I want to read from the book and then what I like to do
is open it up.
I love reading, but I think that the discussion
is more important.
I want to read one of the last passages in the book.
For many of you who don't know, but some
who do know who have read the book,
I grew up in a neighborhood called Las Lomas just
outside of LA, East of LA.
We had enemies called Sangra, which was
around the San Gabriel Mission.
And there was a war that had been fought
by fathers and grandfathers.
And I don't even know what started it.
They have different stories.
But I never really knew.
And basically, what it was is-- you got into the barrio.
Somebody gave you guns and said, here's your enemies.
They killed us and we killed them.
When I wrote the book, part of it was a healing.
To heal part of that struggle.
And I dedicated the book, as you know, the 25--
it was mentioned-- are my friends.
But some of them were my so-called "enemies,"
because they're not my enemies.
And I never knew how Sangra people would take it.
I went back to my old neighborhood.
I had some of my homeboys from that time meet with me.
They embraced me.
They invited me to come speak to the schools
and speak to their kids who are going to schools.
And then I went into Sangra neighborhood
and people were telling me, "hey, man,
don't go there because it turns out that war is still
going on today."
In fact, two months before I got there, somebody from Sangra
had beaten, stabbed, and shot, and killed a kid from Lomas
Just two months before I got there.
So they were saying, don't go there, man.
You know it's still going on and they know you,
and all those kinds of things.
I said, you know I have to go there.
And I did.
And I spoke to all the little chavalillos, little kids--
and it was a great, great time.
Great talk.
Nothing happened.
It was just beautiful.
But again, you don't even know if there's
a lot of terrible damage that goes on.
And I wanted people to not forget,
because to me one of the problems is we don't heal.
We don't have revolutionary healing.
So many mothers--
I know mothers who have lost two or three of their own kids
during these wars.
And they try to forget, and they try to not remember,
and they-- and so many pain and death, and then
nobody wants to talk about it.
And then the next generation picks it up again.
I was fortunate that I was in northern California.
And I was speaking to a number of locals there,
and some man walked in and he sat down.
And as I was speaking.
I was talking about all this, and it turns out
that he's a guy that I hadn't seen in 20 years.
He was a member of Sangra, and was a tecato for 20 years.
And had kicked it, and had started work with youth
there in northern California.
And he came to hear me talk I guess he just
wanted to know who I was.
What I was about.
And when he got up, he started talking
about how he had read the book and remembered
all these things, and remember the names.
And, again, he started to cry, and talked
about how 20 years ago we would be killing each other.
And he came up to me with sage and gave it to me
as a peace offering.
And then I hugged him and told him,
"We got to fight for our children now.
We got to save some lives."
And I was very moved by this--
that our enemies, who you wouldn't imagine the kind
of enemies that this was.
The terror and terrible damage we did to each other.
I want to read this last part, because it's related to that.
It's related to one of the homeboys from--
one of the guys from Sangra who I
called Chava in the book, who, unfortunately, was or one
of the leaders.
One of the main guys, but actually what happened
is that he got walked into the wrong party.
He thought it was just some regular dudes.
Turned out eight members of Lomas were there.
They cornered him.
They each stabbed him once.
As he fell down, he had eight stab wounds.
And then still somebody picked up
a tire rim-- a rusted tire rim-- and thrust it down on his head
and cracked his head open.
So I thought that he had died, because sometimes things
happened.
You don't really find out and you just--
I thought he was dead.
Years later, I came back to the neighborhood for a quinceanera
and he's there.
He comes up to me, and this is the incident that happened.
One of the things, in case you don't know,
my barrio name-- my placa was Chin de Lomas.
So it mentions it in here.
I'm at a quinceanera dance at the American Legion
Hall in St. Gabriel.
My cousin's, one of Tio Chico's daughters, I'm older,
married with a child, and dressed
in plain shirt and pants.
Hair is shortened.
Not much to show for what I had been through only a short time
earlier.
