"Inspired by the courage of the farmworkers, by the California strikes led by Cesar Chavez, and by the Anglo-American youth revolt of the period, many Mexican-American university students came to participate in a crusade for social betterment that was known as the Chicano movement. They used Chicano to denote their rediscovered heritage, their youthful assertiveness, and their militant agenda......Biculturalism and bilingualism are both factors of Chicano culture. However, Being the product of two worlds, the Chicano is never fully accepted in either. Prior to the Chicano Movement, Mexican Americans were viewed as foreigners, and often as inferior, in the United States. If they went to Mexico, they were often considered "vendidos" (sell-outs) or self-ignorant pochos. The lack of a homeland brought about the psychic recreation of Aztlán, the semi-mythic northerly land to which the Aztecs traced their roots."
-(courtesy of wikipedia)
-(courtesy of wikipedia)
~~~~~~~~~
I'm in the middle of watching a movie called "Walkout" starring Alexa Varga (of Spy Kids fame). Walkout is the true story of a young Mexican American high school teacher, Sal Castro. He mentors a group of students in East Los Angeles, when the students decide to stage a peaceful walkout to protest the injustices of the public school system. Set against the background of the civil rights movement of 1968, it is a story of courage and the fight for justice and empowerment. (from imdb.com) I'm only about a half hour into it. There's a scene where a teacher calls 2 boys up to the front of the class for speaking in spanish. He reaches over and there's a paddle hanging up on a sign that reads "If it's not worth saying in English it's not worth saying at all". He takes the paddle and beats both boys with it (as they speak in spanish telling him to "kiss my ass")
It's a little cheesy as it's a made for HBO movie, but it still resonates with me. It takes place in 1968 which is when my mom would have been going to high school here in the Detroit area. They describe in the movie how only 1 in 4 chicanos made it into college at the time. A college recruiter in the move tells us how there are only 40 Chicano students in a college of over 3,000.
Right now in the movie they're holding a Chicano Leadership Weekend in Malibu and one of the teachers is speaking to them and recites this amazing piece of poetry.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I am Joaquin”
By Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales
I am Joaquin, Lost in a world of confusion, Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society, Confused by the rules, Scorned by attitudes, Suppressed by manipulations, And destroyed by modern society. My fathers have lost the economic battle and won the struggle of cultural survival. And now! I must choose between the paradox of Victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger Or
to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, sterilization of the soul, and a full stomach. YES, I have come a long way to nowhere, Unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success… I look at myself. I watch my brothers. I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate. I withdraw to the safety within the Circle of life . . . MY OWN PEOPLE
I am Cuauhtemoc, Proud and Noble Leader of men, King of an empire, civilized beyond the dreams of the Gachupin Cortez, Who also is the blood, the image of myself.
I am the Maya Prince. I am Netzahualcoyotl, Great leader of the Chichimecas. I am the sword and flame of Cortez the despot. And
I am the Eagle and Serpent of the Aztec civilization. I owned the land as far as the eye could see under the crown of Spain, and I toiled on my earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood for the Spanish master, Who ruled with tyranny over man and beast and all that he could trample But . . .
THE GROUND WAS MINE. I was both tyrant and slave. As Christian church took its place in God's good name, to take and use my Virgin strength and Trusting faith, The priests both good and bad, took But gave a lasting truth that Spaniard, Indian, Mestizo Were all God's children And from these words grew men who prayed and fought for their own worth as human beings, for that GOLDEN MOMENT Of FREEDOM.
I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest Hidalgo in the year eighteen hundred and ten who rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry: El Grito de Dolores,
"Que mueran los Gachupines y que viva la Virgin de Guadalupe" I sentenced him who was me. I excommunicated him my blood. I drove him from the Pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me I killed him. His head, which is mine and all of those who have conic this way, I placed on that fortress wall to wall for Independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero! All Compañeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made. I died with them . . . I lived with them I lived to see our country free. Free from Spanish rule in eighteen -hundred- twenty-one. Mexico was Free The crown was gone but
all his parasites remained and ruled and taught with gun and flame and mystic power. I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed and waited silently for life to again commence. I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez Guardian of the Constitution. I was him on clusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives as Moses did his sacraments. He held his Mexico in his hand on the most desolate and remote ground which was his country And this Giant Little Zapotec gave not one palm's breadth of his country's land to Kings or Monarchs or Presidents of foreign powers.
