WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.665 align:middle line:84% I'll finish my reading with this poem. 00:00:01.665 --> 00:00:06.800 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.800 --> 00:00:12.690 align:middle line:84% This is also a poem about immigrants and immigration. 00:00:12.690 --> 00:00:17.610 align:middle line:84% It's a 9/11 poem, but it's a 9/11 poem with a twist, 00:00:17.610 --> 00:00:21.420 align:middle line:84% because the focus is on the food service workers who 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:24.490 align:middle line:84% were killed that day, most of them 00:00:24.490 --> 00:00:28.180 align:middle line:84% immigrant, and most of them undocumented-- 00:00:28.180 --> 00:00:31.460 align:middle line:84% invisible in life; even more invisible in death. 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:33.580 align:middle line:84% And that's why I wrote the poem-- 00:00:33.580 --> 00:00:38.650 align:middle line:84% to make the invisible visible, to humanize the dehumanized. 00:00:38.650 --> 00:00:42.310 align:middle line:84% Of course, the word "alabanza" means "praise" in Spanish. 00:00:42.310 --> 00:00:45.130 align:middle line:84% And the title also refers to the labor union 00:00:45.130 --> 00:00:47.680 align:middle line:90% to which these workers belong. 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:51.220 align:middle line:84% I wrote this poem a year after 9/11, 00:00:51.220 --> 00:00:54.310 align:middle line:84% and the meaning of the poem keeps on changing. 00:00:54.310 --> 00:00:56.860 align:middle line:84% And it changes again here in the age of Trump. 00:00:56.860 --> 00:00:58.540 align:middle line:84% We have something to say about that. 00:00:58.540 --> 00:01:01.610 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.610 --> 00:01:04.650 align:middle line:90% So I'll finish with this poem. 00:01:04.650 --> 00:01:09.270 align:middle line:84% "Alabanza-- In Praise of Local 100" 00:01:09.270 --> 00:01:12.540 align:middle line:84% For the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant 00:01:12.540 --> 00:01:15.810 align:middle line:84% Employees Local 100 working at the Windows 00:01:15.810 --> 00:01:18.750 align:middle line:84% on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack 00:01:18.750 --> 00:01:19.965 align:middle line:90% on the World Trade Center. 00:01:19.965 --> 00:01:23.730 align:middle line:90% 00:01:23.730 --> 00:01:26.700 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:01:26.700 --> 00:01:29.010 align:middle line:84% Praise the cook with a shaven head 00:01:29.010 --> 00:01:30.930 align:middle line:84% and a tattoo on his shoulder that 00:01:30.930 --> 00:01:35.640 align:middle line:84% said Oye, a blue-eyed Puerto Rican with people from Fajardo, 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:38.280 align:middle line:84% the harbor of pirates centuries ago. 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:40.500 align:middle line:84% Praise the lighthouse in Fajardo, 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:42.450 align:middle line:84% candle glimmering white to worship 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:44.160 align:middle line:90% the dark Saint of the sea. 00:01:44.160 --> 00:01:45.900 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:01:45.900 --> 00:01:48.300 align:middle line:84% Praise the cook's yellow Pirates cap 00:01:48.300 --> 00:01:51.750 align:middle line:84% worn in the name of Roberto Clemente, his plane that 00:01:51.750 --> 00:01:55.560 align:middle line:84% flamed into the ocean loaded with cans for Nicaragua, 00:01:55.560 --> 00:01:59.060 align:middle line:84% for all the mouths chewing the ash of earthquakes. 00:01:59.060 --> 00:02:00.480 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:03.660 align:middle line:84% Praise the kitchen radio, dial clicked even 00:02:03.660 --> 00:02:08.370 align:middle line:84% before the dial on the oven, so that music and Spanish 00:02:08.370 --> 00:02:09.930 align:middle line:90% rose before bread. 00:02:09.930 --> 00:02:11.260 align:middle line:90% Praise the bread. 00:02:11.260 --> 00:02:13.050 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:02:13.050 --> 00:02:17.430 align:middle line:84% Praise Manhattan from 107 flights up, like Atlantis 00:02:17.430 --> 00:02:20.940 align:middle line:84% glimpsed through the windows of an ancient aquarium. 00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:24.720 align:middle line:84% Praise the great windows where immigrants from the kitchen 00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:27.600 align:middle line:84% could squint and almost see their world, 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:30.150 align:middle line:90% hear the chant of nations-- 00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:35.670 align:middle line:84% Ecuador, Mexico, Republica Dominicana, Haiti, Yemen, 00:02:35.670 --> 00:02:37.380 align:middle line:90% Ghana, Bangladesh. 