MY AFRICAN CARIBBEAN CANADIAN AGENTIAL POWER

My agential power
Attained from my multiple locations
Agential power
The power I draw upon to survive
Survive
As a woman of African descent
Power enables me to resist
Resist
The oppressors
The oppressions imposed on me
Where?
In my daily life

My agential power
The power I draw upon to rise
Rise
Within my multiple locations
For I am not only a Black feminist
I am also a "Third World" Black woman
Situated within a "First World" country
Ah!
If I choose to use labels
What does that make me?

Could I be a hybrid "Third World" woman?
A transnational feminist?
A migratory "Third World" woman?
A "Third Space" woman?
An outsider/within?
An immigrant woman?
But … I know who I am!!
I am
An African Caribbean Canadian woman

I am a product of separation,
Dislocation, dismembering,
Disorientation and marginalization
I have to continually sought reconnections to Africa
Africa
I am not a product of the "First World"
My "Third World" separation adds
To my history of hybridity
Hybridity

My incorporated labels
Give me multiple identities
For I require border crossing
Border crossing
For resistance, empowerment and transformation
I am empowered!
Empowered through my agential power
For I celebrate multiplicities of my African Caribbean Canadian womanhood
What are you?
Yes you?
And you?

Copyright 2002 Marilyn Patricia Yearwood