I am Joaquin. I rode with Pancho Villa, crude and warm. A tornado at full strength, nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earth, people. I am Emillano Zapata. "This Land This Earth Is OURS" The Villages The Mountains The Streams belong to Zapatistas. Our life Or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maiz. All of which is our reward, A creed that formed a constitution for all who dare live free! "This land is ours . . . Father, I give it back to you. Mexico must be free . . .' I ride with Revolutionists against myself. I am Rural Course and brutal, I am the mountain Indian, superior over all. The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering of machine guns' are death to all of me: Yaqui Tarahumara Chamula Zapotec Mestizo Español
I have been the Bloody Revolution, The Victor, The Vanquished, I have killed and been killed. I am despots Diaz and Huerta and the apostle of democracy Francisco Madero. I am the black shawled faithful women who die with me or live depending on the time and place. I am faithful, humble, Juan Diego, the Virgen de Guadalupe, Tonatzin, Aztec Goddess too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquin. I rode as far East and North as the Rocky Mountains And all men feared the guns of Joaquin Murrietta. I killed those men who dared to steal my mine, who raped and Killed my Love my Wife Then I Killed to stay alive. I was Alfego. Baca, living my nine lives fully. I was the Espinoza brothers of the Valle de San Luis. All, were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization were placed on the wall of independence. Heads of brave men who died for cause or principle. Good or Bad. Hidalgo! Zapata! Murrietta! Espinozas! are but a few. They dared to face The force of tyranny of men who rule by farce and hypocrisy I stand here looking back, and now I see the present and still I arn the campesino I am the fat political coyote I, of the same name, Joaquin.
In a country that has wiped out AIl my history, stiffled all my pride. In a country that has placed a different weight of indignity upon my age old burdened back. Inferiority is the new load . . . The Indian has endured and still emerged the winner, The Mestizo must yet overcome, and the Gachupin will just ignore. I look at myself and see part of me who rejects my father and my mother and dissolves into the melting pot to disappear in shame. I sometimes sell my brother out and reclaim him for my own when society, gives me token leadership in society's own name.
I am Joaquin, who bleeds in many ways. The altars of Moctezuma I stained a bloody red. My back of Indian Slavery was stripped crimson from the whips of masters who would lose their blood so pure when Revolution made them pay Standing against the walls of Retribution, Blood . . . Has flowed from me on every battlefield between Campesino, Hacendado Slave and Master and Revolution. I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec into the sea of fame; My country's flag my burial shroud; With Los Niños, whose pride and courage could not surrender with indignity their country's flag . . . in their land.
To strangers now I bleed in some smelly cell from club. or gun. or tyranny. I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger cut my face and eyes, as I fight my way from stinking Barrios to the glamour of the Ring and lights of fame or mutilated sorrow. My blood runs pure on the ice caked hills of the Alaskan Isles, on the corpse strewn beach of Normandy, the foreign land of Korea and now Viet Nam.
Here I stand before the Court of Justice Guilty for all the glory of my Raza to be sentenced to despair. Here I stand Poor in money Arrogant with pride Bold with Machismo Rich in courage and Wealthy in spirit and faith My knees are caked with mud. My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo rich yet Equality is but a word, the Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken and is but another treacherous promise. My land is lost and stolen, My culture has been raped, lengthen the line at the welfare door and fill the jails with crime. These then are the rewards this society has For sons of Chiefs and Kings and bloody Revolutionists. Who gave a foreign people all their skills and ingenuity to pave the way with Brains and Blood for those hordes of Gold starved Strangers Who changed our language and plagiarized our deeds as feats of valor of their own. They frowned upon our way of life and took what they could use. Our Art Our Literature Our music,
they ignored so they left the real things of value and grabbed at their own destruction by their Greed and Avarice They overlooked that cleansing fountain of nature and brotherhood Which is Joaquin. The art of our great señors Diego Rivera Siqueiros Orozco is butanother act of revolution for the Salvation of mankind.
Mariachi music, the heart and soul of the people of the earth, the life of child, and the happiness of love The Corridos tell the tales of life and death, of tradition, Legends old and new, of Joy of passion and sorrow of the people:
who I am. I am in the eyes of woman, sheltered beneath her shawl of black, deep and sorrowful eyes, That bear the pain of sons long buried or dying, Dead on the battlefield or on the barbwire of social strife. Her rosary she prays and fingers endlessly like the family working down a row of beets to turn around and work and work There is no end. Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth and all the love for me, And I am her And she is me. We face life together in sorrow. anger, joy, faith and wishful thoughts. I shed tears of anguish as I see my children disappear behind the shroud of mediocrity never to look back to remember me.
I am Joaquin. I must fight And win this struggle for my sons, and they must know from me Who I am. Part of the blood that runs deep in me Could not be vanquished by the Moors I defeated them after five hundred years, and I endured. The part of blood that is mine has labored endlessly five-hundred years under the heel of lustful Europeans I am still here!