00:02:37.380 --> 00:02:38.910 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:02:38.910 --> 00:02:42.000 align:middle line:84% Praise the kitchen in the morning, where the gas burned 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.970 align:middle line:84% blue on every stove and exhaust fans 00:02:44.970 --> 00:02:47.490 align:middle line:84% fired their diminutive propellers, 00:02:47.490 --> 00:02:49.800 align:middle line:84% hands cracked eggs with quick thumbs 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:53.790 align:middle line:84% or sliced open cartons to build an altar of cans. 00:02:53.790 --> 00:02:55.650 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:02:55.650 --> 00:03:00.400 align:middle line:84% Praise the busboy's music, the chime-chime of his dishes 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:02.460 align:middle line:90% and silverware in the tub. 00:03:02.460 --> 00:03:04.650 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:03:04.650 --> 00:03:07.800 align:middle line:84% Praise the dish-dog, the dishwasher 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:11.490 align:middle line:84% who worked that morning because another dishwasher could not 00:03:11.490 --> 00:03:15.270 align:middle line:84% stop coughing, or because he needed overtime 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:17.820 align:middle line:84% to pile the sacks of rice and beans 00:03:17.820 --> 00:03:21.930 align:middle line:84% for a family floating away on some Caribbean island plagued 00:03:21.930 --> 00:03:23.040 align:middle line:90% by frogs. 00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:24.630 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:03:24.630 --> 00:03:27.750 align:middle line:84% Praise the waitress who heard the radio in the kitchen 00:03:27.750 --> 00:03:31.860 align:middle line:84% and sang to herself about a man gone. 00:03:31.860 --> 00:03:32.820 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:03:32.820 --> 00:03:35.800 align:middle line:90% 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:39.190 align:middle line:84% After the thunder wilder than thunder, 00:03:39.190 --> 00:03:43.520 align:middle line:84% after the shudder deep in the glass of the great windows, 00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:47.680 align:middle line:84% after the radio stopped singing like a tree full of terrified 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:52.420 align:middle line:84% frogs, after night burst the dam of day and flooded the kitchen, 00:03:52.420 --> 00:03:57.130 align:middle line:84% for a time the stoves glowed in darkness like the lighthouse 00:03:57.130 --> 00:04:00.430 align:middle line:90% in Fajardo, like a cook's soul. 00:04:00.430 --> 00:04:04.990 align:middle line:84% Soul I say, even if the dead cannot tell us about 00:04:04.990 --> 00:04:08.470 align:middle line:84% the bristles of God's beard because God has no face, 00:04:08.470 --> 00:04:12.730 align:middle line:84% soul I say, to name the smoke-beings flung 00:04:12.730 --> 00:04:16.839 align:middle line:84% in constellations across the night sky of this city 00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:18.430 align:middle line:90% and cities to come. 00:04:18.430 --> 00:04:23.110 align:middle line:84% Alabanza I say, even if God has no face. 00:04:23.110 --> 00:04:26.090 align:middle line:90% Alabanza. 00:04:26.090 --> 00:04:30.080 align:middle line:84% When the war began, from Manhattan and Kabul 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:34.730 align:middle line:84% two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other, 00:04:34.730 --> 00:04:40.010 align:middle line:84% mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue-- 00:04:40.010 --> 00:04:41.720 align:middle line:90% teach me to dance. 00:04:41.720 --> 00:04:44.930 align:middle line:90% We have no music here. 00:04:44.930 --> 00:04:47.630 align:middle line:84% And the other said with a Spanish tongue-- 00:04:47.630 --> 00:04:49.280 align:middle line:90% I will teach you. 00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:53.000 align:middle line:90% Music is all we have. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:53.780 align:middle line:90% Muchas gracias. 00:04:53.780 --> 00:04:54.635 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:04:54.635 --> 00:04:57.345 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:57.345 --> 00:05:03.170 align:middle line:90% 00:05:03.170 --> 00:05:04.990 align:middle line:90% Thank you.