Cempasúchil Orange

“Cempasúchil is one name for "Tagetes erecta" or Mexican marigold. It was originally used by the Aztecs in religious ceremonies, and is still used in the Christian ceremonies of Día de los Muertos (All Souls' Day) on November 2.”

This is the month of remembry and rebirth. I’m blessed to be from a culture that celebrates life and death, that understand that to live life, one must remember death, an odd dichotomy to some. Like all co-opted culturas, Dia de los Muetros has rapidly become a linty of cool calendars, tote bags, mugs, t-shirts and tattoo designs stolen by Ed Hardy. (http://www.edhardysell.com/)

But for me, it’s an intimate event. I think of my father, dead at 32, of my grandparents, all three dead before the age of 60.

I think about my sister-in-law and her excruciating cancer battle. I think of Lau’s father that will soon pass, of the hundreds that pass on a steel tables, unidentified, of the one’s lost while crossing bordered into other lands. For them, I dedicate two poems from my manuscript, from the “Walls” Series. With respect, love and devotion, I remmber you. Tlazocamatli...

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Wall #5 (or After Silence)
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”  -Aldous Huxley

drip drip drop into
a tower of plates cup pots


Doggy Doggy rests
under sparse shade of the lemon tree
bowl dry
but baby builds a wall with legos
kicks it over with a tonka truck


captain crunch cereal from the tv
“collect them all- in specially marked boxes, NOW!”


the garage door is open
plywood table and a jar
of washers bolts nuts
but dad tapes over copper wires
exposed under the orange cord-
baby might touch it


radio la que buena waves in and out of tune
“para llevar, a mi amor..a. voy a buscar,
un rinconcito en el cielo"
but mom sleeps now, a long night
after the chemotherapy-
it has spread to the cortex.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Wall #7 (or Perspective Exercise)
“Death froze his exhausted face. The attackers lashed or punctured nearly every part of his body... As with most murders in Ciudad Juárez, police found no witnesses, no weapons. Only the battered corpse on the steel coroner's table carries clues to who he was and how he died.” -Julie Watson, Associated Press Writer, March 8, 2009

                                   under the circular

                                   light above, a praying mantis’
                                   arm, he lies on the table, toe peeking out the white

                                   sheet, a cream colored tag, brown ring

                                   string tied to bulging pinky toe.

she cries more when he’s
wheeled back to a wall
of small chrome doors.

[i don’t know

how to

write

a poem from this

if is should...]

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Borgia Codex image showing duality. Photos for Dia de los Muertos: Day of the Dead)

Another October Birthday

            I seldom think about aging until I see pumpkins and large bags of candy on sale, stacked at the end of aisles or cluttering the cashier counters. October is my birthday month, and I share it with many other cool Librans. Aging... I don’t have many complaints about it, and I don’t run to wrinkle cream counters at fancy department stores to buy elixirs from a pseudo clinician woman in a white medical coat, dispensing advice on eye shadows and “crow’s feet.” I can say I’m surprised at how great my life is, like that I’m enjoying my time and place here in Seattle. Yes, I’m really enjoying living in Seattle, despite the rapidly dropping temperatures now. I have wonderful friends, job, and home.
So I wonder if this is by chance or astrological designation. I found “Astrological Sign” info on Libras and it’s all flattering(see below)! Much of it is seems general enough that it applies to my Aloe Vera plant.

I wondered about compatibility with other signs, like Scorpio, or Gemini or Aries, and THEN things became more interesting. Apparently I’m attracted to Scorpio’s sex appeal, and Aries strength, archetypal figure, and polar opposite-ness . In general, I’m to stay away from ALL signs except Leo’s (“They're both barmy about beautiful things. Music will gush out at all hours of the day and night and their walk-in wardrobes will be bursting with all kinds of clothes”), Gemini (Gemini and Libra have so much in common that sometimes there's no needs for words. They both need to feel an intellectual rapport with their paramour, because neither can fall for fools”), Sagittarius (“Their social life will sizzle as they're inundated with invitations to parties and get-togethers galore“)and Aquarians (This couple click the first time their eyes meet across a crowded room, because it's mental magic when these two get together”). Stay away from the 9, stick to only these 4... Hmmmm

Maybe that’s why dating is slow... Apparently, most of the posts I read say Librans are good lovers and the “most quintessential romantics.” Yes, we can be. Did I mention dating is slow? I confess a certain Scorpio had his divine poison on me. But that summer fling seems to be wearing off. By chance or astrological designation?

I can say that I’m happy despite having a mellow bday. No big party this year. I decided to save up for my next bday next year, where I hope to spend it on a beach somewhere in PR or DR or Hawaii...

Who knows, maybe the beach will be littered with my 4 compatible signs, all gushing to inundate me with “beautiful things”, “intellectual rapport”, and plenty of “mental magic”. Let just say, however, I won’t hold my breath waiting. Crow’s feet, after all, make GREAT nibble in good old fashioned chicken soup.

 I posted a picture of my 1st birthday. It was a smashingly wonderful First World Country Birthday Party!

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http://www.gotohoroscope.com/libra-meanings.html


This sign of Libra is represented in symbolism as The Balance. The Sun, the ruler of our inner nature, falls in Libra, the exaltation of Saturn. Their love of justice, combined with the need to be fair and even-handed contributes to that characteristic difficulty such people find in making decisions quickly.

