"The Machete serves to cut the cane, to open paths in shadowed woods, to decapitate serpents, to cut down weeds, and to humble the pride of the impious rich." - Diego Rivera
Saturday, September 29, 2012
A 1914 Letter from Emiliano Zapata to the US President
Letter from Emiliano Zapata to Woodrow Wilson,
President of the United States.
General Headquarters of Yautepec, Morelos
August 23, 1914.
Mr. Woodrow Wilson,
President of the USA. UU. of America. Washington.
Dear Esteemed Sir:
I have seen in the press statements you made regarding the agrarian
revolution which for four years has been developing in this Republic, and
with great surprise I became aware that in spite of the distance you have
accurately understood the causes and aims of the revolution which has
increased especially in the South of Mexico, a region which has had to
suffer the most from acts of dispossession and extortion by the large
landholders.
That conviction that you sympathize with, the agrarian emancipation
movement, leads me to explain to you regarding the facts and background of
the press in Mexico City, which being dedicated to serving the interests of
the rich and powerful, has always worked to deface with infamous calumnies
before the rest of America and the world in order that the deep
significance of this great proletarian movement would never become known.
I'll start by pointing out to you the causes of the revolution that I lead.
Mexico is still today is a country in full feudal epoch, or so it was at
the outbreak of the 1910 revolution.
A few hundred landowners have monopolized all the arable land of the
Republic, from year to year they have been increasing their domains, which
in order to accomplish they have had to strip the people of their ejidos or
communal fields, and their modest parcels of individual inheritance. There
are cities in the State of Morelos, for example
Cuautla,
which are lacking even land needed to dispose of their garbage, land which
is rightly required for the development of the population.
So it is that the landowners, by dispossession upon dispossession, today
with this pretext, tomorrow with another, have been absorbing all
properties that rightfully belong to and from time immemorial have belonged
to the Indigenous Peoples ,
lands from whose livelihood and culture the Indigenous Peoples have drawn
sustenance for themselves and their families.
To realize this extortion, the land barons have used legislation which has
been elaborated under their influence that has allowed them to take over
vast tracts of land, with the
pretextthat
these lands are idle, or not protected by legally correct titles.
In this manner, aided by the complicity of the courts and even worse acts
of the sort, such as false imprisonment or forced consignment into the
military, the small landholders are robbed, and the great land barons have
become sole owners of the entire country. The Indigenous
Peoplesnow disposed of
their lands, have been forced to work on plantations for
low wages and are forced to endure the extreme mistreatment of the
landowners and their stewards or overseers, many of whom, being Spanish or
the children of Spanish parents, consider that they are entitled to conduct
themselves as if they live at the time of Hernán Cortés, in other words as
if they were still the conquerors and masters, and that we the "peons" were
mere slaves, subject to the brutal law of
conquest
.
The landowner's position regarding the
“peons”
is exactly equal to that held by the feudal lord, the earl or baron of the
Middle Ages, in regards to their servants and vassals.
The Hacendado (Squire) in Mexico
has at his will the complete person of “his peon". He may reduce him to
prison if he likes, he may forbid the “peon” to leave the ranch with the
pretext that there is debt that can never be repaid, being so ordered by
judges whom the hacendado bribes, and then there are the prefects or
"political bosses" who are always their allies. The landlord is truly the
complete Lord of Life and Property without doubt, within their vast domains.
This unbearable situation is from whence originated the Revolution of 1910
and
which as primary principle and direction has intention to destroy the
feudal regime and fight against the monopoly of land in the hands of a few.
But unfortunately, Francisco I. Madero who coming from a wealthy and
powerful family which owns large tracts of land in the north of the
Republic, Madero naturally quickly joined with other landowners, and
invoking the power of legislation (laws for the rich and favoring the rich)
as an excuse, chose not to fulfill the promises he had made to restore the
stolen lands to their rightful owners and destroy the overwhelming monopoly
of the landowners, through the expropriation of these lands in the name of
public interest and with corresponding compensation, if possession was
legitimate.
Madero failed in his promises and the revolution continued, mainly in the
regions that had seen the greatest abuses and assaults by the hacendados,
such as in the states of Morelos, Guerrero, Michoacan, Puebla, Durango,
Chihuahua, Zacatecas, etc., etc.
