>> Alright.
I'm really delighted that you're all here and that we have
such a good crowd to welcome Juan Felipe Herrera.
I want to make a few announcements before we get started.
We do have books for sale tonight.
We have Juan Felipe's books and we also have Margarita Luna Robles's book Triptych;
dreams, lust and other performances.
A few copies remaining for sale.
Margarita will be reading tomorrow night at Pima College, West Campus,
at the Center for the Arts, but you can get a little preview if you get that book tonight.
Juan Felipe Herrera's books of poetry include Rebozos of Love, Exiles of Desire, Face Games,
which won the Before Columbus American Book Award --
And two new books coming out from Broken Moon Press.
Indian Journeys, which will be a collection of essays and New and Selected Poems.
He has an MFA from the University of Iowa.
Surprising?
You might think.
As well as an MA in Anthropology from Stanford.
He's had two NEA fellowships in poetry,
four California Arts Council Artist Awards, many other awards and honors.
His theater work includes the founding of a multimedia performance troupe in Los Angeles
and a performance percussion ensemble in the Bay Area.
He's also done work in theater and performance, most recently Dream Boxer, Free the Living,
Find the Dead and the 1989 Bay Area Earthquake and Prison Journal and the Mural
of the Innocent, at the 1990 Iowa Playwrights Festival.
We fans of writing like the impossible.
We admire those who put into words what we thought was inexpressible.
When Felipe does that, his work combines compassionate political commitment
and the wild imagination of surrealism,
as fluidly as it combines the Spanish and English languages.
We're very happy that he's with us tonight.
Please, welcome Juan Felipe Herrera.
>> Alright.
Thank you very much.
Muchas gracias.
How you all doing?
¿Cómo están?
Beautiful.
You look great.
Let me have a little bit tequilita.
Be right there.
It's good.
Tucson style.
I'm really happy to see you and I want to thank Alison Deming for inviting me
and the Poetry Center for inviting me.
I want to thank all of you for being here tonight, for bringing your --
[Inaudible] your visions and your hearts and your warmth and your spirits.
Muchas gracias.
Thank you.
It's great for me to be here.
I just spent a year in Southern Illinois, in Carbondale, en Carbondale --
And it was a wild -- It was a wild moment.
It was a wild moment.
Let's talk about it, let's talk about it sometime.
And I'm back in Fresno town, in Big Fresno, en el Valle de San Joaquin, in San Joaquin Valley
and teaching a storm up there and it's going great.
I have like 180 students.
And so, we do a lot of stuff.
A little bit of theater, a little bit of teatro, a little bit of writing,
a little bit of Historia and Culture.
And I'll be happy to share that with you too.
I'm happy to see so many of my friends I haven't seen for years, in some cases decades,
and it's a special moment for me.
In the other cases, maybe the last 10 years I haven't seen of my friends that are here tonight
and all of you that I don't know, I'm glad to meet you.
It's a pleasure to meet you.
Muchas gracias.
Again, I want to thank all of you.
And let me backup a step because I do want to thank --
I do want to thank everything and everybody.
I do want to thank the sky, for giving me light; I want to thank the earth, for giving me roots;
I want to thank the winds for bringing me dreams and I want to thank the fires
for bringing me warmth and color.
Alright.
Let's get our voices going here.
You know, let's get our voices going here.
Everybody say Tucson.
>> Tucson.
>> Alright.
Everybody say guaca.
>> Guaca.
>> Everybody say mole.
>> Mole.
>> Guaca.
>> Alright.
Yeah.
Well, let me tell you guacamole, I discovered this in Bisbee.
Guacamole really is the original form of kryptonite and it really is.
So let's get into language.
Let's get into some terms and I want to invite you to fall in with me, feel free to fall in,
feel free to savor the language and the letters, las letras and the inventions.
This is notes on other Chicana and Chicano inventions,
for all middle school teachers and bilingual teacher aids.
Let's give them a big hand.
Let's give them a hand.
One of my friends, [inaudible] Negrete from Chicago said "You know,
I could've gone to college, if it wasn't for high school."
Notes on other Chicana and Chicano inventions.
Like I said, cilantro aftershave.
I used to hang out.
I still hang out at San Diego High.
I was a downtown boy.
I was a Logan Heights Barrio boy.
I was a tortilleria boy.
The best smells are in tortillerias.
It's not Max Factor [phonetic].
It's not fabergé.
It's not minotaur.
Es en la tortillería.
So I thought about what could be the really coolest cologne to take to school, you know?
To splash on.
And I figured, there it is.
It's got to be cilantro.
Ese Chicano Irish four leaf clover.
That's what it is.
Hominy and peanut butter burritos.
If you're from Tucson, you know what I'm talking about.
Sandwiches.
Sardinas con ketchup.
As you can tell, I believe in very plain poetry.
I'm not going to mention the lowrider.
Actually created in Tijuas.
Everybody say Tijuas.
>> Tijuas.
>> That's right.
En Tijuana, in the 40s, José Samuel Flores told me mecánico de primera.
He was a really first-class mechanic.