These people are rarely lazy. They work hard, and also demand that their partners work just as hard. They have a strong sense of justice and fair play. It is pretty unusual for them to express anger, but when they do it is usually a storm.

They are extremely positive and decisive in all their thoughts and actions. They have great foresight and intuition, and are generally seen at their best when acting on first impressions. The fear is usually well controlled so the typical representatives of this sign usually looks calm, collected, and in charge of the situation. Good natured and loving, they enjoy talking to people, yet can also be very attentive listeners.
http://www.astrology-online.com/libra.htm


Libra! About Your Sign...


Libra is the only inanimate sign of the zodiac, all the others representing either humans or animals. Many modern astrologers regard it as the most desirable of zodiacal types because it represents the zenith of the year, the high point of the seasons, when the harvest of all the hard work of the spring is reaped. There is a mellowness and sense of relaxation in the air as mankind enjoys the last of the summer sun and the fruits of his toil. Librans too are among the most civilized of the twelve zodiacal characters and are often good looking. They have elegance, charm and good taste, are naturally kind, very gentle, and lovers of beauty, harmony (both in music and social living) and the pleasures that these bring.


They have good critical faculty and are able to stand back and look impartially at matters which call for an impartial judgment to be made on them. But they do not tolerate argument, for once they have reached a conclusion, its truth seems to them self-evident. But their characters are on the whole balanced, diplomatic and even tempered.


Librans are sensitive to the needs of others and have the gift, sometimes to an almost psychic extent, of understanding the emotional needs of their companions and meeting them with their own innate optimism - they are the kind of people of whom it is said, "They always make you feel better for having been with them." They are very social human beings. They loathe cruelty, viciousness and vulgarity and detest conflict between people, so they do their best to cooperate and compromise with everyone around them, and their ideal for their own circle and for society as a whole is unity.


Their cast of mind is artistic rather than intellectual, though they are usually too moderate and well balanced to be avant garde in any artistic endeavor. They have good perception and observation and their critical ability, with which they are able to view their own efforts as well as those of others, gives their work integrity.

Vargas Llosa Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

As much objection I have to his elitist Latin American views and his views on “those poor” and the “boot strap” theory of why  Latin America as a whole cannot progress, I applaud his CREATIVE work and his immaculate sense of language and rhythm. He joins his eminent colleagues Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes. Now if we could only get a FEMALE writer in that mix, wouldn’t that be amazing? Buen trabajo, viejo...

-vee
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Vargas Llosa Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature


By JULIE BOSMAN and SIMON ROMERO
Published: October 7, 2010
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Times Topics: Mario Vargas Llosa
Nobel Prizes

From the Archives: Winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature (October 12, 2006) Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy praised Mr. Vargas Llosa “for his cartography of the structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat.”

Mr. Vargas Llosa, 74, is one of the most celebrated writers of the Spanish-speaking world, frequently mentioned with his contemporary Gabriel García Márquez, who won the literature Nobel in 1982, the last South American to do so. He has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including “The Feast of the Goat” and “The War of the End of the World.”

In selecting Mr. Vargas Llosa, the Swedish Academy has once again made a choice that is infused with politics. Recent winners include Herta Muller, the Romanian-born German novelist, last year, Orhan Pamuk of Turkey in 2007 and Harold Pinter of Britain in 2005.

In 1990, Mr. Vargas Llosa ran for the presidency of Peru and has been an outspoken activist in his native country. The news that he had won the prize reached him at 5 a.m., when he was hard at work in his apartment in New York, preparing to set out on a walk in Central Park, he told a radio station in Peru. Initially, he thought it was a prank.

“It was a grand surprise,” he said. “It’s a good way to start a New York day.”

He is currently spending the semester in the United States, teaching Latin American studies at Princeton University.

The prize is the first for a writer in the Spanish language in two decades, after Mexico’s Octavio Paz won the Nobel in 1990, and focuses new attention on the Latin American writers who gained renown in the 1960s, like Julio Cortazar of Argentina and Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, who formed the region’s literary “boom generation.”

In an interview with The Times in 2002, Mr. Vargas Llosa said that it was the novelist’s obligation to question real life. “I don’t think there is a great fiction that is not an essential contradiction of the world as it is,” he said. “The Inquisition forbade the novel for 300 years in Latin America. I think they understood very well the seditious consequence that fiction can have on the human spirit.’”

Beyond his own political activities, Mr. Vargas Llosa has explored in his novels how politics feels to ordinary people.

“They’re not only fantastic novels that read beautifully,” Ruben Gallo, a professor of Spanish-American literature at Princeton University, said on Thursday. “He’s one of the authors who in the 20th century has written the most eloquently and the most poignantly about the intersection between culture and politics in Latin America.”

Born in 1936 in Arequipa, Peru, Mr. Vargas Llosa first realized that he wanted to be a writer when he was a child, enthralled with adventure novels by Jules Verne.

He spent much of his early childhood in Cochabamba, Bolivia, then moved with his parents to a middle-class suburb of Lima. He studied law and literature at the University of San Marcos in Lima in the mid-1950s — a tumultuous and violent time in Peru — and later drew from the experience to write “Conversation in the Cathedral,” a novel published in 1969.

After college, he spent time writing for newspapers and, like many Latin American writers, began his literary career abroad, living in Paris, Madrid and London as a young man.

