WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.050 --> 00:00:06.160 align:middle line:84% I'm going to finish with three poems which 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:08.990 align:middle line:90% have a common denominator. 00:00:08.990 --> 00:00:16.480 align:middle line:84% The common denominator is my paying homage 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:20.270 align:middle line:84% to those who have the courage to speak, 00:00:20.270 --> 00:00:25.310 align:middle line:84% even when it might cost them their lives. 00:00:25.310 --> 00:00:28.190 align:middle line:84% People who are willing to sacrifice everything 00:00:28.190 --> 00:00:29.240 align:middle line:90% for the right to speak. 00:00:29.240 --> 00:00:31.198 align:middle line:84% And of course, without those people, none of us 00:00:31.198 --> 00:00:33.550 align:middle line:90% would have anything at all. 00:00:33.550 --> 00:00:35.910 align:middle line:90% So I pay homage to them. 00:00:35.910 --> 00:00:38.250 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read three poems which 00:00:38.250 --> 00:00:42.350 align:middle line:90% take us back to Latin America. 00:00:42.350 --> 00:00:47.150 align:middle line:84% The first poem is set in Puerto Rico, in 1937. 00:00:47.150 --> 00:00:51.290 align:middle line:84% The second poem is set in Chile, in 1973. 00:00:51.290 --> 00:00:57.820 align:middle line:84% And the third poem's set in El Salvador, in 1991. 00:00:57.820 --> 00:01:02.020 align:middle line:84% The historical background for the first poem 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:06.180 align:middle line:84% is the independence movement in Puerto Rico, which 00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:10.800 align:middle line:84% reached its height in the 1930s, and was repressed 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:13.980 align:middle line:84% at the behest of President Franklin Delano 00:01:13.980 --> 00:01:17.750 align:middle line:84% Roosevelt, and Governor Blanton Winship, Governor 00:01:17.750 --> 00:01:18.620 align:middle line:90% of Puerto Rico-- 00:01:18.620 --> 00:01:19.940 align:middle line:90% good Spanish name, there. 00:01:19.940 --> 00:01:23.180 align:middle line:90% 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:25.683 align:middle line:84% He was appointed governor of the island. 00:01:25.683 --> 00:01:28.100 align:middle line:84% Puerto Ricans were not allowed to elect their own governor 00:01:28.100 --> 00:01:31.140 align:middle line:90% until after World War II. 00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:36.290 align:middle line:84% And so it was his job to put down the independence 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:37.910 align:middle line:90% movement in Puerto Rico. 00:01:37.910 --> 00:01:40.130 align:middle line:84% In 1936, the leaders of the movement 00:01:40.130 --> 00:01:41.810 align:middle line:90% were rounded up, thrown in jail. 00:01:41.810 --> 00:01:45.140 align:middle line:84% In 1937, on Palm Sunday of that year, 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:50.210 align:middle line:84% there was a march in the coastal town of Ponce, 00:01:50.210 --> 00:01:52.340 align:middle line:90% which was stopped by gunfire. 00:01:52.340 --> 00:01:54.170 align:middle line:90% People shot down in the streets. 00:01:54.170 --> 00:01:57.380 align:middle line:84% It came to be known as the Ponce Massacre. 00:01:57.380 --> 00:01:59.000 align:middle line:84% It was quite a scandal at the time. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.640 align:middle line:84% There was even a major ACLU report 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:04.190 align:middle line:84% on human rights violations coming out 00:02:04.190 --> 00:02:08.229 align:middle line:84% of the Ponce Massacre, and then it was all forgotten. 00:02:08.229 --> 00:02:11.560 align:middle line:84% I always knew that history as history. 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:14.320 align:middle line:84% But then, one day, a good friend of mine, Luis Acosta, 00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:19.780 align:middle line:84% came along and told me a story, about his mother, Nina, 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:23.710 align:middle line:84% and her lover, Pellín, and this Ponce Massacre, 00:02:23.710 --> 00:02:25.240 align:middle line:90% which gave it a human face. 00:02:25.240 --> 00:02:27.650 align:middle line:90% And I guess that's what-- 00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:30.050 align:middle line:90% "The Marchers Gathered." 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:33.500 align:middle line:84% "Nationalists mass beneath the delicate white balconies 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:37.790 align:middle line:84% of Marina Street, and the colonial governor pronounced 00:02:37.790 --> 00:02:41.600 align:middle line:90% the order with patrician calm. 00:02:41.600 --> 00:02:46.400 align:middle line:84% 50 years of family history says, it was Pellín who dipped 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.490 align:middle line:84% a finger into the bloody soup of his own body, 00:02:49.490 --> 00:02:51.890 align:middle line:84% and scratched "defiance" in jagged, 00:02:51.890 --> 00:02:55.550 align:middle line:90% wet letters on the sidewalk. 00:02:55.550 --> 00:02:58.940 align:middle line:84% Around him stormed the frenzied, clattering drumbeat 00:02:58.940 --> 00:03:02.630 align:middle line:84% of machine guns, the stampede of terrified limbs, 00:03:02.630 --> 00:03:04.730 align:middle line:84% and the panicked wail that rushed 00:03:04.730 --> 00:03:06.890 align:middle line:90% babbling past his dim senses. 00:03:06.890 --> 00:03:09.630 align:middle line:90% 00:03:09.630 --> 00:03:13.200 align:middle line:90% Palm Sunday, 1937. 00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:17.190 align:middle line:84% The news halted the circular motion of his lover's hands 00:03:17.190 --> 00:03:20.840 align:middle line:84% as she embroidered the wedding dress. 00:03:20.840 --> 00:03:24.260 align:middle line:84% She nodded, knew before she was told. 00:03:24.260 --> 00:03:26.920 align:middle line:90% 00:03:26.920 --> 00:03:30.490 align:middle line:84% Years later, with another family in a country of freezing, 00:03:30.490 --> 00:03:34.450 align:middle line:84% spring rain, called Nueva York, Nina 00:03:34.450 --> 00:03:37.390 align:middle line:84% is quietly nervous when her son speaks 00:03:37.390 --> 00:03:39.730 align:middle line:90% of rifles in a bullhorn shout. 00:03:39.730 --> 00:03:43.330 align:middle line:84% When coffins are again bobbing on the furious swell of hands 00:03:43.330 --> 00:03:45.790 align:middle line:84% and shoulders, and the whip of night sticks 00:03:45.790 --> 00:03:48.310 align:middle line:84% brings fresh blood stinging from the scalp. 00:03:48.310 --> 00:03:51.280 align:middle line:90% 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:55.750 align:middle line:84% But rebellion is the circle of a lover's hands 00:03:55.750 --> 00:04:00.870 align:middle line:84% that must keep moving, always weaving." 00:04:00.870 --> 00:04:02.000 align:middle line:90%