I am Joaquín

I am Joaquín

lost in a world of confusion,

Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society,

Confused by the rules,

Scorned by attitudes,

Suppressed by manipulations

And destroyed by modern society.

My fathers

         have lost the economic battle

and won

         the struggle of cultural survival.

And now!

I must choose

Between the paradox of

Victory of the sprit,

despite physical hunger

         Or

to exist in the grasp

of American social neurosis,

sterilization of the soul

and a full stomach.

Yes,

I have come a long way to nowhere,

Unwillingly dragged by that

         monstrous, technical

         industrial giant called

                        Progress

and Anglo success . . .

I look at myself.

I watch my brothers.

I shed tears of sorrow.

I sow seeds of hate.

I withdraw to the safety within the

circle of life . . .

MY OWN PEOPLE

I am Cuauhtémoc,

Proud and Noble

         Leader of men,

King of an empire,

civilized beyond the dreams

of the Gachupín Cortez.

Who is also the blood,

the image of myself.

I am the Maya Prince.

I am Nezahualcóyotl,

Great leader of the Chichimecas.

I am the sort and flame of Cortez

         the despot.

         And

I am the Eagle and Serpent of

         the Aztec civilization.

I owned the land as far as the eye

could see under the crown of Spain,

and I toiled on my earth

and gave my Indian sweat and blood

         for the Spanish master,

Who ruled with tyranny over man and

beast and all that he could trample

                     But. . .

         THE GROUND WAS MINE. . .

I was both tyrant and slave.

As Christian church took its place

in God’s good name,

to take and use my Virgin Strength and

                                             Trusting faith,

The priests

         both good and bad

                                 took

But

gave a lasting truth that

         Spaniard,

                     Indio

                                 Mestizo

Were all God’s children

And

from these words grew men

         who prayed and fought

                                             for

their own worth as human beings,

         for

           that  

         GOLDEN MOMENT

           of

         FREEDOM.

I was part in blood and spirit

of that

         courageous village priest

                                             Hidalgo

in the year eighteen hundred and ten

who rang the bell of independence

and gave out that lasting cry:

“El Grito de Dolores, Que mueran

los Guachupines y que viva

la Virgen de Guadalupe. . .”

I sentenced him

                     who was me.

I excommunicated him my blood.

I drove him from the pulpit to lead

a bloody revolution for him and me. . .

         I killed him.

His head,

which is mine and all of those

who have come this way,

I placed on that fortress wall

to wait for independence.

Morelos!

         Matamoros!

                     Guerrero!

All Compañeros in the act,

STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF

                                 INFAMY

to feel the hot gouge of lead

  which my hand made.

I died with them . . .

  I lived with them

I lived to see our country free.

Free

  from Spanish rule in

eighteen-hundred-twenty-one.

         Mexico was free ? ?

The crown was gone

         but

all his parasites remained

                     and ruled

                     and taught

with gun and flame and mystic power.

I worked,

I sweated,

I bled,

I prayed

  and

waited silently for life to again

                                 commence.

I fought and died

         for

Don Benito Juárez

  Guardian of the Constitution.

I was him

         on dusty roads

                     on barren land

as he protected his archives

  as Moses did his sacraments.

He held his Mexico

         in his hand

           on

         the most desolate

           and remote ground

           which was his country,

And this Giant

         little Zapotec

gave

not one palm’s breath

of his country to

Kings or Monarchs or Presidents

of foreign powers.

I am Joaquín.

I rode with Pancho Villa,

  crude and warm.

A tornado at full strength,

  nourished and inspired

  by the passion and the fire

of all his earthly people.

I am Emiliano Zapata.

         “This Land

         This earth

           is

             OURS”

The Villages

  The Mountains

The Streams

  belong to the Zapatistas.

         Our life

Or yours

is the only trade for soft brown earth

and maize.

All of which is our reward,

  A creed that formed a constitution

  for all who dare live free!

“this land is ours . . .

         Father, I give it back to you.

                     Mexico must be free . . .”

I ride with Revolutionists

                     against myself.

I am Rural

         Coarse and brutal,

I am the mountain Indian,

         superior over all.

The thundering hoofbeats are my horses.

The chattering of machine guns

is death to all of me:

Yaqui

  Tarahumara

Chamula

   Zapotec

     Mestizo

       Español

I have been the Bloody Revolution,

The Victor,

The Vanquished,

I have killed

  and been killed.

         I am despots Díaz

         and  Huerta

  and the apostle of democracy

         Francisco Madero

I am

the black shawled

faithful women

who die with me

or live

depending on the time and place.

I am

  faithful,

humble,

     Juan Diego

     the Virgin de Guadalupe

Tonantzin, Aztec Goddess too.

I rode the mountains of San Joaquín.

I rode as far East and North

as the Rocky Mountains

         and

all men feared the guns of

                     Joaquín Murrieta.

I killed those men who dared

  to steal my mine,

who raped and Killed

                 my love

                     my Wife

Then

I killed to stay alive.

I was Alfego Baca,

  living my nine lives fully.

I was the Espinoza brothers

  of the Valle de San Luis

All

  were added to the number of heads

that

  in the name of civilization

were placed on the wall of independence.

Heads of brave men

who died for cause and principle.

Good or bad.

         Hidalgo! Zapata!

           Murrieta! Espinosa!

are but a few.