His work found a wide international audience in the 1960s with the publication of “The Time of the Hero,” a novel based on a Peruvian military academy that aroused some controversy in his home country. By the early 1980s, he was perhaps the best-selling Latin American writer in the world, having published “Green House,” “Conversation in the Cathedral” and “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,” among other works.

A brief and unsuccessful effort as an elected official came later. While Peru was besieged by high inflation and the attacks by the Maoists of the Shining Path in 1990, Mr. Vargas Llosa made a quixotic run for the presidency of Peru, opposing Alberto Fujimori, then a little-known agronomist.

Mr. Vargas Llosa was ahead in polls for much of his campaign, but some factors may have worked against him: his aristocratic bearing in impoverished Peru and his acknowledgment at one point in the race that in the largely Roman Catholic country, he was an agnostic.

He also expressed some ambivalence about abandoning his career as a writer to serve in public office.

“I’d like to campaign on the issues and then return to my office to write,” he said in an interview in 1988. “But I’ve accepted this as a moral responsibility. While I have the impression that I’m helping, I’ll keep going.”

Mr. Fujimori triumphed in the race, and the failed bid left Mr. Vargas Llosa with a sour taste for politics in his country. Mr. Fujimori ended up adopting many of Mr. Vargas Llosa’s market-oriented policy ideas. He later fled to Japan when his government collapsed and is now serving time in a Peruvian prison after being convicted of human rights abuses.

After Mr. Vargas Llosa’s foray into politics, his influence in the Spanish-speaking world became more widespread through a column he writes for El Pais, the Spanish daily newspaper in Madrid, called “Piedra de Toque,” or “Touchstone.” In the column, which is distributed in newspapers throughout Latin America, he explores themes including literature, travel and the politics of the Middle East and Latin America.

The previous Nobel laureate of the boom generation, Mr. García Márquez of Colombia, won his prize after wide acclaim for his masterpiece, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” In a twist worthy of one of Mr. Vargas Llosa’s subplots, he and Mr. García Márquez, at one point close friends, had a violent falling out in 1976 in Mexico City.

The episode unfolded at a film premiere. When Mr. García Márquez approached Mr. Vargas Llosa to embrace him, the Peruvian writer instead punched him in the face, giving him a black eye, an image immortalized days later by the photographer Rodrigo Moya. Mystery shrouds what happened, but apparently the feud had to do with Mr. Vargas Llosa’s wife, whom Mr. García Márquez had consoled earlier in Paris.

Since 1901, 102 Nobel Prizes in literature have been awarded. The last American to win the prize was Toni Morrison, in 1993.

The awards ceremony is planned for Dec. 10 in Stockholm. As the winner, Mr. Vargas Llosa will receive 10 million kronor, or about $1.5 million.

Five Spot Politics Over Eggs

I had the breakfast special at Five Spot in Queen Ann, asked for the tortillas instead of toast and a side of salsa (a Pace Picante tasting type, by folks in San Antonion who know what peecaunee sauce should taste laahk!), looked up and saw Lady Liberty in her t-shirt which reads "EXCEPT IN ARIZONA."

I got up, centered my camera phone and took a picture, at which time a server with a nose ring asked, "Are you offended, or mad?"

I smiled and said, "Is the salsa a fake picante sauce?" She smiled and said, "Well you never know, some people get mad."

I wanted to ask if they were "mad" as the salsa or the defamation of the lady icon, or the bigoted law itself, or of the immigration debate that is never ending, or mad that extremely salted potatoes that garnished every plate.

What more can i say? I loved it. So again I'm inspired to post a poem. Ometeotl...
______________________________________________________________________
Leonor
“Afraid of Husbands, and the Law; Deportation Risk Grows for Abused Illegal Residents”
-New York Times Headline, April 1999

On the street she hums a bolero, walking under a row of cypress trees with leaves that rattle the winds of April, a humid scent grows. A truck, dog barks, an ambulance far still. A song by Trio Los Dandy’s. Tall kids stop bouncing a ball against a building the color of old bananas. “Ella está loca... por eso la dejó el marido,” others whisper. Months now she hums to the wind, to herons and roses, even before he threaten to take the child, before he swung white knuckles, before she sought refuge, whispered help me... but nothing. Long sleeves and make-up covered the excess of nights before, and again, again, like before, until that afternoon when she returned home to empty dresser drawers pulled out, hangers bare by her heavy coat, valise without documents, El Santo Niño de Atocha faced down, her saving from tips that she hid between Psalms and Proverbs, the child’s knitted blanket: everything had disappeared. The siren of the ambulance louder now; she hides behind a cypress tree as it sings que sin embargo sigues, unida a mi existencia, y si vivo cien años,
                                                                cien años pienso en ti…



VERO  Copyright 2010

SAD NEWS:El Centro de la Raza leader, co-founder Roberto Maestas dies

REST IN PEACE...

El Centro de la Raza leader, co-founder Roberto Maestas dies Co-founder and Executive Director of El Centro de la Raza, Roberto Maestas.

by KING 5 News

SEATTLE -- Roberto Maestas, the long time leader and co-founder of El Centro de la Raza, a center for Seattle's Latino community, died Wednesday morning, organization officials say.

Maestas was long involved in the ongoing civil rights movement in Seattle. According to the University of Washington Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project page, Maestas was born in New Mexico in a small farming community and worked his way north through the migrant stream, first to Colorado and eventually to Seattle, permanently settling in the city in the 1950s.