Then came the Coup of the Citadel, that is the effort made by the ancient
Porfiristas and conservative elements of all shades to seize power again,
for they feared that Madero would be forced one day to have to keep his
promises. At that juncture, the campesino population became justly alarmed
and revolutionary ferment spread with more force than ever, since the coup,
followed the assassination of Madero, was a challenge - a true threat to
the revolution of 1910.
At this point the revolution encompassed the full extent of the Republic,
and chastened by past experience, and I chose not to await final victory
but instead began the distribution of land and the expropriation of the
large estates. Thus as has happened in Morelos, Guerrero, Michoacan,
Puebla, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua, Sonora, Durango, Zacatecas, San
Luis Potosi: in such a way that it can be said that the people have done
justice for themselves, as the legislative process does not favor justice
and given that the current Constitution is a hindrance rather than a
defense or security for working peoples, and especially for the campesino
communities.
It was at this point that the Campesino Pueblos realized the need to break
the old patterns of legislation, and seeing in the *Plan de Ayala*
the
articulation of their desires and the expression of the principles that
should underpin the new legislative process, began to implement such a
plan, as required by the supremacy of law and justice, and this is how
revolutionaries throughout the Republic have restored the lands of the
dispossessed peoples. They have divided up the monstrous estates and
punished the eternal enemies of the people, the feudal lords, with
confiscation of their estates, along with the caciques and chief
accomplices of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz as well as the
perpetrators and accomplices of the Coup of the Citadel.
It is to be ensured, therefore, that there will be no peace in Mexico until
the Plan de Ayala is raised to the rank of law or constitutional provision,
and fulfilled across the entire country.
This position is reference not only in terms of social issues, or the need
for land redistribution, but also with regard to the political question, or
the manner of appointing the interim president who must issue the call for
elections and has to start the process of implementing land reform.
The country is tired of impositions, Mexico no longer tolerates imposed
masters or leaders, our desire is to take part in the appointment of our
governors, and since the interim government should emanate from the
revolution and in order to assure this, is logical and fair that these be
true representatives of the Revolution, or the heads of the armed movement,
who should carry out the appointment of Interim President. This is
guaranteed by article twelve of the Plan de Ayala, in spite of the wishes
of D. Venustiano Carranza and his circle of ambitious politicians, who
propose that the Carranza step into the position of President by surprise,
or rather, by a bold stroke of audacity and imposition.
The only way to wisely choose the Acting President is through the
collective conviction of the revolutionary leaders across the country.
Only so can be presented a man who by his record and his ideas provide
absolute guarantees, while with Carranza as an owner or shareholder owning
large properties in the Border States, his imposition is a threat to the
campesinos of the country, as he would opt for the same policies as
Madero. His ideas are clearly identified, with the only difference that
Madero was weak, while Carranza is man capable of exercising a most
tremendous dictatorship, which would again provoke a formidable revolution,
perhaps bloodier than those before.
Therefore you will see, being that the Revolution of the South is a revolution
of ideals,
not of revenge or retaliation, that this revolution has committed before
the country and before the civilized world, to a formal contract to provide
full guarantees for the lives and interests of nationals and foreigners,
before and after our victory, and I am happy to make you aware of this fact.
This long exposé should confirm to you in your well-illuminated mind
regarding our movement of Southern Mexico, and convince you that the vile,
banal, and corrupt press of Mexico City has maligned my personality and
that of my compatriots.
May these notes better illustrate, along with the information which Messrs.
Dr. Charles Jenkinson and Thomas W. Reilly will share with you, and who as
kind visitors of this State, we have had the pleasure to offer our modest
but gracious hospitality, and via whose kind conduct I send these lines.
For my part I can say to you that I understand and appreciate the noble and
uplifting policy that you are carrying forward, within the limits of
respect for the sovereignty of each state in this beautiful and not always
happy Continent of the Americas.
I would have you believe that, as long as this policy respects the autonomy
of the Mexican peoplein
pursuit for their own ideals [and] as they understand them, I will be
one of many of your sympathizers from this sister Republic and hopefully
not the least useful of your servants, which I reiterate now with my
particular appreciation.