I have endured in the rugged mountains of our country I have survived the toils and slavery, of the fields. I have existed in the barrios of the city, in the suburbs of bigotry, in the mines of social snobbery, in the prisons of dejection, in the muck of exploitation and in the fierce heat of racial hatred. And now the trumpet sounds, The music of the people stirs the Revolution, Like a sleeping giant it slowly rears its head to the sound of Tramping feet Clamouring voices Marlachi strains Fiery tequila explosions The smell of chile verde and Soft brown eyes of expectation for a better life And in all the fertile farm lands, the barren plains, the mountain villages, smoke smeared cities
We start to MOVE. La Raza! Mejicano! Español! Latino! Hispano! Chicano! or whatever I call myself, I look the same I feel the same I cry and Sing the same I am the masses of my people and I refuse to be absorbed. I am Joaquin The odds are great but my spirit is strong My faith unbreakable My blood is pure I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ
I SHALL ENDURE!
By Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales
I am Joaquin, Lost in a world of confusion, Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society, Confused by the rules, Scorned by attitudes, Suppressed by manipulations, And destroyed by modern society. My fathers have lost the economic battle and won the struggle of cultural survival. And now! I must choose between the paradox of Victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger Or
to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, sterilization of the soul, and a full stomach. YES, I have come a long way to nowhere, Unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success… I look at myself. I watch my brothers. I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate. I withdraw to the safety within the Circle of life . . . MY OWN PEOPLE
I am Cuauhtemoc, Proud and Noble Leader of men, King of an empire, civilized beyond the dreams of the Gachupin Cortez, Who also is the blood, the image of myself.
I am the Maya Prince. I am Netzahualcoyotl, Great leader of the Chichimecas. I am the sword and flame of Cortez the despot. And
I am the Eagle and Serpent of the Aztec civilization. I owned the land as far as the eye could see under the crown of Spain, and I toiled on my earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood for the Spanish master, Who ruled with tyranny over man and beast and all that he could trample But . . .
THE GROUND WAS MINE. I was both tyrant and slave. As Christian church took its place in God's good name, to take and use my Virgin strength and Trusting faith, The priests both good and bad, took But gave a lasting truth that Spaniard, Indian, Mestizo Were all God's children And from these words grew men who prayed and fought for their own worth as human beings, for that GOLDEN MOMENT Of FREEDOM.
I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest Hidalgo in the year eighteen hundred and ten who rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry: El Grito de Dolores,
"Que mueran los Gachupines y que viva la Virgin de Guadalupe" I sentenced him who was me. I excommunicated him my blood. I drove him from the Pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me I killed him. His head, which is mine and all of those who have conic this way, I placed on that fortress wall to wall for Independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero! All Compañeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made. I died with them . . . I lived with them I lived to see our country free. Free from Spanish rule in eighteen -hundred- twenty-one. Mexico was Free The crown was gone but
all his parasites remained and ruled and taught with gun and flame and mystic power. I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed and waited silently for life to again commence. I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez Guardian of the Constitution. I was him on clusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives as Moses did his sacraments. He held his Mexico in his hand on the most desolate and remote ground which was his country And this Giant Little Zapotec gave not one palm's breadth of his country's land to Kings or Monarchs or Presidents of foreign powers.
I am Joaquin. I rode with Pancho Villa, crude and warm. A tornado at full strength, nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earth, people. I am Emillano Zapata. "This Land This Earth Is OURS" The Villages The Mountains The Streams belong to Zapatistas. Our life Or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maiz. All of which is our reward, A creed that formed a constitution for all who dare live free! "This land is ours . . . Father, I give it back to you. Mexico must be free . . .' I ride with Revolutionists against myself. I am Rural Course and brutal, I am the mountain Indian, superior over all. The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering of machine guns' are death to all of me: Yaqui Tarahumara Chamula Zapotec Mestizo Español
I have been the Bloody Revolution, The Victor, The Vanquished, I have killed and been killed. I am despots Diaz and Huerta and the apostle of democracy Francisco Madero. I am the black shawled faithful women who die with me or live depending on the time and place. I am faithful, humble, Juan Diego, the Virgen de Guadalupe, Tonatzin, Aztec Goddess too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquin. I rode as far East and North as the Rocky Mountains And all men feared the guns of Joaquin Murrietta. I killed those men who dared to steal my mine, who raped and Killed my Love my Wife Then I Killed to stay alive. I was Alfego. Baca, living my nine lives fully. I was the Espinoza brothers of the Valle de San Luis. All, were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization were placed on the wall of independence. Heads of brave men who died for cause or principle. Good or Bad. Hidalgo! Zapata! Murrietta! Espinozas! are but a few. They dared to face The force of tyranny of men who rule by farce and hypocrisy I stand here looking back, and now I see the present and still I arn the campesino I am the fat political coyote I, of the same name, Joaquin.