Maestas was educated as a teacher and taught at Franklin High School before leaving secondary teaching and pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Washington in 1968. At the University, he became involved with the Chicano student activism, the black freedom struggle, and farm worker organizing in the Yakima valley.

Maestas helped form a program at South Seattle Community for Adult Basic Education and English as a Second Language (ESL) to cater to the city's growing Latino community in the early 1970s.

When funding for the program was abruptly cut-off in the fall of 1972, Maestas, his fellow teachers and students, and a number of community activists peaceably occupied the abandoned Beacon Hill School and negotiated its conversion into a community center, El Centro de la Raza.

In addition to providing a range of social services, El Centro played a prominent role in local solidarity campaigns with Central America during the 1970s and 1980s. Maestas also co-founded the Minority Executive Directors's Coalition in the 1980s with fellow "Gang of Four" colleages Bernie Whitebear, Larry Gossett and Bob Santos.

King County Executive Dow Constantine and Councilmember Larry Gossett issued statements on the passing of Maestas.

"I have long known Roberto Maestas as a vibrant leader of the Latino community and the larger community, a man whose greatest skill was bringing people together, and a champion of equal rights for all. We will miss him," said Constantine.

"We lost a lion today. Roberto was relentless in his pursuit of justice, while offering service and support to those in need. The spark he and colleagues Councilmember Larry Gossett, Bob Santos, and the late Bernie Whitebear created those many years ago will continue to light the way in our community for years to come. Roberto's devotion to equity and social justice made him an inspiration to political leaders of our time. I have ordered that the flags over King County buildings be flown at half-staff in his honor."

Gossett said "Roberto was the pre-eminent leader and political activist of our time when it comes to all the important movements for social change which have taken place in the Pacific Northwest over the past 40 years."

"When Native Americans struggled for fishing rights in the late '60s and early '70s, Roberto was on the front line. When Black construction workers rose up in 1969 and demanded a fair share of construction jobs in our community, Roberto was there. When poor and disenfranchised Latinos organized to improve their community, Roberto was there to lead the struggle to create El Centro de La Raza."

"He has been there for striking garbage workers, the women's movement for abortion rights, the resistance of Asian communities to the encroachment of the Kingdome - Roberto has been there for every genuine effort to bring about meaningful improvement to the life conditions of people throughout Martin Luther King Jr. County. And because of his legacy we will sorely miss his tremendous contributions to our community."

Mayor Mike McGinn said Maestas "often spoke of building a 'beloved community' through nonviolence, community engagement and an empowered citizenry. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the 'beloved community' as a world where poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated. Where racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be defeated by brotherhood and sisterhood. We are lowering city flags to half-mast today to respect his passing. We encourage all to honor his memory by working for his 'beloved community.'"

Gangsta Lean?

As I walked home from my bus stop yesterday, three young men blocked the stairs I walk towards my house. My first reaction was to look behind me, next to have my phone ready, then to feel my swiss knife at my fingertips, there, ready, at the bottom of my purse. As I looked closer, however, I saw familiar signs of boys playing "men," of young men feeling the surge of testosterone, of kickn in the street because they feel that’s what friends do, chill together. It wasn’t that I wasn’t concerned for my well being as a woman, it’s just that in a moment, I recognized that fear and longing for the infamous credibility. These boys were more interested in this place as their territory than they were about me, a woman dressed professionally and looking tired. As I walked by I said, “Good even young gentlemen,” and they responded, good evening... I heard giggles moments later and something about booty. I was right; I have seen aspirations of “gangs” before.

I recently saw an NBC report called America Now: Faces Against Violence (Chicago's South and West Sides have become ground zero for an all-American problem: Kids killing kids) and it reminded me of Cali in so many ways. I was saddened to see that some things rarely change. I was sad to see even here, in a nice Seattle neighborhood, the few young brothers of color I saw on that stairway, longing to feel empowered, to feel respected, to feel like they belong, and ultimately, just looking for love and acceptance.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38579962/ns/dateline_nbc-america_now/

So today I post a poem from my thesis completed last year, and hopefully in the works for publishing mid next year (http://digitalcommons.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI1465203/). It’s in both English and Spanish. Here is a link to an article I was quoted in regarding this “code switching” (http://borderzine.com/2008/12/lost-in-adaptation/).

I post it because even here, in the green and pristine Northwest, young men of color, my brothers, are looking for a stairway out.

PS: Thanks to the Big Q for inspiring me to write what had been thumping around in my brain for about a week now. See? Inspiration goes both way...


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En la cocina


Esas cosas o su memoria están en los libros        These writings or the memory of them are in books
que custodio en la torre.                                       which I guard in the tower.
-Jorge Luis Borges, “El guardian de los libros”


     “FEE NOTICE”
a notice from the Stanislaus County library demanded,
perhaps about bird migration disruption
     trucha, he liked birds-
maybe on wood crafts, carpentry,
     he was building a speaker box for when he could get a car-
or Cliff Notes on the Odyssey and the Iliad
     he read it for Language Arts class where he penciled
     1962 Impalas, a Sagrado Corazón and Aztec queens
     with big chichis and lush Quetzal feathers.