Huevos for empacho and mal ojo, alright?
If you ever get mal ojo, that little evil eye comes crawling out of that left hand corner
of the street or out of your literature book.
Or you get empacho, this ashen column of smoke comes roaring at you
when you open the door one morning and it just --
It just stops you and your lungs freeze up on you?
Well, there's ways to cure that.
Plantillas for bad fiebres.
How many people have had plants?
It is a really coolest way to kill a fever.
It's really cool.
You take off all your clothes --
-- your mom puts hog lard on on your entire body --
-- mixed in with bicarbonate soda.
Then your mom wraps you up with the latest newspaper, takes three ply string and ties it
around you, so that the newspaper won't fall off while you're sleeping.
And then in the morning, you wake up, you go "Hey, I'm cool.
I ain't go no fever anymore.
I'm back to basics."
Bendiciones for a good day, migajón for enojo, arroz con leche with pasas,
ponches de huevo con canela, the art of eating Vick's vaporub with your dedos.
You ever tried that before an exam?
The art of sucking an egg without breaking the shell.
Hey, let me tell you, the art is splashing yourself with alcohol en ruda.
Have you ever seen your mom splash herself with alcohol olive she's splashing herself?
That's an art.
Sobadas. Everybody say sobadas.
>> Sobadas.
>> Aceitadas.
>> Hueseras.
>> Curanderos.
>> Mamberos.
>> Merengadas.
>> Tepaches.
>> Tardeadas.
>> Lunadas.
>> Y barbequiadas.
>> You got it.
You got it.
Jalapenos in a Circle K bag.
When Christmas time comes around, my cuñado Louis [phonetic] told me about this
because you can use this line, Juan Felipe.
You can use this line on the 12 Days of -- Jalapenos on a Circle K bag.
So I give it to you.
I give it to you.
This Christmas, when it comes around, you are going to all be chanting
out there jalapenos on a Circle K bag.
How to wear your khakis high up to your chin without chopping your nachas.
Right? How to roll up your Catholic pleated skirt and look favorable.
How to make braids out of anything.
Masa, calcetines, socks.
How to take a two by four and make skate surfboards.
You've seen your grandpa out there bla, bla, bla, bla.
What are you doing grandpa?
Shh, muchacho.
I'm making a Hobie surfboard.
Right? I am from San Diego, you know?
[Inaudible], took my big [inaudible] for surfboard.
Get out of my way, sucker.
How to make parches and remendadas and empanadas de camote.
How to make velas take your prayers to the universe,
how to make salsa with stones, fire and boxwood.
How to make the [inaudible] say por favor; sí, señor; sí, señora.
See those little trained chickens in the backyard?
Little workshop.
Little chicken workshop.
How to feed the cat steak con papas; beef, fries and espinaca.
You ever tried espinaca?
Everybody say espinaca.
>> Espinaca
>> Isn't that bit spinach?
Espinaca. We can feed the cat espinaca.
How to bang on the roof to get the tapa de la olla down.
If you ever get to the tapa to your olla that you cook in the big tapa and you get it on top
of the roof, there's a way to get it down.
Just bang on.
How to get your hair high up so it looks like a tipi.
That's right.
The word machaca, everybody.
Machaca. The word fayuquero.
Fayuquero.
The word garabato.
Garabato. The word chocholucos.
>> Chocholucos.
>> The word brecas.
>> Brecas.
>> The word chorreadas.
>> Chorreadas.
>> The word apestosidad.
>> Apestosidad.
>> Your mom comes in the door and you're doing something, I don't know what you're doing,
you kind of let go, you free yourself up, you got a spiritual connection that afternoon.
And your mom goes --
-- what's that apestosidad?
Alright? The word huevonetes, everybody.
>> Huevonetes.
>> You got it.
The word achicopalado.
>> Achicopalado.
>> Do you feel achicopalado?
Do you feel achicopalado?
Achicopalada?
You need therapy?
The word mixteada.
Mixteada. You got it all mixed up, right?
The word verruga.
>> Verruga.
>> The word estinche.
>> Estinche.
>> Yeah. And code words like caldo.
>> Caldo.
>> Code words like pelotas.
>> Pelotas.
>> Code words like ojos de rata.
>> Ojos de rata.
>> Geeh, mom.
I don't know about Frankie.
Well, what is it, Cheryl [phonetic]?
Well, mom, you know, Frankie, he's ok.
>> Oh, yeah.
That's right, Cheryl.
He's, you know, he's at Tucson High and he's got straight As.
Yeah, mom, but he's got ojos de rata.
Phrases like "You better wash those dishes, Juan, or I'll give you a guamazo."
Phrases like "I said, wash those trastes o te tuerzo el hocico, boy."
You know I mess around in Tucson.
Phrases like "You better not hang around with that bola de marihuanos o arranco
that branch off el árbol y te curo las sentaderas."
Phrases like "Keep on painting your carota de chancla like that and you're going
to get granotes the size of a calabaza, you hear it, escuincla?"
Those are some of the Notes on Chicana and Chicano inventions for all of you.