In a country that has wiped out AIl my history, stiffled all my pride. In a country that has placed a different weight of indignity upon my age old burdened back. Inferiority is the new load . . . The Indian has endured and still emerged the winner, The Mestizo must yet overcome, and the Gachupin will just ignore. I look at myself and see part of me who rejects my father and my mother and dissolves into the melting pot to disappear in shame. I sometimes sell my brother out and reclaim him for my own when society, gives me token leadership in society's own name.
I am Joaquin, who bleeds in many ways. The altars of Moctezuma I stained a bloody red. My back of Indian Slavery was stripped crimson from the whips of masters who would lose their blood so pure when Revolution made them pay Standing against the walls of Retribution, Blood . . . Has flowed from me on every battlefield between Campesino, Hacendado Slave and Master and Revolution. I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec into the sea of fame; My country's flag my burial shroud; With Los Niños, whose pride and courage could not surrender with indignity their country's flag . . . in their land.
To strangers now I bleed in some smelly cell from club. or gun. or tyranny. I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger cut my face and eyes, as I fight my way from stinking Barrios to the glamour of the Ring and lights of fame or mutilated sorrow. My blood runs pure on the ice caked hills of the Alaskan Isles, on the corpse strewn beach of Normandy, the foreign land of Korea and now Viet Nam.
Here I stand before the Court of Justice Guilty for all the glory of my Raza to be sentenced to despair. Here I stand Poor in money Arrogant with pride Bold with Machismo Rich in courage and Wealthy in spirit and faith My knees are caked with mud. My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo rich yet Equality is but a word, the Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken and is but another treacherous promise. My land is lost and stolen, My culture has been raped, lengthen the line at the welfare door and fill the jails with crime. These then are the rewards this society has For sons of Chiefs and Kings and bloody Revolutionists. Who gave a foreign people all their skills and ingenuity to pave the way with Brains and Blood for those hordes of Gold starved Strangers Who changed our language and plagiarized our deeds as feats of valor of their own. They frowned upon our way of life and took what they could use. Our Art Our Literature Our music,
they ignored so they left the real things of value and grabbed at their own destruction by their Greed and Avarice They overlooked that cleansing fountain of nature and brotherhood Which is Joaquin. The art of our great señors Diego Rivera Siqueiros Orozco is butanother act of revolution for the Salvation of mankind.
Mariachi music, the heart and soul of the people of the earth, the life of child, and the happiness of love The Corridos tell the tales of life and death, of tradition, Legends old and new, of Joy of passion and sorrow of the people:
who I am. I am in the eyes of woman, sheltered beneath her shawl of black, deep and sorrowful eyes, That bear the pain of sons long buried or dying, Dead on the battlefield or on the barbwire of social strife. Her rosary she prays and fingers endlessly like the family working down a row of beets to turn around and work and work There is no end. Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth and all the love for me, And I am her And she is me. We face life together in sorrow. anger, joy, faith and wishful thoughts. I shed tears of anguish as I see my children disappear behind the shroud of mediocrity never to look back to remember me.
I am Joaquin. I must fight And win this struggle for my sons, and they must know from me Who I am. Part of the blood that runs deep in me Could not be vanquished by the Moors I defeated them after five hundred years, and I endured. The part of blood that is mine has labored endlessly five-hundred years under the heel of lustful Europeans I am still here!
I have endured in the rugged mountains of our country I have survived the toils and slavery, of the fields. I have existed in the barrios of the city, in the suburbs of bigotry, in the mines of social snobbery, in the prisons of dejection, in the muck of exploitation and in the fierce heat of racial hatred. And now the trumpet sounds, The music of the people stirs the Revolution, Like a sleeping giant it slowly rears its head to the sound of Tramping feet Clamouring voices Marlachi strains Fiery tequila explosions The smell of chile verde and Soft brown eyes of expectation for a better life And in all the fertile farm lands, the barren plains, the mountain villages, smoke smeared cities
We start to MOVE. La Raza! Mejicano! Español! Latino! Hispano! Chicano! or whatever I call myself, I look the same I feel the same I cry and Sing the same I am the masses of my people and I refuse to be absorbed. I am Joaquin The odds are great but my spirit is strong My faith unbreakable My blood is pure I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ
I SHALL ENDURE!
