For Rita Mookerjee, America is a land of contradictions.
A place where a Fourth of July parade at 3 or 4 years old and a red wagon are formative memories, but also a place that breeds hate and hurt toward people who are already oppressed.
“The trouble is, at first I learned to read, then I learned patriotism, then I learned to walk,” Mookerjee, a professor at Worcester State University, recited from an original poem at Pride Worcester Festival downtown on Saturday.
“America lives inside me, a hungry beauty who will never love me back, and I say ‘I hate America,’ but I can’t imagine life without the scent of honey roasted nuts and Union Square, or the petrichor of the Susquehanna river valley when the moss swells under the black walnut trees,” she recited, also extolling her love for Wisconsin cheese, Kentucky bourbon and Tennessee whiskey.
Lamenting “white boys with their guns, and televangelicals and their gaudy megachurches,” Mookerjee told the crowd she still experiences “anchors” tethering her to a country with so many contradictions.
“American love is as ferocious as American hate. America’s heart is wreathed in flames, swear words and tri-color popsicles that drip down to your elbow in a sticky smear,” she said.
Before that poem, Mookerjee recited another, about Eve Adams, a New York City bartender who, despite being an American citizen, was deported due to obscenity laws and later taken to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Calling Adams “the first dyke bartender,” Mookerjee praised the woman who “dreamt of a smoky lounge full of lipstick and gloves and had to make it real.”
Following her performances, Mookerjee lamented Adams’ fate, praising her spirit and her brazenness, “making a scene, calling attention to herself that way.”
“This is not someone who was absent from the discourse. People chose not to listen to her,” Mookerjee told MassLive.
Knowing Adams’ fate “really moved me, and I wanted to memorialize her one more time.”
She said she draws inspiration from Adams’ story, motivated by the fact that any time lost in fighting for human rights could be time that never comes.
“Our liberties are under attack. We are under fire, and you can’t wait and hope that ‘tomorrow I’m going to say my piece, tomorrow I’m gonna speak my truth.’ You have to do it now,” she said.
As for the “dissonance” she experiences in America, Mookerjee said she hopes to use her influence to improve what she can, and not simply accept the abuses enabled by and perpetuated in America.
“We want it to be amazing. We love this country, however, everything needs to change.”
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