WEBVTT

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There's a poem that
I want to read you.

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And I often read it,
and it's a little hard

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to read because it's
in conversation.

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But after The Alamo, in
the Mexican-American War,

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even though most Mexicanos, or
Tejanos, who lived in Texas,

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fought on the side of the
Texans against the dictator,

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Santa Ana.

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Many Tejanos, Mexican
Texans, were exiled,

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literally made illegal, in
different towns in Texas.

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And in this poem, there's
a newspaper account.

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And when I get there,
you'll recognize it as such.

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It'll be easy to tell.

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So I wrote this poem about this.

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And it's a fictional
account, of course,

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of two guys talking
to each other.

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And that's how the poem opens.

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So I'll just read it.

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"Exiled.

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Matagorda, Texas.

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Summer, 1856."

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One.

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They're calling a big meeting.

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Teresa heard them when
she served their lunch.

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Meeting.

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So?

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A big meeting.

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How big is big?

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Big enough to be bad.

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For who?

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For us.

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Eh, Teresa's patrón
likes to talk.

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Rich boss, reads books,
likes to think he's God.

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Sometimes they get bored,
get together, make noise

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like aging chickens.

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They like meetings, words,
and laws, the gringo.

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I know how they think.

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Comes to nothing.

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This time, they're going
to make laws about us.

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Make us illegal.

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Out, we'll be out.

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Or dead.

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Who's going to plant their
seeds, plow their fields?

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Who's going to feed their
cows, cook their food?

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Money.

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Money can buy.

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It can hire, can fire, can do
somersaults, can name the trees

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and stars.

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Money is a wind
and we are candles.

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It wants our flames blown out.

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We don't live in the
same part of town.

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We work their lands.

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Come home.

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Don't bother them.

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We even bow our
heads when they pass,

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make them think they're
smarter, better looking.

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But when they see
us, they think we

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move like coyotes, and dread
the day we'll do more than howl.

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They'll never like us.

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Like?

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Who gives a stinking carcass
whether they like us or not?

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We don't like them either.

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You think they're afraid of us?

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They own.

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Plantations and gardens and
bedrooms as big as our homes.

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They have us where they want.

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A meeting will change nothing.

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You think you how they think?

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You don't.

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They hate.

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Teresa and I are packing.

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You going to run
like a scared deer?

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The deer, God gave
him good legs, grace.

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Teresa and I want to live.

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We'll use our legs and move.

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They'll have to kill me.

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I'll leave my blood on
their white shirtsleeve,

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my smell in their hearts.

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I'll be dead before
I'll be illegal.

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And they'll remember my name.

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My legs were not
born for running.

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I'll stay.

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I'll stay.

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The buffalo, he stayed.

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He's gone.

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The buffalo was
stupid, small brain.

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Me, I think.

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A man.

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Stay.

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We'll fight.

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Stay.

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The day has come.

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They own the land.

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The land was ours,
and then they came.

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And before, was someone else's.

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Ask the Indian.

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He will tell you the
land belongs to no one.

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Use your legs to run.

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Two.

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Matagorda.

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The people of Matagorda
County have held a meeting

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and ordered every Mexican
to leave the county.

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To strangers, this
may seem wrong.

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But we hold it to be perfectly
right and highly necessary.

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But a word of explanation
should be given.

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In the first place then, there
are none but the lower class,

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or peón, Mexicans in the county.

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Secondly, they have
no fixed domicile,

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but hang around the plantations,
taking the likeliest Negro

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girls for wives.

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And thirdly, they often steal
horses and these girls too,

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and endeavor to
run them to Mexico.

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We should rather have
anticipated an appeal

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to lynch law than the mild
course which has been adopted.

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Three.

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Ramón and Teresa traveled on
the side of the dirt road,

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no hurry in their young feet.

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Having walked miles, she
stopped, sat on the road,

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and wept.

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He sat next to her, combing her
black hair with his fingers.

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Tears?

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Teresa, no llores.

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Do not waste good water.

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We will need it
for the long walk.

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He wiped her face
with his palms.

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And where will we go, Ramón?

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México?

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Who is left there?

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Our parents were buried
on this side of the river.

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But they do not
want us in Texas.

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It does not matter
what they want.

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We are Tejanos,
Teresita, Tejanos.

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They will give us
no place, Ramón.

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He broke into laughter.

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They cannot rob us of our feet.

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She laughed with him,
rose, taking his hand,

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as brown as the Texas ground.

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They continued walking
north, walked in

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silence, the desert before them.

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[APPLAUSE]

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