     “DUE: $56.00”
books borrowed because he had none at home
no shelves for books except his mother’s double
phone-book size Bible kept behind a wood and glass case
with the glossy painted clay dishes from Michoacán
a set of shot glasses with the word “Morelia”
collection of recuerdos, a pink slipper with lace
mini champagne glasses, ribbons hot glued
to a plastic heart-shaped vase
tiny niños Jesús with a gold stamped lettered
ribbon around the foot.

     “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE MATERIALS”
but Doña Roberta didn’t know, neither did her mother
una viejita whose right eye was white as if the morning
Central Valley fog were stuck in there,
only the sun never melted it away;
His sister didn’t know either.
She always had large purple hickies
around her neck and wore her novio’s
clicka colors, those pelones who hung out
smoking mota, bumping oldies about
angel babies and smile now, cry later.

     “FINAL NOTICE: RETURN INDICATED ITEMS…”
finally Don Manuel said he cleaned the glass case,
the wall, table, chair but threw the library books away
because of the splatter
bone fragments on them like bugs on a bumper.

Big E, Ernesto, that homie, carnal since the fifth grade
     he secretly liked school, always did good, even got a ribbon once
whose brother, cousin, niece were still in la pinta,
     he wanted to be the first to graduate from high school-
was studying at the kitchen table,
     he shared a room and had no desk-- the kitchen table a tower
     of books stacked around, never high enough to
     keep out telenovela cries
     street bass, sirens, just enough to hear his
     thoughts, solve right triangles and the Iliad,
when it happened;
     in through the back bursting through his chest
          another in the mandible, disjointing the jaw
               blowing the ear, bits of red and white
               soaking into each borrowed page.

copyright 2009, veronica guajardo

Silly Elephants

       I find myself more and more amazed that Americans, especially those who support Arizona's new divisive law and refer to the “Own Bootstrap” theory, as well as those riled about higher taxes and depleting resources, are not more pro-immigration reform. It’s simple to me, really, because although it may be moral, it’s simply good business: 1) educating the population, irrespective of immigration status, will NOT turn our country into a “3rd world country”, because an education population is vibrant, entrepreneurial and resilient; 2) denying access to education will not cause “them” to leave, but instead need assistance and “burden” the system- pay now or pay later; 3) statistically speaking, "majority" US populations continue to decline while “non-white” populations continue to increase, so instead of a potential decrease to the tax base, why not embrace the opportunity for and INCREASE to the tax base, that is if “they” are allowed to work and pay taxes, 5) the threat to the “American way of life” is more likely when we have an uneducated population, an apartheid society, and one that forgets that its entire hystory is an immigrant one. A larger tax base, whole families (not split up by deportation), and engaged civic participants is good business—that should resonate with the Red and Blue states alike. So, it makes me wonder if it’s really not just about immigrating and being eligible for a driver’s license and social security number, if maybe it’s really about race and ethnicity, the elephant in the room.

Here in the northwest, a new border to me, I’m finding this elephant in many of the board rooms, conference rooms, and college and university offices I’ve been in.

I want to write poetry instead, work steadfastly to foster mathematicians and scientists, increase educational access, live (paint, play the guitar, make love, hopefully write more) eat fresh produce, shop large home improvement stores, and yet I see can’t stop seeing that four-legged beast always nearby. Can I turn it off, that sigh-seeing power to see the beast everywhere? I’m trying to find the poetic in what is unseen, unheard, like Thom Gunn:

What place is this

                       And what is it that broods
Barley beyond its own creation’s course
And not abstracted from it, not the Word,
But overlapping it like wet low clouds
the riveting images-their unstopped source,
its roar unheard from being always heard.*

For now, I will hope that our national need for decreasing the nation deficit and funding an almost broke government will motivate immigration reform, not that mushy stuff about human rights and not splitting families up, and such non-tax based silliness. Elephants in a rooms are silly enough.


(*From At the Centre” poem from the Molly Collection)

_____________________________________________________________________
America Now: Children of the Harvest

For thousands of children in America , summer means hard labor in the hot sun. They're migrant laborers working alongside their struggling parents on America 's farms. Dateline took its cameras and found a story of hardship, perserverence, and love.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/38308025#38308025  

Oops They Did it Again...

I’m beginning to see that Seattle Police are a lot like the Border Patrol in Texas, specifically El Paso. They both seem to only acknowledge inappropriate incidents occurred once it’s been caught on video, and both seem to assault teens who “illegally cross,” and they both claim to be “threatened” and therefore resort to violent means. Both have polished professional spokespersons speak on their behalf and speak of investigations and inquiries and needing more evident before jumping to conclusions.

In both places, communities want change and authorities who conduct themselves with professionalism and trained in de-escalation techniques. In both situations, the victims are people of color. A Seattle office punched a young black teen in the face. A Border agent shot a brown teen for throwing a rock.

I remember when I first got here there was another case involving a Deputy Sheriff assaulting a teen in her cell because he claimed he felt threatening by the teen. He first claimed the teen assaulted him, but surveillance video revealed that in fact the officer wasn’t in the cell at all and that he was indeed the first to push, slam against the wall, punch, then slam the girl to the floor. The video reveals the threat was that she crossed her arms and kicked her shoe off. Check it out. By the way, she too is a young teen of color.