They

dared to face

The force of tyranny

                     of men

                     who rule

         By farce and hypocrisy

I stand here looking back,

and now I see

         the present

and still

I am the campesino

I am the fat political coyote

                                 I,

of the same name,

                                 Joaquín .

In a country that has wiped out

all my history,

                     stifled all my pride.

In a country that has placed a

different weight of indignity upon

                     my

                     age

                     old

                     burdened back.

         Inferiority

is the new load. . .

  the Indian has endured and still

emerged the winner,

The Mestizo must yet overcome,

  And the Gauchupín we’ll just ignore.

I look at myself

and see part of me

who rejects my father and my mother

and dissolves into the melting pot

to disappear in shame.

I sometimes

sell my brother out

and reclaim him

for my own, when society gives me

token leadership

         in society’s own name.

I am Joaquín

who bleeds in many ways.

The altars of Moctezuma

         I stained a bloody red.

My back of Indian slavery

         was stripped crimson

from the whips of masters

who would lose their blood so pure

when Revolution made them pay

Standing against the walls of

Retribution.

         Blood . . .

Has flowed from

         me

on every battlefield

         between

Campesino, Hacendado

  Slave and Master

         and

  Revolution.

I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec

into the sea of fame;

My country’s flag

  my burial shroud;

With Los Niños

         whose pride and courage

could not surrender

         with indignity

         their country’s flag

To strangers . . . in their land.

Now

  I bleed in some smelly cell

from club,

or gun,

or tyranny,

I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger

  cut my face and eyes,

as I fight my way from sticking Barrios

  to the glamour of the Ring

and lights of fame

   or mutilated sorrow.

My blood runs pure on the ice caked

hills of the Alaskan Isles,

on the corpse strewn beach of Normandy,

the foreign lan of Korea

                     and now

                     Vietnam.

Here I stand

         before the court of Justice

                     Guilty

for all the glory of my Raza

           to be sentenced to despair.

Here I stand

         Poor in money

  Arrogant with pride

           Bold with Machismo

           Rich in courage

                       and

         Wealthy in spirit and faith.

My knees are caked with mud.

My hands calloused from the hoe.

I have made the Anglo rich

         yet

Equality is but a word,

  the Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken

  and is but another treacherous promise.

My land is lost

                     and stolen,

My culture has been raped,

                     I lengthen

         the line at the welfare door

and fill the jails with crime.

These then

are the rewards

         this society has

For sons of Chiefs

                     and Kings

                     and bloody Revolutionists.

Who

gave a foreign people

         all the skills and ingenuity

to pave the way with Brains and Blood

for

those hordes of Gold starved

Strangers

Who

changed our language

and plagiarized our deeds

                                 as feats of valor

                                 of their own.

They frowned upon our way of life

and took what they could use.

         Our Art

         Our Literature

         Our Music, they ignored

so they left the real things of value

and grabbed at their own destruction

                     by their Greed and Avarice

They overlooked that cleansing fountain of

                     nature and brotherhood

  Which is Joaquín.

         The art of our great señoras

                     Diego Rivera

                     Siqueiros

                     Orozco is but

another act of revolution for

the Salvation of mankind.

Mariachi music, the

heart and soul

of the people of the earth,

the life of child,

  and the happiness of love.

The Corridos tell the tales

of life and death,

         of tradition,

Legends old and new,

of Joy

  of passion and sorrow

of the people . . . who I am.

I am in the eyes of woman,

         sheltered beneath

her shawl of black,

         deep and sorrowful

         eyes,

That bear the pain of sons long buried

         or dying,

         Dead

on the battlefield or on the barbed wire

         of social strife.

Her rosary she prays and fingers

endlessly

     like the family

working down a row of beets

         to turn around

         and work

         and work

         There is no end.

Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth

         and all the love for me,

And I am her

And she is me.

We face life together in sorrow,

anger, joy, faith and wishful

thoughts.

I shed tears of anguish

as I see my children disappear

behind a shroud of mediocrity

never to look back to remember me.

I am Joaquín.

         I must fight

         And win this struggle

         for my sons, and they

         must know from me

         Who I am.

Part of the blood that runs deep in me

Could not be vanquished by the Moors.

I defeated them after five hundred years,

and I endured.

         The part of blood that is mine

         has labored endlessly five-hundred

         years under the heel of lustful

                     Europeans

                     I am still here!

I have endured in the rugged mountains

of our country.

I have survived the toils of slavery

of the fields.

         I have existed

in the barrios of the city,

in the suburbs of bigotry,

in the mines of social snobbery,

in the prisons of dejection,

in the muck of exploitation

and

in the fierce heat of racial hatred.

And now the trumpet sounds,

The music of the people stirs the

         Revolution,

Like a sleeping giant it slowly

rears its head

to the sound of

         Tramping feet

     Clamoring voices

   Mariachi strains

Fiery tequila explosions

   The smell of chile verde and

Soft brown eyes of expectation for a

                                 better life.

and in all the fertile farm lands,

                                 the barren plains,

the mountain villages,

smoke smeared cities

                     We start to MOVE.

La Raza!

Mejicano!

  Español!

Latino!

   Hispano!

     Chicano!

or whatever I call myself,

                     I look the same

                     I feel the same

                     I Cry

                                 and

                     Sing the same

I am the masses of my people and

I refuse to be absorbed.

         I am Joaquín

The odds are great

but my sprit is strong

                     My faith unbreakable

                     My blood is pure

I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ

                     I SHALL ENDURE!

                     I WILL ENDURE!