Blue Scholars - The Distance lyrics

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 spent
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

Cause it's the distance between home
And where we live
It's the distance between a
Mother and her kids
It’s the distance that be keeping us apart
And it’s the distance between my
Soul and my heart