Indeed, this is why it is hard to feel safe when la placa drives by, when they turn up behind you, when you’re chillando at the park. Maybe this is why I have never ever said, “oh great, a peace officer is driving behind me and now I feel safe.” It’s usually a “chingado, did I do something wrong, is the music too loud, did I stop enough at the stop, or am I looking too Chicana today?”

When I’m in town and la jura is present, I tell my friend Luz or whomever is with me to not leave my side because in Seattle, la chota likes to kick Mexican piss out of brown people (even if they're not Mexican, apparently). I think the exact quote was “I’m going to kick the Mexican piss out of you homey. You feel me?” He was already handcuffed and on the floor. I'm sure he felt it. Being a Messican, not a Messican’t, and not wanting to deliver a “can’t we all just get along” speech before the media, swollen and bruised, a subsequent trial where no one is found guilty, I keep my distance from them, like I did with El Paso chotas and La Linea Keepers del paso del norte.

I’m more fascinated, however, with language, and not just because I’m a poet. That is, despite the many moves I’ve made, the many cities I’ve lived in and regions I’ve visited, people of color share more in common than not, and officials too. Words and phrases have meanings and semantic nuances, poetic liberties and leniency for exaggeration, but when you combine them with “reality” images, it's hard to find the words to justify authority’s use of power in the name of the law. Words of interest: escalation, felt threatened, trained to protect, paid leave pending an investigation, Urban League, Hispanic leaders, unjustified force, victims, injury, arrest, once again in the news, trouble, teens, no respect, youth, them, those people...back in the day, people knew their place...

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Police: Officer under review after punching incident caught on camera
By Gabriel Falcon, CNN
June 16, 2010 2:52 p.m. EDT
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/16/police.jaywalker/index.html?hpt=Sbin





Border Patrol bears increased criticism over death
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 9, 2010 8:32 p.m. EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/09/mexico.border.shooting/index.html?iref=allsearch

Creative Godparents: Poecía, Palabra y Protesta con Amor

I spoke with Noelia La Furiosa de Sacras yesterday and I heard from her el Maestro José Montoya is not well. I fact, I don’t know if this is a secret (sorry but I had to write!). I called a few people who might have his contact info (his last number I had is disconnected). I’m both saddened and angry I have not made more of an effort to remain in closer contact with my elder and friend. I remember when we almost lost Dolores Huerta several years ago. It impacted me so much that I had to write a poem for her called Dolores Huerta Boulevard.

I don’t want to lose any more of our teachers and elders and creative god parents, like Phil Goldvarg, and Ricardo Favela., or good friends.

I remember several years ago, before the “craze” or spoken word took off (early to mid 90’s), he cautioned me (and the other Rudos) not fall for trends, that good poetry didn’t need to be yelled, that it could be subtle and quiet and “very Chicano” without all the yelling or “bells and whistles.” I never forgot that and finally understand what he meant by find the music in the poetry, the natural rhythms and beats and breaths.

He wrote me an outstanding Letter or Recommendation when I applied to the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso (the only Bilingual MFA in the country). I retrospect, how honored and privileged am I that he read my stuff BEFORE I learned to writer or be a “writer” with a “degree,” and that maybe he found in my work some thread of worth, maybe even potential.

 I remember the time we had a FLOR Y CANTO event in my backyard in Southside Modesto; we borrowed the stage from Kinán from ETC. Maestro Montoya showed up with Xico Gonzalez and other poetas from Sacras! I’m pretty sure Grace and la familia did as well, Sal y Destiny and other Rudos. That event in my backyard has been a highlight in my life, one that showed me how la palabra can build and bring community together. My mother, a conservative Mexicana tapatía, I think, for the first time understood what I was into, the poetry I loved, the method of expression, the community I loved and that loved me, and the power of word and song. I think she is still skeptical of the word Chicano and what it is we keep complaining about or “protestando”.

But it’s that subtle protest that I heard in that poem “El Louie.” Hoy enterraron al Louie, and I wanted to know Louie, and discovered I knew Louie's, vatos not in their fifties but teens and twenties, lost on the barrio streets of Aztlán.

Hoy enterraron al Louie.
And San Pedro o san pinche
Are in for it. And those
Times of the forties
And the early fifties
Lost un vato de atolle.
— El Louie, 1969

 So instead I celebrate life and I celebrate him NOW, and wish you better health, Maestro. I love you and appreciate all that you have taught this Chicana de Modesto’s’ Southside, by way of Jalisco, side tracked in Ensenada. Maestro, get better soon; I need you to read the completed collection of my work, work that you helped shape, and the dedication... Ometeotl.

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In Formation: Twenty Years of Joda by José Montoya
This collection of poems by the seminal poet José Montoya, one of the founders of the Chicano Renaissance of the late 1960's, is an historic chronicle of the poet's work from the beginning of his writing to the 1990's. Included is his classic contribution to the Chicano legacy, the poem "El Louie," the timeless narrative of Louie Rodriquez, the embodiment of the Pachuco, who rebelled against the social norms of the 1940's and 1950's. The images contained in his poems and artworks are remarkable. Montoya's In Formation displays his astonishing talent.
Soft Cover, 252 pages, ISBN 0-9624536-1-7, Price $24.95
ABOUT THE AUTHORBorn by the Monzano Mountains in Escoboza, New Mexico, Montoya was raised there, in Albuquerque, and in California. He is a multi-disciplinary artist: poet, painter, writer, and musician. Montoya is a founding member of the Rebel Chicano Art Front, better known as the Royal Chicano Air Force, a group of artists and poets in Sacramento, California. A pioneer in Chicano literature and the use of caló, José is also a retired professor of art from California State University, Sacramento. He is currently working on his next book, How I Came to America, a collection of poetry, short stories, and memoirs to be published by Chusma House. José also performs with the musical group Casi Indio.

http://www.chusmahouse.com/titles.htm  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Montoya
  http://rehistoricizing.org/jose-montoya-esteban/  


Jose Montoya Esteban from Rehistoricizing.org on Vimeo.