I really enjoyed myself today speaking with a number of the students from the writing workshop
and a number of the writers outside the writing workshop and artists
and playwrights and performers and dancers.
I had a great time.
And I just want you to know you have a lot of good people here and they're full of energy
and I would love to live here and hang out with them.
They're doing great things.
This is Chicano literature 100.
First of all you're not going to find this stuff at the mall.
In one of those flashy pendejadas' shops.
Maybe you'll have to quiet yourself down, listen to yourself.
Trae pintura for a few days, maybe weeks.
Take rainy walks, make small mirrors,
[inaudible] the front yarda, listen to the [inaudible].
Speak, do it for your abuelita if she still lives.
Do it without berrinches.
Dig a black dirt on the trail in the forest.
Carry twisted wood and leave it at the edge of the road, with good words between you
and the squirrel behind the trees.
Go back. Find the seed voices, the ones that raised you, the letters that arrived
with [inaudible] red blue spirit, the ancient songs deep inside.
That's - It's for you.
It's all for you.
Cry like a man, carnal.
Days after my mother died, Margarita said "She was all you had."
No brothers --
-- no sister, no father.
Believe me, I hadn't even thought about it.
I was busy with the veils in my head.
The poetry and the community thing.
Just went on teaching at Deanza Community College,
until the day came when she couldn't breathe.
I was numb, stone-like inside.
After I left the San Jose Hospital, on 14th Street, 11:45 p.m. A Thursday, last Thursday,
en Julio, 1986, Margarita came back.
You know, [inaudible], el japonés,
the one always saying fuck this, fuck that at the office.
You know, the tough vato who wears sandals to work?
You should have seen the day his jefita passed away.
In front of everybody, he cried like a baby.
A night later, I invited a few friends.
Barlo [phonetic] and my tía Albina, who I hadn't seen in years,
since you moved to Santa Clara when my tío Beto was alive, each one spoke in the narrow circle.
Barlo read a poem and it was the first time I ever heard my tía Albina talk about my mother.
When it was my turn, next to my mother's ashes, at the open center,
believe me, camaradas, I began to cry.
This was my beginning.
John [phonetic] Estrada throws -- His white folklórico botas on.
Throwing chingasos.
Throwing gatos.
Throwing chingasos.
You know what throwing chingasos is?
It's kind of [inaudible] and fighting it out.
Just throwing the chingasos.
So this is John Estrada, throwing chingasos with his white folklórico -- I translate it.
Botas on.
Estrada was a güero from [inaudible], a Chicano with a cara de leche.
He even wore botas blancas in Emilio Pulido's ballet.
When we ate lonche next to Campbell Hall at UCLA,
he'd go around with a black wrestling máscara, sneaking up on gente.
Boo, Carnal!
He'd say. Boo, Mr. Aslan [phonetic]!
All the Chicano studies and PhD bofos would laugh at him.
Ha-he-he-ha-ha!
The day we shut down the University, Black Student Union, SDS, would back up and marched
down to the administration quebrando ventanas, slamming outside of the center of [inaudible],
next to Haines hall, we saw Estrada raising la bandera.
Yeah, he was raising la bandera, our bandera, taking down the other one, throwing chingasos,
getting it done with his white folklórico botas on.
Alright. That's for you.
That's for you.
You know, you know how it is, you know how it feels to be in the plantation.
Whatever ilk, gender orientation, or formation it may be --
- and it's nice to break out of that.
So I dedicate that poem to all of you.
This one is called mocos.
I just sent this to a publisher and she said "Oh, this is a great piece.
We're going to publish it in the Fall."
But, you know what?
I don't think she knows what mocos means.
But she doesn't know it means snot.
Stands for Mexicans or Chicanos or something.
That's the way I put it.
"Oh, we're going to publish it this Fall."
I could never figure it out.
What was it?
This funny cilantro shave [inaudible] popping out of my chest.
Feels like when you swallow a hard ripped tortilla chip and it jams in your throat.
So you flex your throat, muscles, you push it down like a boa because you're starved.
You by the flared [inaudible] way down, but instead of smoothing, the pain sharpens.
The chip inflates, jams up again.
Around this thoracic area, creates its own habitat, lives there a bit.
Turns into a reddish chrome plate piece.
Then you're in the Mexican Badlands, the Chicano [inaudible] shithole,
the Kafkian one-room apartment where there's a Catholic bag of crazy apple skulls,
ready to come flying at your cockroach armored back skin.
What do I call myself here?
Wittgenstein [phonetic] couldn't even figure out what he was feeling
when he tightened his fingers and folded his palm into a fist.
Was is temperature?
He asked. Position?
Centrality?
Was it clarity?
Was it Mayan?
Was it eastern clouds with serpentine illumination?
What? In the Autumn of 67, the best I could do was [inaudible]
to Beverly Hills whenever possible, run into Saks Fifth Avenue,
treat myself to an Italian long sleeve shirt.
No one expects this.
None of my revolutionary friends would ever imagine me going
up to the second floor perishing in the men's section.
