Thank you for coming today.
I enjoyed your poetry.
I'm just wondering why should a Trump supporter
listen to your poetry?
You want to go first?
Good question.
Well, I've got Trump supporters in the family.
Me too.
My partner's parents and her brother all voted for Trump.
It doesn't stop us from talking to each other
because they know me as a flesh and blood human being,
and I know them the same way.
And they've heard my poetry, they've
heard her poetry, which is even more out there.
And I think--
I'm not going to sit here and say
that I am going to convert legions of Trump supporters
and they're going to flock to the polls
and vote Democrat in the next election.
What I am saying is that we have to do
whatever it takes to communicate,
whether that's talking or shouting or yelling or stomping
or all the things you just saw me do,
because the alternative is unthinkable.
And by the way, I have seen people--
people have-- I have a poem.
I didn't read it tonight because it's ancient history.
But it's a poem that references the Republican Party by name.
And I remember after this reading, a woman came up to me
and she was wearing this red suit.
And she said, you, the guy who read that poem
about the Republican Party and about
your name being mispronounced and all that, I
want to buy a book.
I want to prove that we have a sense of humor too.
So to the extent that we do that, to the extent
that we as poets do our job, which
is to humanize the dehumanized, I
think we can talk to damn near anyone.
That doesn't mean they listen.
Well, I too have family that voted for 45.
And the reason they voted for him was for one reason,
and that was because they are deeply Catholic
and are against abortion.
And now that all the events have unfolded of what he's really
doing and what's happening since he became president,
they're very sad that they voted for him.
And again, I think this country is way too polarized to just
have two parties, the Republicans and the Democrats,
and then this big divide.
That's crazy.
And so if we're doing our job as poets,
we're bringing awareness.
I mean, how many people knew that seven people in the 50s,
could work for a whole day?
How many people here-- just raise your hand,
did you know that seven people could work for a whole day
and get a dollar a day?
Yes.
Did anybody-- did some people know that?
OK, great.
But a lot of people don't know that.
So if I didn't get up there and say that,
you wouldn't know that.
And there are still people who work
who live in this country who get paid very little money to do
what they do, the people who push you
in a wheelchair in the airport, the people that
do all kinds of things.
So if we're doing our job, then you're learning these stories.
You're hearing about people that worked in the World Trade
Center when it went down.
You're hearing about farm workers,
you're hearing about steelworkers.
I have a bunch of poems about my dad working
and not having been in Korea and then not
being able to rent a house except
for in a Black neighborhood in Chicago,
because they wouldn't let him live in a white neighborhood,
even though he had served his country.
And he had a Purple Heart.
You don't know those stories.
You wouldn't even think that.
You would say, oh no, that can't be true.
That's not true.
But these are real stories, and so that's what we do.
And we bring together and we get allies.
So maybe we're not going to get all the Trump
supporters as allies, but we're going
to get a hell of a lot of people as allies.
Next question.
You got another question?
No?
Going once, going twice.
Now we can sign books.
I'm from Tucson, and I just want to thank you for being here
because I'm Mexican, and so it's personal to me, too.
I hear it constantly, and my husband's from Honduras.
He's a naturalized citizen.
And so firstly, I just want to thank you
for having this poetry, because I know in our circles,
we don't do this publicly.
It's stuff that we talk about in private
because you can't say these things without being
told to be quiet.
So thank you, but my question to you
both is what would you suggest or recommend
to me or to my husband and our immigrant community
to not feel hopeless in the time of Trump,
because sometimes he will tell me
vamos a Honduras because there you know the rules.
There you know what will happen to you if you do something
that you're not supposed to do.
Whereas here, sometimes it doesn't
feel there's this pretense of law and order I guess.
Let Martín go.
Yeah, let Martín go.
Or not.
I will.
Well, it's always difficult to answer your question about how
it is that people who are most directly affected
by racism, by discrimination, how is it they
should feel hopeful?
And at one level, on a very practical level,
despair leads to self destruction.
And then you're giving the enemy exactly what the enemy wants.
So one reason that I am often hopeful is spite.
But in terms of your question particularly, I
think it's very important for people to organize.
And one of the things that I find very inspiring
is all of the people who have organized in spite of the fact
that they are undocumented.
All the people who are coming forward,
who are speaking in public, who are organizing others
and are openly saying, yeah I'm undocumented, so what?
Ningún ser humano es ilegal.
No human being is illegal.
I think it's very important to do that,
and I think there is strength in numbers.
I think there is this old--
I guess it's an activist trick that basically, the more of us
who expose ourselves, the more of us who
make ourselves public, the harder it is for them
to pick us off.
If you protest in isolation, they've got you.
And then they can say anything about you later.
Well, yes, he wasn't really protesting injustice,
he was insane.
But the fact of the matter is that if the one become many,
there really is safety in numbers, or more safety
than there would be otherwise.
So I think organizing, again, I'm
going to come back to that principle, right, organize.
Organize the unorganized, organize yourselves.
That's part of what I would say, but the other
is to express yourselves, and to express yourselves publicly
but also privately, right.
I am not one of those who will tell you
that poetry heals all wounds.
I will say that poetry has a remarkable capacity for healing
in the face of pain, much more so than you would imagine.
And it is a remarkable capacity for combatting fear.
And fear is our greatest enemy, right.
And remember you do have allies, you do have allies,
they're here.
They're here tonight.
They're here whether or not they are themselves
in the same position you are in.
And while it's very important for people
to organize their own, it's also important for people
to realize you are not alone.
We are here.
Aquí estamos, y no nos vamos.
Here we are, and here we stay.
Wow, well when Poets Responding first started,
what we were asking for was a just and humane immigration
reform.
And what did we get, we got deportations and now
the elimination of DACA.
No immigration reform still people,
we're getting a new wall, and who's going to build it?
The Mexicans, apparently, that's what he's saying.
People right now are being afraid to leave the--
evacuate the fire areas of California
because they're undocumented, but who
knows the history of immigration from Mexico?
And I'm talking about Mexico because--
and from Central America because we're so close.
How many people know about the wars
that happened as a result of US involvement in those countries?
And on and on, and we--
I mean, it'd be all night and you all
won't go home if I start telling you that whole history.
But the point is, we do have to know the truth about why
people are here.
Why do they come here?
They don't just come here because they want to live
in these shiny buildings and they want to eat at McDonald's.
They come here because there's no jobs there,
and why are there no jobs there?
The Bracero program back in the day that brought people
to work in the fields, it's going
to happen again because you can't deport everybody.
So yeah, let's keep organizing and you're not alone.
Any more questions?
I think that might be all we have time for today,
so thank you so much and make sure to stop by, grab a book,
and--
Thank you all so much for coming.