WEBVTT

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I don't know how many of you
are familiar with the name Tomás

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Rivera.

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He was the first Chicano
to become the president

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of a major University.

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And it was a great tragedy that
about three or four years ago

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he died at a very
young age from a heart

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attack, a tremendous loss
to the Chicano community.

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And I'd had the
pleasure of knowing him

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and so like many
people I decided

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to try to write
something about him.

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They knew so much
his hands spoke

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of the journey from Crystal City
to Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota.

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Year after year, dirt dusted
in fields and orchards.

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His hands a pillow at night,
in bare cold buildings

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family laughter his
favorite blanket.

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On slow days, his
hands gathered books

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at city dumps, saved like
the memories of smiling hard

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at that first grade
teacher and her noises

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in the other language that
didn't laugh like Spanish.

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Those hands clenched
in the dark at vivoras,

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vivoras us hissing we don't
want you, you people have lice.

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As the school door slammed,
but Tomás learned and his hands

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began to hold books
gently with affection.

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He searched for stories
about his people

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and finally gave
their words sound,

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wrote the books he didn't
have, we didn't have.

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And he graduated over
and over until one day

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he was Chancellor
Rivera, famous Chicano

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too needed, his hands too full
of us to sit alone and write

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green stories alive with voices,
fiesta of the living, pressing.

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The present pressing like the
hands reaching out to him.

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And he'd hugged the small brown
hands, his hands whispering

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his secret learn, learn.

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His face a wink, teasing
out their smiles,

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a face all could rest in.

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Like the cherries he picked
dark, sweet, round a pit,

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tooth breaker for the
unwary, the lazy, the cruel.

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His hands knew about the
harvest, tasted the laborers

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sweat in the sweet
cantaloupes he sliced,

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knew how to use
laughter to remove

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stubborn roots of bitter
weeds, prejudice, indifference.

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The boy from Crystal
City Texas not a legend

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to be shelved but a man
whose Abruzzo still warm

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us yet say now you.

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