This has always been my weak side.
I admit it.
Fine Italian shirts with radiant coloration, sweaters with an oval neck design, thick weaves
and ultramarine for pants, cherry red, extra thick corduroy and, on occasion, right?
Pinstripes, cinnamon brown stove pipes.
I got this from the Rolling Stones.
Brian Jones always wore that.
One time, I switched my Star Wars see-through purple shirt
that my novia Carol made from women's maternity fabric.
My pants were purple too I was in a groove, in the Autumn of 67.
The only thing that caught me by surprise was Carlos Chavez, a movimiento buddy,
stabbed in Venice Beach, got in a bad brawl with some beach dopers.
Cut bad grass with too much sugar.
Came back to our path five minutes from the piers,
pushing into his distorted stomach, tucking back his tripas.
Late night steak sandwiches, washed down with -- A favorite treat at La casa naca,
our Chicano path in Venice, the sangria Hector Leon made was the best.
Want to let you in on that.
Especially if he was in one of his furious redemption moods.
Hector had a holly streak.
He that was stoned on Hieronymus Bosch or Jesus Christ, but you could always count on Hector
to give you the right red feeling for the rest of the day.
Hector missed his father.
I was talked about him, cried sometimes, said he never met him.
His mother had raised him alone in the City of Commerce,
an industrial plutonium pit in the middle of LA.
Hector carried a tiny silver chain around his neck with a locket,
where he kept a miniature photo of his dad.
I don't think he ever saw or heard from him in all his 17 years.
It drove Hector to a higher level.
Would go up to his pet on Wilshire, smoke up and follow Bosch into a mullet draped woods,
creep into the shattered eggshell [inaudible] that lived there, broken and one-eyed.
When he made sangria in our kitchen, slamming cut oranges and grapes
into one filled tin bucket, he let his mouth hang open and he would hunch up
and mumble words out like "Pura piña.
Te voy a curar.
Somos mazatecas.
La liberación is in your mouth, carnal."
I stretched back.
Carlos got stabbed the same night when I had wolfed an extra large bag of raw walnuts.
It's so many nights I had to walk five miles to ease a stone pain
in my rib cage area, walked all the way to Malibu.
On the way back, I found out about Carlos and then about another carnal,
a Jewish vato named Stein [phonetic].
Stein's favorite saying was "If you're not on the bus, you're off the bus."
If you're not on the bus, you're off the bus.
His face was washed white, his eyes in a spin, told me there was a guy ODed in his tub,
said he tried the cold water thing but it didn't work on the bluish body.
He knew this guy, Stein said.
He was a member of Life Force [phonetic] Student Collective in Santa Monica.
I had just visited Life Force a few times, after I had broken
up with my wife who was also Jewish.
She had moved out of Venice and joined them for a semester.
They were [inaudible] bathrooms, [inaudible] bedmates, carrot juice,
tahini banana sandwiches, refrigerated billboards, detailing chores
and holding intense critique sessions on God, jealousy, fear of the body and political action.
Usually they held these wraps and yoga lotus sitting postures, under large canopies,
[inaudible] boutique sheets in the living room, candles and [inaudible] beans
and small plates on the carpet floors.
I recognize the temperature.
The internal helix, the clarity of the ocean alphabet, the distance
and the proximity of the cloud people.
I was Mexican, the same way [inaudible] was Mexican.
I was Mexican Mexican or Chicano the same way Wittgenstein was Mexican or Chicano.
It was all about his gesture, his search for the feeling when he was pressed,
when he's pressed his skin against the skin.
What was it?
He asked. What was it?
I left home many years ago.
I was living now in a while City Rampage with the cool bass riff underneath.
All I had left were the fast colors, flaring and scaring flying on my Kawasaki,
in my 59 flared Mercury without windows, an oval steering wheel melted
down from going too deep into Arizona on a love chase.
At a love chase after Margarita del Toboso [phonetic] who was hold
up in a village a few miles from Prescott, a tiny 13 family town
on the [inaudible] slope of the Tonto forest.
I found her two decades later, but she was in San José.
All I had were just a few numbers to play with, a few oblong packs of edgy phrases
and a [inaudible] portion of a tiny bridge, the one I reached
but I jump-started the Kawasaki, an American bridge.
I think all of us wanted to get across this busted bridge line.
Behind us, America; in front of us, America.
Maybe the greater questions had to do with the bridge itself.
What was it made out of?
How many could it hold?
Why was it burning so fast?
Red, yellow, red, red.
You got to mess with the space up here, you know?
You got to mess with the space.
It'll take over.
I don't know what to read now.
The podium has taken over.
You got to mess with it.
You got to change it.
You got to jumpstart the baby somehow.
Alright. I believe in traveling.
I believe in journeys.
I believe in crossing lines.
I believe in busting wires.
I believe in walking and stomping and flaring and double popping and flex strutting.
And this thing takes place --
-- 1978, in the Mexico City ways.
