It's very hard to have a really pleasant high in America
these days.
With Bush, you never know, you know?
OK.
This is a poem I wrote because--
I feel a little crowded here, so you have
to forgive my anxiety here.
I don't like confined places.
But the immigration issue in this country really sucks.
And because you can't--
human beings.
And in my culture, we have the [? códices ?] which were
written 3,000, 4,000 years ago, and they tell about the people
coming back north to Aztlán to the area of the blue cranes.
So we sort of operate on a very ancient, ancient códice.
And we've been here for I don't know
how many thousands of years.
And we've seen the French, and the English,
and the Americans come through.
And we always constantly have to change things,
and the border keeps moving.
My grandmother was telling me that the border was
once French, and then it became English, and now it's American.
And we constantly have to go get new cards to go see
our uncles across the border.
And you know, it's just a ridiculous thing.
But not too many Americans know that.
But the one thing that happens is that a lot of people
suffer in really strange ways when you start to put down
impositions on language.
Horrible things happen to people.
And this is a poem to my grandfather, who
I remember getting up in the morning
and starting the fire at 4:00 in the stove.
And I remember him saying that Martina, and Mario,
and Richard, and Sandy can't go to school, but Jimmy can.
And they would save their money that they
worked for in the fields and put it up on the shelf.
And it was a great disappointment to me
later on when I went to prison because they were the ones that
had so much hope that I would go to school that I really felt
bad about disappointing them.
And this is a poem of the time that I remembered
when I was in the Pueblo.
And they came because we had a really bad blizzard,
and they sent a government man down.
So this is that one, and the story
of what happens when you try to tell people they
can't speak their language.
Pórtate bien.
Behave yourself, you always said to me.
And I behaved myself when others were warm in winter
and I stood out in the cold.
I behaved myself when others had full plates
and I stared at them through the cafe windows hungrily,
never speaking out of turn.
Behaving like a good boy until my behavior
was shattered by outsiders who came to the village
one day, insulting grandpa because he
couldn't speak English.
English became the invaders' sword--
the oppressors' language that hurled me
into a profound despair.
That day, grandpa and I walked into the farm office
for a loan.
And this man didn't give grandpa an application because he
was, he said, stupid.
And that moment cut me in two pieces--
one screaming my grandpa was a lovely man, and the other
that this government clerk was a beast.
And I saw my grandpa's eyes go dark with remorse
that his grandchild would witness him humiliated.
And the apricot tree of his soul--
the one that I ran out every evening,
and climbed up in his arms, and up on his shoulders,
almost feeling like I had touched the moon--
the apricot tree that we played on
was cut down using English language as an ax.
But the scene of my grandpa in that room
and what came out of his soul, what soared from his veins
helped make me into a poet.
It's the scene that never left me,
through all the sadness, and the tears,
and the momentary joys that have blossomed, and broken,
and shattered my innocence.
I've never forgotten the room that day--
the way the light hazily filtered
in through the windows, and the way
that my strong, dignified presence of my grandfather
was there in his sheepskin coat, and those field working boots.
That scene and the way that the board's creaked under his work
boots when he heard the word stupid,
shifting his weight nervously, haunted me.
It echoed in my dreams, and it drummed
in my blood, cried and my heart, was with me
through the hours of my life.
That man behind the counter with his important government papers
rattling, saying, move on, stupid.
That disdainful look on his face.
That scene, and the door, and the child I was,
and my grandpa's hand on the doorknob crushing mine under
his, and me saying, Grampito, suéltelo, you're hurting it.
And his eyes on me like a voice grieving in the wind,
saying, I'm sorry.
The scene that dusty day with the drought baked clay,
and my pants' cuffs, and the sheep starving for feed,
and my grandpa's hopes up that the farm aid man would help us
as he had other farmers.
That scene framed in my 10-year-old mind
having prayed at mass that morning, getting up
at 4:00, on my knees, begging God, do not let the sheep die.
Three generations.
Perform a miracle for us with a little help from the farm aid
man.
I knew entering that door and seeing gringos coming out
smiling with signed papers to buy feed that we too were
going to survive the drought.
And the scene with its wooden floor, and my shoes
scraping sand grains that had blown in,
and the hot sun warming my face.
And me standing in a room later, looking around for grandpa
after the farm aid man turned us down.
I knew our sheep were going to die.
I knew Grandpa was going to die.
That moment opened a wound in my heart.
And in the wound, the scene replayed itself 1,000 times.
Why would the man say no?
Why would he take my grandpa?
The grief, and the hurt, and the confusion
of a 10-year-old mind.
That day, all I knew was my life was changed forever.
Made me a man.
Made me understand that because the man I loved
couldn't speak English had to die.
And when I turned and walked out the door onto Main Street,
squinting my eyes at the world and dust looking for the man
that I loved, the world was never the same.
It was the first time I realized how a man's racism could
take the man I loved away.
It was the first time that I ever
realized how a man's racism could
destroy a people's dream--
could kill it.
And during all of it, my grandmother said--
Pórtate bien, mijito.
Behave yourself, my son.
Behave.
[APPLAUSE]