General Emiliano Zapata -
Mexico
THANK YOU TO TUPAC ENRIQUE ACOSTA DE LOS COMITES DE DEFENSA DEL BARRIO & NETWORK AZTLAN FOR POSTING THIS LETTER FROM OUR GENERAL!
Translation: Tupak Huehuecoyotl
TONATIERRA
YouTube:
Film
Emiliano Zapata
Una Pelicula Mexicana
*******
Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio
September 22, 2012
Declaración de Resistencia, Rebellion y
Regeneración
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Reis Lopez Tijerina - They call him "El Tigre"
Friday, March 23, 2012
Dr. Seuss & Racism - Pt.II
March 23, 2012
Dr. Seuss & Racism, Pt. II
Today marks the day in 1942 when the United States rounded up and interned 120,000 Japanese American citizens in twenty-seven prison camps because they were deemed a threat to national security by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. war department during WWII. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attack that was allowed to happen on Pearl Harbor led directly to the U.S. declaring war on Japan the next day.
In line with the long history and tradition of racism used by those of European extraction who occupy America and many parts of the world to achieve dominance and control over others, Americans blamed the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Japanese espionage. In the midst of a massive concerted war effort fueled by racial hatred and hysteria Roosevelt immediately drafted and signed into law Executive Order #9006 which established and declared the west coast to be a war zone and for all “enemy aliens” to be removed. Hence, California was the location of the beginning of the almost instantaneous removal, round-up, and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Japanese American citizens.
New Mexico was not exempt. From 1942-1946 the United States military operated two internment camps - one in Santa Fe, NM which held 4,555 men of Japanese descent and the other in Lordsburg, NM where Japanese, Italian, and German immigrants were held. Out of the two, the Lordsburg camp was the more notorious of the prisons known for intolerance, prisoner abuses, and death at the hands of guards. New Mexicans, every single one of us, should know this history and more importantly, that racism was the prime motivating factor which caused people all over the country to be conditioned to turn a blind eye, tolerate, mimic, and even demand that their government and military behave in a fascistic manner by attacking and imprisoning innocent Japanese Americans. Proof of this is when in 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation said that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” In turn, the U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6 billion in reparations to Japanese Americans who had been interned and their heirs.
A cursory glance of that time period, one of many dark moments in the history of the U.S, will bring us to the understanding that countless people in positions of influence and power played a major role in fanning the flames of racial hatred by using their work to further promote the false idea of world-wide white supremacy. One of those individuals who today is widely recognized and celebrated as a children’s hero and who in all of Grant County, New Mexico has recently been deified, is Dr. Theodore Seuss Geisel better known today as “Dr. Seuss”.
Geisel, as I like to call him, was from an upper class German family and had his early start as a Rockefeller employee. He was an advertiser for that great oppressive robber baron and multi-national corporation Standard Oil. More importantly, during WWII he worked as a propagandist for the U.S. war machine in the animation department of the U.S. Army and this is when he began to create some of the most hateful and racist cartoons against Japanese people that called for nothing short of their persecution, incarceration, and murder. In all, Geisel created more than 400 cartoons promoting war, racism, invasion, death, and xenophobia. (Google: “Dr. Seuss’s Racist Cartoons” for more like the example above)
Of course, this was not his only legacy and many Geisel celebrants, as a way of dismissing his racism, would point to the magnificent creations later in life he produced that helped millions of children enjoy learning to read. Moreover, they would say that in post WWII America he seemed to use the power of the pen to create literary and artistic works of art that denounced the Holocaust, discrimination, and other forms of violence. But, the damage had already been done and he regrettably had to go to his grave knowing that his promotion and participation in violence and racism during WWII without a doubt contributed to teaching and cultivating a general feeling in the hearts and minds of the U.S. population that war as a means of solving problems is not only justified but that firebombing Japanese communities and killing women and babies was needed, that unnecessarily dropping two atomic bombs on the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was a must, and that killing over 2 million Japanese and 56 million on all sides of the war was unavoidable.