Downtown, on the [inaudible] -- San Juan de Letrán, in the middle of the park,
el Parque Alameda, with the big hotels and fancy colors and statues
and Carrera marble allegiances, with bright colors, candy apple red
and bright watermelon pink, guacamole green, lime green, pineapple yellow -
And there's a meditation on that space,
where a Mexican actress named Lupe Velez traversed at one point.
She came up North, made it to Hollywood and hit the big movies, the big screen.
And then, she committed suicide, back in time.
One of those beauties, one of those beauties.
You ever looked at the 30s cinema, albums?
Those kind of faces, those kind of images, kind of projections.
Suicide in Hollywood, Lupe Velez, Serigrafía de una actriz mexicana.
Let's listen to the sounds and then we'll listen to the resounds.
El tráfico en San Juan de Letrán corta lunares de blusas suspiros de llantas transparentes
asfalto desmembrado la mano de un bolero derrama grasa sobre suelas de piel de árbol lleno de
bocinas untando sombra sobre un manicomio de colibríes y se pierde en los cines de piernas
enredadas las medias rayando ramas de saliva y humo en el vientre de bailarinas negras.
Las tardes se hunden.
Nubes rodando sobre rehiletes hambrientos párpados en el rebozo de la muchacha hincada al
lado de la taquillera, la escurre,
hierve por las sienes de los amantes los bancos verdes de la Alameda, se ríen.
Lupe, quedaste en un escusado ahogada la última escena de tu garganta,
frente a un pequeño auditorio de blancas tejas, sin luz.
¿Es posible volver a tu pasado?
Carteles y sonrisas extravagantes sadistas y tarzanes columpiándose entre venas púrpuras de
tus sábanas desparramadas por las calles,
moribunda por un cosmético secreto espeso el perfume de llantos en vasos amarillos y
cigarros, quemándose en tus brazos el sol americano,
encajando el esperma en tu espalda morena y la cajera de teatro pide dólares para que todos se
olviden de tus hombros eternos,
en taxis nocturnos de esmalte monopolio de películas y espejos que nunca pudieron asesinar
tus ojos negros.
The traffic in San Juan de Letrán cuts beauty marks from blouses size.
From transparent tires broken pavement the hand of a shoeshine boy pours grease on soles
of tree leather covered with honking horns that smear shade over a madhouse of hummingbirds
and you're lost in theaters of tangled legs your stockings running branches of spit and smoke
in the bellies of black ballerinas.
The afternoons are sinking, clouds wheeling over hungry arrows, eyelids on the rebozo
of the girl kneeling beside the ticket booth.
The Moon oozes, boils up in the breasts of lovers.
On the green benches of the Alameda, they're laughing.
Lupe, you were left drowned in a toilet,
last scene in your throat facing a little audience of white tiles, lightless.
Can you go back to your past?
Posters and smiles, sadistic extravaganzas and Tarzans swinging among purple veins
of your sheets scattered through the streets dying for a secret.
Cosmetic thick with the scent of weeping and yellow vases and cigarettes.
Burning out your arms, the American sun shoving the sperm onto your brown back
and the cashier asking for dollars so everyone can forget your deathless shoulders
and nocturnal taxis of enamel a monopoly of movies and mirrors
that could never murder your black eyes.
How are you all doing?
Feel good?
Doing alright?
Good, good, good.
You look good, you look good.
Thank you.
You want to switch gears?
So into another terrain?
Want to go to another terrain?
Let's go into another terrain.
Let's go into --
Speckled with razor.
For Arturo Islas.
In memory.
Open, now, I say.
Twisted bare knuckles, speckled with razor, complexions, moons for lemon crates,
tent flaps in a stranger's backyard there is no pain to learn from, to admonish.
Perhaps, the pain of God.
This [inaudible] of holy virgin draperies, my velvet sister on the tree shaws, this is all.
Lion tamer canopies, hushed battle cries frozen in the forearm.
Oh, the [inaudible] cargo.
Tiny human dolls in a pheasant trench coat for men.
His looking glass wife.
I live uphill.
The past card, I carry.
Take the [inaudible], listen.
Its carnival brain sings me, radish [inaudible] sway me.
A makeshift sky lifts me.
Let me switch back to - To Songs for homeboys and homegirls.
Ok? Alright.
And, you know, I was kind of tired of that [inaudible] --
-- world.
That occipital resting place.
That terminator quixotic line break life --
-- I was tired of those things.
I wanted some guacamole.
I wanted some sour cream on my nose.
I wanted to spill some salsa.
I want to slap cilantro on my face.
I was tired of that the quixotic, melancholic terminator line break world.
La Cocina keeps you warm for the road ahead.
That's right.
That's what it is.
La Cocina will keep you warm.
No, it will.
Frijoles, the reddish ones with chile colorado, cilantro, the leafy kind that shoots
up in the garden, smells like earth mixed with perfumed rain.
Wish I could use it as an aftershave.
Huevos revueltos, giving steam full of blessings,
sound of water splashing from the sink.
In the morning, pafritas, turn them over gently, so they won't break and turn into white mole.
Turn them despacito, so it won't burn.
Careful con la grasa.
