Lyrics The distance Blue Scholars

The distance

If you’ve never seen the distance in an immigrant’s eyes,
Then you’ve never seen resistance in the form of a cry,
He decided it was time to bring the drought to an end,
A sojourner, soul searchin’, from whom I descend,
Put his life inside his pockets,
Leavin on a plane,
Living long lonely nights,
Children, wife left in labor pains
Tirelessly trying to provide,
He applies dialectics to fight for the slice of a pie
But this life was premised on a lie,
Instead of being promised by society,
The nature of economy is sodomy,
Ten generations of poverty turn to poverty later,
And a third world diploma,
Not even worth the paper it’s written on
With no elevators going up to the top, y’all
Instead it’s long days slavin’ over hourly wages
And when the clock strikes labor,
He savors the pages of letters
Sent by his kinfolk
Who invoke the image of what it’s like to have been broke
Through cigarette smoke he tries to spin hope to dreams
In close to proximity to family in his memory
And it’s faded in between
The night shifts and sleep,
A moment of clarity,
He may never come home,
Despite the familiarity of faces from his homeland,
Who speak the same dialect,
Fellow countrywomen and men
Standin’ in line to get green cards, visas, and passports,
Barely making enough,
Over half a paycheck remitted with love,
Strangers keep staring,
With disgust and mistrust,
Talking ‘bout “This country’s just us”
No justice
His hope snuffed to one day return to his town,
To join his ancestors in their burial ground,
Almost forgot how the countryside sounds,
But this time around, the lost are never found
In the distance between home and where we live,
It’s the distance between a mother and her kids
It’s the distance that keeps us apart,
And it’s the distance between my soul and my heart.