at the time.
“At first it was exciting,” she says. As her own sons, 8 and 10, approach their teens, she is reflecting on immigration’s radical transition. “When I came to the United States I was just starting my teens. It was tough because I had relationships in Mexico. My friends and I all went to the same school, and I’d known them for years. Migrating meant I lost those friendships.”
At the time, Ruiz-Ortega only spoke Spanish. Finding her place in the social structure of LA, paired with a language barrier proved a significant challenge.
“It was funny,” she says. “I was able to be friends with the Philipions at school, but not the Latinos because they have a different culture than Mexicans do. It was hard.”
In 2006, upon graduating from high school, Ruiz-Ortega moved to Utah Valley.
“My family had just converted to Mormonism a year before. The following year I came for Brigham Young University’s SOAR program. There was a promise that BYU would accept me at the time, and then, they didn’t. At first they told me it was because of my ACT scores, but when I contacted the counselor, he said that they wouldnt let me in because I’m undocumented. He said the school couldn’t give me scholarships because I didn’t have my [imigration number].”
The story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune and NPR.
“It was discouraging, like climbing a slippery slide. I couldn’t go to school, couldn’t work anywhere; I couldn’t do anything. I tried to go back to California on my own, but my family is traditionally Mexican and overprotective. It hindered me, and I stayed.”
Eventually, she was able to establish herself as a student at BYU studying Spanish translation, but she still felt stuck.
At 23, she served as an interpreter for a combined English/Spanish/ASL ward in Provo, where she met her now ex-husband. They dated for a while, but Ruiz-Ortega dreamed of serving a mission.
“I really wanted to go,” she says, but upon approaching her bishop and stake president about the opportunity she was shut down. “They both told me no, that marrying my ex was probably my only chance, and that I wasn’t going to get another one in life. They told me I should just stick with him.”
She says that her marriage sparked the beginning of her doubts.
”I started learning more about the church; Brigham Young’s racism, and the massacre of the Native Americans in Utah. I knew the church had a racist history. I had read about the Lamanites [in the Book of Mormon], and the curse of the dark skin, and at the beginning I accepted everything. I was young, and I figured that was just how it was.”
Over the next four years she became more outspoken about her concerns. ”I realized the church was really racist. I didn’t feel welcome, kind of like a non-member, and I wasn’t going to have my kids grow up in a place like this. I started questioning my leaders and my parents about the church’s beliefs [regarding faith], and nobody would answer me. They’d say, “Oh, that’s deep doctrine. You don’t have enough faith.””
In 2010, SB 1070 was enacted in Arizona. The legislation allowed state law enforcement to request proof of legal immigration during routine traffic stops. This law specifically targeted Latinos, or anyone officers deemed “suspicious.” Without papers, naturalized or not, a person could be charged with a misdemeanor. Those found guilty of lack of citizenship were subject to deportation.
Local politicians sought to adopt a similar Show Me Your Papers law in Utah, and leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement of neutrality on the matter.
“I realized this was not a church that cares about me or my family,” says Ruiz-Ortega. “I started going to protests, speaking out at the church. I was asking members to help, and again they told me I didn’t have enough faith. I was really naive, I guess. I’d thought, well, the scriptures say you’re supposed to love your neighbors no matter what. But it looks like they don’t.”
Then during the 2017 Utah congressional race, Ruiz-Ortega was confronted by an anti-immigration Facebook post on John Curtis’ campaign page. She went to the media. The campaign took down the post, claiming it was mistakenly released by a member of its staff.
“I met with Curtis a couple of times after that with other activists, but he was never happy that we were calling him out on it.”
Today, she continues to face racism in Provo.
“I used to clean houses as a way of earning income. Last year, I found a copy of “The Church and the Negro,” sitting out on the living room coffee table at one of the houses. I thought the church had discarded it. I couldn’t figure out why this family still had it—and on their coffee table.”
The problem extends to city leadership, Ruiz-Ortega says. She and fellow activists approached the city council to voice their concerns about the lack of support for non-English speakers, saying that the city failed to host events and programs offered in other languages.
”It’s not just Spanish. We have many other language speakers in Provo,” she says. The activists were told the city would do more to support its non-English speakers, but nothing changed.
“Immigration is happening,” she says. “I feel immigrants coming into Provo could add to the city. We’re not a threat.” She says she wishes that more members of the Church would realize that their own ancestors came to Utah as immigrants. “Provo ignores the fact that there’s a race problem. They hide behind the concept that everyone’s a child of God, and they don’t want to take responsibility for it.”
She would like to tell Provo residents to be more tolerant, talk to their neighbors, and just be kind.
One of her recent poems was a finalist for the 2022 Long Story Short Award sponsored by the creative writing publication, Short Édition. In the work, she takes on the themes of immigration and language acquisition in a new country.
“Of Unexpected Contortions in Foreign Lands”
My tongue clumsily crashes against the cathedral ceilings of my palate,
It helplessly tries to pick up the broken mirror,
the one she was holding when she tripped
yes, she tripped with the pencil between my front teeth,
the one the teacher suggested I…
“Place this between your teeth,
push your tongue away from the pencil now say r-r-r-rose”
my tongue refuses, she kicks and screams
“¡No quiero, me quieres romper la espalda carajo!”
(I don’t want to, you want break my back, fuck!)
I feel terrible, she has only known Spanish from birth,
and now at thirteen years old, I am throwing her
into contortions we both never imagined
we had to learn fast to be understood in this…country
but it just happened! One day I left my friends,
the house with the tall windows, the cats,
the stray dogs I fed every morning,
and we headed North.
You see one day I was trying to read out loud,
“De biutiful bitch” my class roared with laughter,
She shyly hid in a corner,
blushing from failing to perform the new contortions
of these new lands…she face-planted before them,
“you say beach long e not bitch with the short i”
my poor friend can’t relax, and keeps tripping
in my mouth, I try to hold her hand but it I useless,
she is trying but she keeps accidentally insulting
Hemingway with her Mexican accent.
But through the years,
and the many tears we got better,
just like the guitarist and their calloused hands
we too, had bruised knees, bloody knuckles
and a self-esteem on the mend,
a very sturdy golden scar in its hands
showed the world how
we became magicians,
how we made colors our of gray,
how we became chameleons:
in French, Farsi, Mandarin Chinese,
Tagalog, Korean, and even Arabic.
We broke out of our cast,
the one that fear placed us on
and dared to write
“get better!” on the dirty bandages
after we threw it away
we found our calling,
we connected doctors to their patients,
lawyers to their clients
children to their grandparents,
and book authors to their audiences.
She…healed me in unknown winds,
and together we sit in this room with you
sharing our story and asking you
to love the tripping accents,
those trying to fit a mold that wasn’t created
for their incomparable beauty.
When they speak and sound different,
be very kind for one wrong move
can have their souls hiding in the torment
of unnecessary shame and pain,
what you say friend?
Will you be kind to the stranger whose accent is a vulnerable map inviting you to the warmth of their home country?
South Provo Prophet 