Why do Grant County and other parts of the country go out of their way every March to elevate Dr. Seuss to God status while during Black History Month in February fail to do anything of major significance that would honor and recognize Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and legacy or any African American contributions to the history of the U.S. and world for that matter? My previous essay answered this question. However, the response to that critical analysis from countless Anglos afterward asking me “what I was prepared to do to help change the situation” was a reaffirmation to me that their racism is a definite matter of deep seated conditioning that makes them totally oblivious to their hate.
The question is not whether or not we are prepared to deal with racism. The question is whether or not whites are prepared to step forward in mass and end it. We have tried. But, When in almost every instance we petition, ask to include “main street” in the organizing of events, try to access funding, access education, access the use of facilities, or have teach-ins, classes, books, leaders, and cultural contributions sanctioned by mainstream society we are told no, strung along, or forever made to feel that our history is part of some focus group effort that is too subversive or not patriotic enough or inclusive enough to be worthy of an all out city effort. On top of that, you have in every community across the country an iron grip on finances, land, institutions, churches, federal funding, non-profits, the press, businesses, banks, food, and major resources all controlled and overseen in almost all cases by an interlocking network of whites on governing boards, councils, advisory groups, executive bodies, auxiliaries, and all other decision making positions where the outcome is always favorable to those who are privileged, owners, wealthy, connected, friends of bosses, non-confrontational people and who do not challenge, question, or try to change the established order of things. In this way, Anglos are just as oppressed as people of color and they just can’t see it.
I’ve come to understand that they have been conditioned by the Dr. Seuss’s of the world to believe that because of their skin color they are somehow better and superior to others and must always use direct aggression, passive aggression, and/or outright violence to prove it. That they are conditioned to believe that the English speaking people of the world have an absolute right to the power and control over all land and resources of other nations; conditioned to believe that they have a right to do anything to secure and maintain the privileges that are inherited across generations as a result of that power and control; conditioned to believe that their God is greater; conditioned to believe that their vision for humanity is the most pure and righteous; conditioned to believe that when Indigenous intellects like myself question their superiority complex and point to their history of colonialism and imperialism that I am foolishly blaming all white people for that or using reverse racism. Finally and most importantly, I have come to understand that they are ultimately conditioned to believe that because we question their behavior that we are the ones who have a problem, we are the ones who must come up with solutions to the neglect and social problems white supremacy creates, and we are the ones who must be responsible for our own anger at failing to break through so many solid militarized borders at every level of society, the world, and deep within the white soul that creates barriers to our success, our knowledge of one another, our peace, unity, our co-existence, and the progressive evolution of humanity that would create an existence never before seen on Mother Earth - an existence where Dr. Seuss, Dr. Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez (whose birthday & national holiday is on March 31) and any other great contributors to the human experience are all shared and celebrated equally.
-Hueteotl Lopez
Friday, March 2, 2012
When Dr. Seuss's B-Day is More Important than MLK's, Something is Wrong
March 2, 2012
Today Silver City and I suppose in surrounding cities too everyone is in a festive mood. A drive through downtown this morning where ribbons and light pole decorations greet people drove home the point that if you’re not taking a moment out of your day to recognize and honor a wily cat who wears a funny hat and who can trick or treat you or trap and trip you with his verbal stew then you’re probably just not in the spirit of things. Today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday.
Reading is important no doubt and the truth is that Dr. Seuss does deserve recognition for his contribution to children’s literature – even if you don’t like green eggs and ham. But, this is not what is in question. What I’d like Grant Countians to think about today is why did not a mere month ago the entire county, every school, and all of those folks over in that ever more cliquish downtown area go out of their way to promote Black History Month? More importantly, on January 16, 2012 it was another Dr.’s birthday – Martin Luther King’s. During that time, the community did not experience the same amount of excited effort by all that is being put into celebrating the life of Dr. Seuss’s.
The month of February is Black History Month in our nation. In this month we reflect or are supposed to be encouraged to reflect upon great contributions that African descendants have made to our lives in the country and world. In February alone the poet and activist Langston Hughes was born as well as the great educator, writer, and orators Fredrick Douglass and WEB Dubois. February 21, 1965 is also the day that marks the assassination of Malcolm X.