Slick Oil, Slick Laws, Sick Cop Kicks... Musical Asprin

I’m trying not to feel jaded and angered by the drama happening in Seattle. But first, the video of police brutality and racist slur by the Seattle Police Department surfaces. Then we know the TV station that had the video held it for weeks, as the departments “urging.” (http://www.king5.com/video/raw/Watch-Seattle-PD-officer-stomps-suspect-uses-racial-comment-93140299.html )

Then Arizona passes it’s form of modern Apartheid. Now other states are jumping on the Pilgrim wagon and following the lead. Now, The Dream Act seems more and more like a dream than ever before. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804319.html )

Then the world nastiest oil spill continues to sludge in the Mexican Gulf. (I can't even look at images anymore...)

Finally, North and South Korea are once again at the starting line for “who blinks first.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052700642.html?wprss=rss_world/asia )

I’m trying not to feel blue, with the “rainier than usual” Seattle Spring, this week most days in the 50’s.

Instead I want to enjoy the few moments of fleeting sun, the bulbs that sprouted flowers in my front lawn, the FREE Common concert on the UW campus, which was surprisingly poorly advertised and even more poorly attended (a sign of a truly privileged institution: a top hip hop artist on a top class stage and great sound system, unlike the sound gear at the Showbox SODO, where NAS and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley killed it).

I’d rather see the positive in having way too many Teriyaki places to choose from and not enough Mexican places where artificial yellow chesse isn’t added to everything, the good in June Graduation Ceremonies, and Tia and Amanda walk the stage, adding to the educated women of color pool, and the good in Jill Scott and Maxwell’s upcoming concert at KEY ARENA.

Yes, I have tickets, and I can’t wait to be in a shielded stadium, top notch R&B artists on a top class stage and great sound system, drowning out the police stompings, oil slicks, and constant drips down meandering drains out to the Puget Sound, where heavy metals and chemicals contaminate the water in a more subtle way.

McDonald’s in the Poetry Business?

While driving on the 99 to work, I saw this sign a few weeks ago and I thought, Wow, Micky D is in the poetry business!

Then I thought about Rosa Alcala, a poet and professor of mine, and about the discussions of poetry for the masses, the difference between imagery and word, and Visual Poetry. Sometimes it’s the same as Concrete Poetry. Geof Huth said that “they are not merely poems, but they are certainly poems (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=182397 )”

So I thought about my reaction, at first one of ghastly shock. How dare they use poetry to seen a breakfast sandwich! Like I’m the Poetry Patrol or something... Is it visually pleasing, the imagery solid? Does it have a tone, sharp lines that break perfectly? Or are there poems in the wrapper of you muffin? Maybe “We Be Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks?

Then I thought, so is it so yummy and filling that it can only be equated to poetry? So is poetry hearty and gut busting? If it’s good, yes, I suppose it is.

http://www.poetryireland.ie/images/homepage/test.jpg

YOU TUBE: Music Even After Death

It was a bit shocking to see my father’s picture pop up as the song downloaded on a You Tube song I came across. Then I found more and more of his music, as well as his band mate (my uncle) and subsequent successful musician. It’s was a bit odd for me, even more so to see other’s comment about how great that song is and what a great band it is (was). In one post I read someone commented that he didn’t know much about this band but wanted to know more and was going to do more research as to where the band members were presently. I couldn’t help and I responded the following:

“Saludos- referente a Los Caracoles de Durango, el acordeonista fue mi padre. Falleció cuando yo tenía 10 años. El Bajo sestero, Juan Antonio Coronado, o Tony Coronado (y tío), trabajó por varios años con Ramón Ayala y los Bravos del Norte, y después formó su propio conjunto llamado Los Sultanes de Nuevo León. Ha compartido el escenario con los grandes, como Kiko Montalvo, Los Donneños, Juan Villareal, Cornelio Reyna (descansa en paz) y muchos más. Recomiendo busquen los nombres dados para que conozcan un poco más de los músicos que fueron los pilares en cual ahora tantos florecen en el género norteño.”

I think it may have been my way of letting this music lover know that he should not waste his time, that at least one of those band members was not ‘doing anything’ anymore, that in fact he was dead, that my father has been dead over 25 years, and that the other member, my tío, was not in music anymore; he’s still a musician, just not in the business.

I started thinking about other musicians and artists who have passed and the “release” of their music. I’m not comparing my father to Elvis or Hendrix or Selena and others that have made more after their death than while alive, but I started to think about what it means to the family to see their loved one cherished by others, have new generations discover their music and connect with it.

Is music, thus, defiant of time?

Is it like art or writing, which last beyond the generations? Yes yes, I know know everything has a shelf life... And yet if it’s “pop”, does the expiration date come quicker? Corridos record stories of love and war and heroism and pain. Is the corrido a painted story for the ear, transformed into a media stream to be uploaded on a “broadcast yourself” service that is free to the world?