It has to be just right or will go right through your pantalones and then you'll have to scrub.
Cafe in a glass jar, an old jar with the label washed out.
A jar once used for mermelada or peanut butter.
Pour the cafe in, black, talking back with vapor on your face, warm, soft on your skin
and give a good portion of leche from the carton on the little table full of triques.
It's alright.
Wrap your hand on a tortilla con mantequilla and pinch the chunky salt,
for the road ahead think good things as you hold the botana on your hands,
think of early morning rain, wet campos, clouds parting with blue light,
as you pull the mantequilla and taste a cafe.
When you take the frijoles from the sarten, tranquilo.
Lift the handle, remember?
Your mother, remember your father, remember all of them with you.
Ask the universe for a full life.
Let the cocina keep you warm for the road ahead.
[Inaudible] going to the cocina right now.
How you doing?
Let me check in with you one more time.
I want to name you some titles and you tell me which title tickles you, alright?
From middle English to high cilantro.
[Inaudible] serás.
Anybody want any?
Dr. Loco in The Rocking Jalapeño Band.
Carnal odas at the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival.
Joe Costello told me about peaches.
Albert King drives my ranfla.
And last but not least watering cebolla while my father burns leña.
Which one you want?
Rock and roll?
Dr. Loco? Ok.
You all know Dr. Loco?
Alright. You must know Dr. Loco.
He's a cool cat.
He's a good buddy.
He's a good friend, carnal.
Alright. I'm going to do my little Tai Chi thing here with you.
Everybody raised their hand.
Everybody stretched.
Let's do it together.
Alright. Wow, look at that.
Alright. Split them out.
Wow, yeah.
There you go.
Modern dance.
Alright.
This is for José Cuellar and the [inaudible] jalapenos.
José Cuellar and the [inaudible] jalapenos.
Dr. Loco and the Rockin jalapeno band, smooth my soul in the bosom of Azlan [phonetic].
That's the title.
Ok? Take it all the way to Modesto, California.
Haven't seen Dr. Loco for a while.
Before we left Fresno, had barbecue beef on buns, filled up the tanque for the dance,
get there, park la ranfla, a 95 Mazda Marlene smashed up in Iowa City.
Pos, where's the gente?
I asked [inaudible].
Tranquilo, she says.
Two hours early, Carnal.
Alright. I get a little white plate of chips, watery salsa and a Coca,
so I can fine ride, do my famous spins --
When I get there, I would answer.
When I stop, the truck stop.
One hour and Dr. Loco rolls in.
I'd be ready like the camaron in the tuxedo.
Maybe he'll play chile pie.
You know chile pie?
Chile, chile pie.
Alright. Alright.
I feel chingón.
Maybe he'll play I feel chingón, a James Brown piece.
I feel chingón.
I grew up in San Diego.
I grew up two blocks from the Rhythm Room, downtown, 12th Street Broadway
and James Brown used to come by and do his thing.
So I remember James Brown.
He put the Mambo inside your Rambo, until you can't get out.
He'll snake the Cumbia through your tumba,
make your tia Chole do the Rumba in her Católica socks.
He will shake it at your neck and bolera you're soltero, you're ranchera, your pasteles
and cha, cha, cha, your huesos crueles.
Toda la banda will come up, throw down their pocho riffs
on our comales, going to let myself out again.
Feed on el arroz de la batería, el mole del [inaudible],
el spaghetti chiflado de la guitarra, la [inaudible], the rest of the bola
in black smoke dress tuttos porcos [phonetic].
Have you looked at those sideways?
They turn red.
Oh, we're going to be ready.
To spill our [inaudible] so we can continue with the soul, rock and roll,
this dance light that belongs to us, that is given.
From middle English to high cilantro.
This is for those involved in the literary endeavor.
This is for those involved in the literary endeavor and I know that all of you are involved
in this vision, this literary multitrack of awareness and --
-- belle lettre.
This vision urn shaped, bowl of consciousness.
That we must disseminate, generate, multiply, integrate throughout the southlands, eastlands,
the westlands and the northlands.
I know we are all part of this struggle.
I know what's in your hearts.
I know the word is central to your being and to your existence.
So therefore, I dedicate to you this - These laydown projects.
Enterprise that has been laying in a guacamole fashion on my table.
For cocido, I [inaudible], when I have no sandwiches or bolillos, I trespass your stem.
In the [inaudible], you provide hidden perfumes, open my nostrils --
This, I say, is soul.
My duty to thy [inaudible] guisados forever, my lady.
My kingdom and carne asada ashes, all for thee.
In thy plenitude tortillaso, let the knight of Arthurian ham enter and I will slay him
down with his humble virile verdolaga.
My [inaudible] steep in your caldo --
Crucifictions upon burguer.
Crucifictions upon pound of [inaudible] burguer.
All for not.
All for eternal guacamole hell!
You are alone in your espinaca fluorescence hail.
Hail, I say.
Let us ride in low ranfla.
And [inaudible] up spirits [inaudible] in raza flavor [inaudible].
Thank you.