I step outside to take in some air.
I lean against a parked sedan, looking
at the stars, which seem extraordinarily
large and bright this evening.
Just then, a short figure, wobbling with a kind of limp,
moves toward me.
He has a blue beanie cap over his head,
and the dark hooded sweatshirt.
"You Chin DeLomas?"
Says the figure.
I don't recognize him.
Not even the voice, which wraps as much as it slurs--
no pangs of familiarity.
"I guess I am, but it's been a long time since anyone's
called me that," I said.
"You're going to die."
"What are you talking about?"
"You thought you killed me, but you didn't," the dude
says, hauntingly measuring every word.
"I took all your shanks.
Eight of them right here."
He lifts up the sweatshirt.
A ghastly number of scars traverse his torso.
A plastic bag is strapped at his side to hold his urine.
"You did this to me.
Look hard, you did this."
"You got it wrong, Chava, it wasn't me."
"Sure, I heard it before.
I know who did this, and you're going to pay."
From the side, emerged to other guys Healthy and strong,
looking like street--
although a lot younger than the both of us.
"Chava, listen," I say, "I heard about what happened that night,
but I wasn't there.
For some time now, I've been working my way
out of a useless existence.
Now I found something to live for.
Bigger than you and me.
Bigger than Lomas and Sangra.
You don't want me."
Chava gets closer, alcohol on his breath.
I can see tears forming in his eyes.
"Lomas did this.
Somebody has to pay," he yells while pulling off
the beanie cap, revealing the misshapen head
with scattered slivers of hair.
The scars on his body don't compare to those on his head
and the side of his face.
"Look what you did to me.
Somebody has to pay for this," he repeats.
He is so disturbed I can see him pulling out a knife
and stabbing me, just to solve his pain.
I look at the guys next to me, and they
strike me as too young and inexperienced to act.
I keep talking, "There's some things to fight for.
Some things to die for.
But not this, Chava.
You're alive.
I feel for you, man, but you're alive.
Don't waste the rest of your days with this hate.
What's revenge?
What can you get by getting to me?
I'm the least of your enemies.
It's time to let it go.
Time to go on with your life.
Chava begins to shudder--
to utter something.
A guttural sound rising to his throat.
A hideous moan.
I think he's trying to cry, but it's hard to tell.
I don't know what to do, So I pull him close to me.
He twists away.
The dudes to the side look lost.
Not knowing their next move-- unprepared for what follows.
I again pull at Chava and hold him.
He breaks down.
A flood of fermented rage seeping out of every pore.
If I thought my life could cleanse you
of the hurt, of the memory, I would open up my shirt
and let you take it from me.
But it won't.
We're too much the same now, Chava.
Let it all out, man, let it out.
I hold Chava as if he were cornmeal in my arms.
Then pity overwhelms me.
This complicated affection, which
cuts across the clear cut states of being we'd rather seek.
Here's friend.
Here's enemy.
Here's sadness.
Here's happiness.
Here's right.
Here's wrong.
Pity draws from all these opposing elements,
and courses through me like an uncooked stew.
Mixing and confusing the paradoxes.
Because now, this man--
I once admired, if not revered, I once feared, if not hated--
stands here.
A fragment of the race.
Drunk.
Agonized.
Crushed.
And I can't hate them anymore.
I can't see him as the manifestation of craziness
and power he once possessed.
He's a caricature.
An aberration, but also more like me--
capable of so much ache beneath the exterior
of so much strength.
And after an internal minute, Chava pushes me away.
Wipes his face with his soiled sleeve and then turns.
The dudes next to us don't seem to know what to do but follow.
I see Chava hobble away.
Two confused teenagers at his side.
And as he vanishes into a flicker of neon,
I hear the final temple of the crazy life leave my body.
The last song before the dying.
Lapsing forever out of mind.
As Chaba disappears, enveloped in flames.
Breaking through the asphalt. Rested
into the black heart of night.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you thank you.
[APPLAUSE]