[APPLAUSE]
Mucho ruido siempre.
And if you want to look at my first book Fragile Night,
look for my next one.
It's going to be a major motion picture.
Maybe some of you will be on the lineup.
I don't know.
Who knows?
We need a lot of brown faces in that one.
I'm very happy to represent, not just my cultura, but also
the students of Cesar Chavez High School
in Phoenix, Arizona.
I am the Chair of Council at Cesar Chavez.
What a great man.
What a humble man.
When he walked in Arizona, I was a kid.
I was a teenager, but you know what,
I marched with his people, and proud to sit down
on the sidewalks, and proud to be spit
on by the rich and the famous, who
thought that the farm workers were nothing
and were less than nothing.
So I wrote a poem to honor this beautiful man--
this beautiful man who used to fast, the spiritual man who
used to make his station wagon into a moving chapel
so he could get into the fields and gather his gente.
Did you know that?
Did you know that Chavez used to get his station wagon,
and make it into a chapel, and go right into the fields
to gather his people together because they
wouldn't let him organize?
They wouldn't let him bring the people together
because you know what, when people come together,
there's power, just like you are right now, mi gente.
When there's people together, man, that's when we're strong,
that's when we're strong, that's when the heart of Aztlán comes
out, that's what this nation is going to see in voices from
the wall, the heart of who we are.
I'm telling you.
You'll see what I'm talking about.
This is called "There is a Place for You."
This is in honor of Cesar Estrada Chavez.
"There is a place for you in America,
Cesar Estrada Chavez, beside the dusty fields you labored in,
stooping, sweating, close to La Raza, your people,
trapped between pesticide-infested Earth
and the blazing sun.
There is a place for you in America, Cesar Estrada Chavez,
marching with La Raza, your people in boycotts,
strikes, las huelgas, aching feet, pounding city streets,
aching hearts pumping out the melody of love--
love to soften the hearts of those who keep your people
chained to the earth.
There is a place for you in America,
Cesar Estrada Chavez, where people chant and shout,
"Si se puede", el grito de la libertad, the cry of freedom,
eyes held steady, heads uplifted,
unafraid to dream that one day, yes,
one day in America, poverty will come to an end.
There is a place for you in America, Cesar Estrada Chavez,
in hearts that know the truth.
We are one family--
rich, poor, strong, weak, farm worker, boss, white, brown,
black, red--
we share earth, air, water, wind.
From humble beginnings, you have taught us courage.
You have taught us hope.
You have taught us to resist injustice.
You have taught us to see God in one another.
There is a place for you in America, Cesar Estrada Chavez,
here, yes, here in the hearts of La Raza, your people."
Yeah.
[WHISTLES]
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Come on.
Yeah, come on.