Oh, yes. Yes.
The literary endeavor has taken us to interesting places.
This is a -- This is -- I wanted to do this.
I wanted to show you this next piece.
It's a few pages from a longer piece called True people.
I haven't come up with a super title but that's what it is.
It's about going to the southlands, it's about crossing the borders, breaking the borders
and going back to the South, the south in Mexico.
It seems that every South is invisible in the media.
It seems that every South is under guard, under siege.
So I wanted to go back to the South.
So I did. I got on a plane, then I got on a couple of Volkswagen buses and taxis and made it
to Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico, right next to Guatemala.
And I wanted to go into the Indian towns, I wanted to go into those towns
that I know are part of me and I'm part of them, that they have contributed to who I am
and what I am, that they have informed my soul and my spirit; what I eat,
what I see, how I think and how I dream.
And I wanted to get back there.
I didn't know what to say or what to do.
I don't know what I was going to do with my words, with my eyes,
with my hands, with my feet or with my heart.
I just knew I had to go South.
I had to just get back.
So this is what this is and I wanted to visit distant relatives
and I want to get closer to them.
And right now we're -- On this section, we're in San Cristobal de las Casas,
one of the [inaudible] in the state of Chiapas and, of course,
the capital being Tuxtla Gutierrez.
But the actual old capitol today's called San Cristobal De Las Casas and it's surrounded
by this beautiful highlands, beautiful mountains and, in all those places,
there's a number of indigenous tribes.
And then, below those mountains, you go into the lowlands and you go into Maya country.
You go into Lacandona country.
You go into, you keep on going, you go into Quiché country in Guatemala.
And it's the last trip of rainforest that we have, as well.
I wanted to get back there, but right now I'm in San Cristobal.
It's night time.
And I've just seen a number of women come marching down the street,
Indian women from Chenahló, a small municipality in the highlands.
And they're wearing their red rebozos and they got red patterns on the rebozos
and they got dark black hair pulled back and they're walking very proudly.
And there's men behind them.
They're at the frontline and the men are playing guitars, and there's corridos and there's
up beat up saxophones and beat up trumpets just joining in.
And, behind them, there's the entire pueblo.
Behind them men with [inaudible] hats and nylon hats and women with ruffled dresses and sandals
and barefoot and choppy faces and burnt faces, and high cheekbones and eagle eyes.
And they're all marching down the street and they're carrying this big estandarte
of the Virgen de Guadalupe, they're carrying the Mexico flag
and they're carrying the big old sign that says Chenalhó, [inaudible] about their pueblos
and I'm just standing on the corner.
Just standing on the corner not knowing what to do, what to say, where to go, what's going on.
This is the multitrack of unknown numbers, realities, red rebozos and violence
in the raging semi [inaudible] continue.
The women from Chenalhó -- For the march.
Their dark foreheads lead them to el plantón de la catedral
and their scarves [inaudible] in the late afternoon winds.
They multiply.
Their bodies and arms spread and disperse into each one of our souls and memories.
Viva Rigoberta Menchú with crossed arms and staunch hearts.
They are young and barefoot, combed in stern, full of compassion
and terrible pictures held tight in their braided hair.
They are the braided spirits of Doña Petrona Chona whose body was cut into 25 pieces
by the machete bodyguard of a finca landowner in Guatemala,
pieces that Rigoberta Menchu's father placed in a basket.
Petrona Chona shreded into small pieces,
can yield flesh because she didn't permit Carlos Garcia, the landowner's son, to rape her.
Petrona in pieces comes back to us this afternoon.
Her head, her arms and hands, her legs and thighs, her belly and her breasts,
she's woven back -- Through stone, through national borders and borderguard time.
She has come back to the valley of machetes, broken galeras and fincas and is present
in the sudden multitude calling out for justice.
Petrona Chona is leading the march with her Mayan sisters and brothers.
This is why people stare.
This is why we stop breathing.
The Indian women hear no, Petrona Chona did not die in vain.
They know the women of Chenalhó were not raped and wounded in vain.
What about us?
The onlookers, the note takers, the accountants, the bookkeepers and anthropological shadows?
What do we know?
What taste burns in our mouth?
Who is hidden behind inside the tops and bridelocks of our hair?
What pictures fall from our heads on to the Public Square in such a loud and loving fashion?
The Indian women and men gather at the open square facing the entrance of the church.
I stand at the back, sit down and smoke.
A few of the men [inaudible] young man burned by the sun, looking ahead at the archaic
and sealed doors of the cathedral,
where the leaders raise los estandartes de la Virgen de Guadalupe,
the mexican flag [inaudible] red and gilded cloth on sticks.
The rest of us stand in front.
About a hundred or so and around us another two hundred.
Children run about, their mothers bring out food stuff
from their [inaudible] and they hand them out to eat.
A voice in tzotzil comes to us from the speakers.
Ahead, I can see the speaker.
He's a young tzotzil man kneeling at the foot of la Virgen.
His voice carries a cavernous tenderness.
It is slow, then quick.