There was no mention of any of this history in my child’s classes before or after MLK’s birthday and national holiday. During this time these important dates and more is what we set aside family time to study and teach to our seven and five year olds who attend schools in Silver City. The schools haven’t creatively and consistently integrated this history into the classrooms so we as parents have had to deliver. When Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday arrived in January we spent seven hours together on the computer learning about segregation, boycotts, sit-ins, demonstrations, voting rights, equality, standing up and speaking out, lynching’s, hangings, and murder. This was just a prelude in January that helped prepare my children for Black History Month in February.
We took it upon ourselves to teach our children this because no one in positions of power, no institutions charged with educating our children, and no Main St. decoration brigades took it upon themselves to do so for King or Black History Month. Today, they’ve posted happy birthday signs to Seuss in clear view on school poster boards and marquees, every teacher in every class will choose to read passages from Seuss’s books, video’s will be shown, popcorn will be eaten, and kids who forgot or who were not allowed to wear their dreamy-sleepy pajama wear to school at the behest of the entire school staff and administration’s blessing will cry and probably feel left out. Similarly, arts & crafts, poetry and costume contests will take place and children and adults who will spend countless hours dressing up and competing for cash prizes will be awarded for whipping themselves up and jumping head first into the “love the Cat in the Hat” madness. In the midst of this frantic frenzy we must remember that all of this would be even more special if Martin Luther King and Black History were given the same amount, if not more attention than Dr. Seuss and his cartoon characters.
When my 2nd grade son asked his teacher yesterday why this wasn’t so she replied, “because people can celebrate whatever they want to celebrate.” I think that this points to the heart of the matter. Anglos, especially those in positions of power, aren’t that ready and willing to put their heart and soul into teaching and honoring diversity and the history of contributions through struggle, sacrifice, and overcoming great odds that real life human beings have had to live through. But, they can in a massive way and city-wide effort comfortably celebrate a white author named Seuss and his Cat adventures because it is safe for them to do so. No matter how complex the verbal gymnastics of the Cat are, severe tongue twisting is less painful than having to pick scabs off of old wounds by recalling, remembering, and teaching about what whites in positions of power have and are still doing to persecute people in the world who are different than them. (Think nation- wide anti-Mexican legislation, exploitation, & the Arizona Mexican-American Studies & book ban)
Organizing a day or month of festivities that celebrates non-white greatness and the ability to overcome oppression does nothing to liberate Anglos from the shame and guilt they feel or would feel every time they have to think about their privilege, inherited money, wealth, and social status because of that privilege and sense of superiority passed on from one generation to the next. Maybe this is why European celebrations reign supreme every month of the school year.
By choosing to emphasize and elevate Dr. Seuss over MLK and even heroes such as Cesar Chavez, Anglos show their extreme inability to put an end to racism once and for all. Choosing to do the opposite would do just that and our little one’s impressionable minds and our earth would be the healthier for it. Instead, a sanitized version of history through the life of an imaginary cat in a twisted hat is intimately presented and joyfully celebrated while our history remains in the shadows. On Dr. Seuss’s birthday and sadly year round our great contributions to the human family and our existence on earth does not and will not rule the day.
-Hueteotl Lopez
Today Silver City and I suppose in surrounding cities too everyone is in a festive mood. A drive through downtown this morning where ribbons and light pole decorations greet people drove home the point that if you’re not taking a moment out of your day to recognize and honor a wily cat who wears a funny hat and who can trick or treat you or trap and trip you with his verbal stew then you’re probably just not in the spirit of things. Today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday.
Reading is important no doubt and the truth is that Dr. Seuss does deserve recognition for his contribution to children’s literature – even if you don’t like green eggs and ham. But, this is not what is in question. What I’d like Grant Countians to think about today is why did not a mere month ago the entire county, every school, and all of those folks over in that ever more cliquish downtown area go out of their way to promote Black History Month? More importantly, on January 16, 2012 it was another Dr.’s birthday – Martin Luther King’s. During that time, the community did not experience the same amount of excited effort by all that is being put into celebrating the life of Dr. Seuss’s.
