Keyla Nogueira
In this edition, I wanted to speak directly to us—women—as March 8 marks International Women’s Day. And what would I like to talk about?
A gentle reminder.
Because so often, between our own responsibilities and those of everyone around us, we forget to look at ourselves with tenderness—with the care and affection we so freely give to others.
The world already plays its part in being unfair to us as women—both in our countries of origin and in the foreign lands we come to call home. And many times, we allow ourselves to be carried away by these external demands, forgetting to see ourselves with the humanity we deserve.
Being a woman often means carrying entire worlds on our shoulders, while silencing our own pain and desires. It means uprooting ourselves to create new roots in unfamiliar soil, with courage as our only guaranteed baggage. We learn to speak new languages even before we fully understand the language of longing.
And in the midst of all this resilience, it is essential that we remember the power we hold—to create our own world, in our own way, rather than simply following the ready-made formulas handed to us.
March/April 2026
Let us remember: our resilience is not only about surviving—it is about flourishing under a different sun. It is about transforming “I don’t belong” into “I build here.” It is the ability to find home within our own bodies when geography challenges us, and to create community where there was once only solitude.
The immigrant woman knows that every new beginning is an act of faith in herself.
And perhaps our greatest act of resistance is simply continuing to be—insisting on fully existing—when everything around us attempts to reduce us to stereotypes. The immigrant woman is not only resilient; she is transformative. She does not return to who she was before the storm—she becomes the storm that shapes new horizons.
To honor this strength that lives within us, I bring a special gift: a poem by the talented poet Luana Reis, whose words—both tender and powerful—capture the essence of what it means to claim one’s own voice.
Prayer to a Black Goddess
Today I ask the Goddess that I am:
Don’t let me forget
To be kind
To see the beauty in my people
and in myself
To be grateful for every gift
To understand the blessings of the Universe
Don’t let me forget
The divine force that dwells within me
May I continue creating
The world in which I wish to live
— Luana Reis (translated/adapted)
May we, during this Women’s Month, celebrate the strength that crosses borders and builds—with calloused hands shaped by longing and hope—what we call home. Let us honor, in ourselves and in one another, this extraordinary ability to transform uprooting into a new kind of rooting: deeper, more conscious, more human.
And as Luana Reis reminds us in “Prayer to a Black Goddess,” may we never forget the divine strength within us, as we continue, day after day, to create the world we wish to live in.
About the poet:
Luana Reis is a poet, educator, and Black feminist intellectual. She teaches at Princeton and researches Black women’s literature at the University of Pittsburgh. As the founder of the collective “AddVerse,” she uses poetry as a powerful tool to engage with social issues.
This article was featured in the March/April 2026 edition of Pittsburgh Latino Magazine
