Contingency and Transient America: "A New Day in Otay: An Adjunct Poem"

"I teach to help my students climb the fence/ That lies between Walmart, the prison,/ public assistance and the dream/ which takes commitment..."

by Geoff Johnson

It’s 6:45 and I’m driving up the 905
A can of Rockstar in my hand, trying to revive
Up till one marking through a set
Of essays comparing Frederick Douglass to Malcolm X
Struggling to read, and my students too
have challenges in prose, most tortured attempts
of grammar and syntax, their sentences often
show a dream deferred of how their parents
crossed a border now just minutes away in space
and yet, how after 40 years of “progress”
there’s still another border to be crossed.
I teach to help my students climb the fence
That lies between Walmart, the prison,
public assistance and the dream
which takes commitment, and yet,
Spurred by a border of my own, asserting I
Can never call any one college my own, must
Leave these dreams deferred as the sun now is high
And its pounding heat leaves the land dry.

Note:  Otay here refers to the Southwestern College Higher Ed. Center in Otay Mesa, located on a relatively barren patch of land just two miles from the U.S./Mexican border and three miles from a medium-security prison.

Geoff Johnson is Southeast San Diego resident and a contingent professor of English and Humanities at San Diego Mesa and Southwestern Colleges. He is also President of the AFT Adjunct/Contingent Caucus, and organizer with the March in March, advocating for student affordability, access, academic freedom, and worker rights for all higher ed workers.