Heidegger believed that language was here before us, and that it would be here after us. Is music, intimately tied to poetry (at its origins and now with spoken work, Flor y Canto, Slam poetry events and more), thus able to bend and defy time as well? Maybe I’m stretching that one a bit too much. Maybe not... The music does sound “dated” to me, however. The genre of "musica norteña" was in it's infancy, with Los Tigeres del Norte's "Camelia la Tejana" soon t be a smashing success, and arguably the birth of the narco-corrido. One has to listen gently.

I will say that I’m not sure I was ready to see my father and his music on YouTube, nor am I sure I’m ready to posthumously download my father.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=los+caracoles+de+durango&aq=f 

Latinos, the Census that counts you as WHITE, and Future School Drop Outs

Latinos, Hispanics, Afro-Latinos, Arab-Americans, Bahamian-Americans and how you count everyone accurately; I’ve always been confused that as Latinos/Chicanos we are categorized as “white” and you can only choose between white and black, despite the fact we are a more than this, including our indígena roots, and more so a multi-ethnic society. Unfortunately, NSF and all federal agencies, including those working in education, also use these antiquated definitions still. I thought I’d share this interesting article this rainy morning; no wonder some school administrators we work with in the field are confused. No wonder race continues to be a difficult subject to engage with in this country. I guess for now, I will be an OTHER.:)

And speaking of OTHER, I was in Puyallup last week speaking with a class about continuing their education and the benefits and need, and I’m always inspired by youth. I’m saddened, however, that ELL (English Language Learners) are or will be the latest victims of the budget cuts. Those kids have a higher probability of being the next high school drop outs. This won't help an already struggling economy.

Some issues never change, whether your on the border of the Southwest or in the Northwest. I attached the article BELOW.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100329/us_time/08599197588300

Why the U.S. Census Misreads Hispanic and Arab Americans
By TIM PADGETT / MIAMI Tim Padgett / Miami – 58 mins ago

Hispanic advocates often tell the story of a Census Bureau worker who visits a Puerto Rican household in New York City's East Harlem neighborhood. Seeing the family's caramel complexion, the Census taker asks which race he should put down for them - white or black. To which the family answers: "Puerto Rican."

The story could substitute a Mexican-American family - or Colombian- or Nicaraguan-American ones for that matter - but the gist would be the same. Many, if not most, Hispanics in the U.S. think of their ethnicity (also known as Latino) not just in cultural terms but in a racial context as well. It's why more than 40% of Hispanics, when asked on the Census form in 2000 to register white or black as their race, wrote in "Other" - and they represented 95% of all the 15.3 million people in the U.S. who did so. (See the 25 most influential Hispanics in America.)

An even larger share of Hispanics, including my Venezuelan-American wife, is expected to report "Other," "Hispanic" or "Latino" in the race section of the 2010 census forms being mailed to U.S. homes this month. What makes it all the more confusing if not frustrating to them is that Washington continues to insist on those forms that "Hispanic origins are not races." If the Census Bureau lists Filipino and even Samoan as distinct races, Hispanics wonder why they - the product of half a millennium of New World miscegenation - aren't considered a race too. "It's a very big issue," says Angelo FalcÓn, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy in New York City and a community adviser to the Census. "A lot of Hispanics find the black-white option offensive, and they're asserting their own racial uniqueness." (See the making of Sonia Sotomayor.)

Full Article : http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100329/us_time/08599197588300

Jaime Escalante dies at 79; math teacher who challenged East L.A. students to 'Stand and Deliver'

Que descanze en paz....  Yes, we raza can do math and sceince! We will miss you Kimosabe...
______________________________________________________________________
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jaime-escalante31-2010mar31,0,6070862,full.story

OBITUARY
Jaime Escalante dies at 79; math teacher who challenged East L.A. students to 'Stand and Deliver'

He became America's most famous teacher after a 1988 movie portrayed his success at mentoring working-class pupils at Garfield High to pass a rigorous national calculus exam. He died of cancer.

Jaime Escalante "didn't just teach math. Like all great teachers, he changed lives," said actor Edward James Olmos, who portrayed Escalante in the 1988 film "Stand and Deliver." (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times / November 14, 1998)

Finally, some time to write!

It's about midnight and the heartburn is a good reason to stay up and finally write in this blog page I've set up with much prompting my other fellow writers. It's a compromise for all the harrassing emails I get from friends and that MyfacePage social page everyone is on, but you can't access if you don't have an account yourself. I just don't have time to check that. The THREE email accounts I have keep me plenty busy. I did have a myspace account but it's been years since I was in it and now I don't remember the password. How do you shut that down without that info? Yikes... I had some cool pics I'd like to take down and keep for me. Maybe I will post em here. Quien sabe...

So, no Facebook for me. Sorry all.

It's been an interesting 6 months since I've been here in my new place, new home, new city. Seattle is beautiful and very wet.

I can say that ther are MANY Pho soup places and LOTS of green. Don't get me wrong; it's very beautiful, but different from the high desert I left. They each have their distinct beauty.

I can't wait till summer. It's supposed to be spectacular. Till then, I will try and write more frequently. In the meantime, send me your good energia and good restaurant suggestions!

-v