He's singing almost but he is beseeching the pueblos of Mayan Indians before him.
He's naming the raped, the innocent.
He's crying out and his voice is shaking.
He's crying out with one arm holding the estandarte of la virgen
and the other down, still, his chest.
I don't know his words, but I can feel the pain and I slowly stand and walk up closer.
A woman with a child to my right and a tall man wearing white to my left, the voice trembles
and I raise my head to see the others.
Their heads are down as they listen, crying out with their brother
for the families stricken once again.
The other two estandartes are held by women who lift the rebozo to the face with a free arm,
so they can carry and cry on to themselves.
The whole plaza is mourning the dead.
The men, all the women, all the children are in tears.
I let my crying take me to their crying and envelop me in their weeping.
This is one thing I can do.
And it comes up without question or analysis, without notes or reflections.
I am singing with my Indian sisters and brothers.
I am singing for the dead and wounded and for the transformation into fullness and freedom.
When a woman takes the microphone, after the man can no longer go on, she begins.
Her voice is determined, clear.
She says in Spanish that tonight there will be a gathering
for the Indian pueblos inside the church quarters.
She speaks with her head up and her shoulders bright
and the thick amber doors of the church, they never open.
The Bishop never comes up.
It is as if the Indians have come to seek solace at the foot of an ancient shrine.
It is not the church itself, how could it be?
All I see are Indians standing at the gate of the church, crying, singing up
and holding up their own faith in community.
There's something that has been buried under the church, under San Cristóbal De Las Casas,
that lies here and its eyes are awake and its heart is ready to fly.
They gather their strength here.
They know, I know that the onlookers will go home with a different taste in their mouths,
with something that they have kept hidden from themselves in their mercado baskets.
I sit down again, offer cigarette to the man next to me.
They're surprised and thank me.
We sit, smoke, listen to the demands in tzotzil to the names
of the lost, the names of the determined.
Night comes to the cathedral in the center of town.
The streets are empty and a few people linger in San Cristobal.
They're no visible party palaces as in Veracruz or D.F. or the big cities.
Here the night wraps the streets and leaves a few idle wanderers smoking cigarettes
or listening to a small box radio, inside an abarrotes storefront.
That's [inaudible] stack kilos of tortillas, pan dulce, bolillos, Coke bottles, eggs,
dry chorizo on a wire [inaudible] and Mexican [inaudible].
I make another round through the quiosco, so as not to appear awkward .
I'm the only ladino man out in the street, out in the plaza, next to the church.
The tzotziles are huddled inside the back quarters of the Bishop's rectory.
They have nailed two effigies on a [inaudible] that hold up the baranda.
A small light bulb shines down on the ragged and [inaudible] figures.
[Inaudible], nightwinds in unknown languages of ascensions, they gather in the back,
ome form a line against the wall.
I step. I receive you like the Chamula cloth dolls at birth.
This [inaudible] night, the second half of the skydome.
I pledge without language, without a text, for my transformation.
You are changing before my eyes and my skin.
You, with the same bent as my mother.
You with the same crooked elbow as my father.
I receive you as I receive those that gave me birth.
I take you with your severities, with your [inaudible] landscapes of torture,
corn [inaudible], incidents and woven faces.
I received you with your nights string innocence, with your oppressors [inaudible],
knife and wooden slats as effigies, as practices to sweep the evils from your soul,
from the village of blue navals, from the iris of your mountainous village waters.
Forming before my walking, in my absence and in my presence, I would have stayed
and remained alone inside the city bank inside the fashion fair prowls.
And my escape letter suits [inaudible] with melancholy and nice intelligence.
I would have stayed in that balsa that it crumbled American pocket
of [inaudible] as in tiny furies.
At the feet of the beggar boy, I would have stayed back there in my comfort,
or in my open desert flood water volcanic midwest stone in the Land of Lincoln,
next door to Dorothy's flight to us.
I would have kept all my fine flared riding pants, my self-made quilts and tile
and tall proud notebooks and have looked elsewhere for my rain.
I would have looked elsewhere, somewhere between fanciful americanism, brown-skinned oblivion,
but I take a tiny step for a few seconds back, then forward, to persistence and memory,
through timelessness and ripped out sidewalk trails, rock and roll [inaudible],
city steam an Indian town, fungi taxis.
I [inaudible] would run into you by mistake.
I was looking for a tour, an interpreter but my suit had grown too thin and I was freezing.
I needed your smoke, your boiled wooliness, your fun, colored warmth,
your eternal half smoke ferocity face and your warrior prayer hands pointing
to the effigy on the Bishop's baranda.
I receive you without any words.
I'm still informed.
I am changing with you as you go to your [inaudible] triumph, gilded with your names
up in the sky flares, held up by the women of the villages
to continue to remember that you continue.
I go through the street of 1,000 flade hearts asking for your name but all I hear,
in the distance on this cobblestoned ribbon of Calle Diego Dugelay is music.
Muchas gracias.
Thank you very much
Thank you.
Thank you, Alison [phonetic].
Thank you, all.
Thanks to all.
Muchas gracias.