The month of February is Black History Month in our nation. In this month we reflect or are supposed to be encouraged to reflect upon great contributions that African descendants have made to our lives in the country and world. In February alone the poet and activist Langston Hughes was born as well as the great educator, writer, and orators Fredrick Douglass and WEB Dubois. February 21, 1965 is also the day that marks the assassination of Malcolm X.
There was no mention of any of this history in my child’s classes before or after MLK’s birthday and national holiday. During this time these important dates and more is what we set aside family time to study and teach to our seven and five year olds who attend schools in Silver City. The schools haven’t creatively and consistently integrated this history into the classrooms so we as parents have had to deliver. When Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday arrived in January we spent seven hours together on the computer learning about segregation, boycotts, sit-ins, demonstrations, voting rights, equality, standing up and speaking out, lynching’s, hangings, and murder. This was just a prelude in January that helped prepare my children for Black History Month in February.
We took it upon ourselves to teach our children this because no one in positions of power, no institutions charged with educating our children, and no Main St. decoration brigades took it upon themselves to do so for King or Black History Month. Today, they’ve posted happy birthday signs to Seuss in clear view on school poster boards and marquees, every teacher in every class will choose to read passages from Seuss’s books, video’s will be shown, popcorn will be eaten, and kids who forgot or who were not allowed to wear their dreamy-sleepy pajama wear to school at the behest of the entire school staff and administration’s blessing will cry and probably feel left out. Similarly, arts & crafts, poetry and costume contests will take place and children and adults who will spend countless hours dressing up and competing for cash prizes will be awarded for whipping themselves up and jumping head first into the “love the Cat in the Hat” madness. In the midst of this frantic frenzy we must remember that all of this would be even more special if Martin Luther King and Black History were given the same amount, if not more attention than Dr. Seuss and his cartoon characters.
When my 2nd grade son asked his teacher yesterday why this wasn’t so she replied, “because people can celebrate whatever they want to celebrate.” I think that this points to the heart of the matter. Anglos, especially those in positions of power, aren’t that ready and willing to put their heart and soul into teaching and honoring diversity and the history of contributions through struggle, sacrifice, and overcoming great odds that real life human beings have had to live through. But, they can in a massive way and city-wide effort comfortably celebrate a white author named Seuss and his Cat adventures because it is safe for them to do so. No matter how complex the verbal gymnastics of the Cat are, severe tongue twisting is less painful than having to pick scabs off of old wounds by recalling, remembering, and teaching about what whites in positions of power have and are still doing to persecute people in the world who are different than them. (Think nation- wide anti-Mexican legislation, exploitation, & the Arizona Mexican-American Studies & book ban)
Organizing a day or month of festivities that celebrates non-white greatness and the ability to overcome oppression does nothing to liberate Anglos from the shame and guilt they feel or would feel every time they have to think about their privilege, inherited money, wealth, and social status because of that privilege and sense of superiority passed on from one generation to the next. Maybe this is why European celebrations reign supreme every month of the school year.
By choosing to emphasize and elevate Dr. Seuss over MLK and even heroes such as Cesar Chavez, Anglos show their extreme inability to put an end to racism once and for all. Choosing to do the opposite would do just that and our little one’s impressionable minds and our earth would be the healthier for it. Instead, a sanitized version of history through the life of an imaginary cat in a twisted hat is intimately presented and joyfully celebrated while our history remains in the shadows. On Dr. Seuss’s birthday and sadly year round our great contributions to the human family and our existence on earth does not and will not rule the day.
-Hueteotl Lopez
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
One Year to the Rebirth of our Sun 12/21/2012
ONE HUNAHPU
Source of matter, Source of spirit
Spiraling in and Spiraling out
Thirteen phases - numbers, vectors
Twenty hieroglyphic pictures
People growing toward the Sun
Grow together and live as One
Hunab Ku, Hunahpu
Hub of everything we do
Search the stars for what we are
And find we need not look so far
Inside of us, deep down inside
Are kept the secrets of all time
Finding rhythm, speaking rhyme
Renew the ancient Paradigm
Movement and Measure
Sowing and Dawning
Star of the Evening
Star of the Morning
One Ahau will start the Churning
Watch for Venus, Begin the Learning
Teaching us the way to See
And how to climb the Sacred Tree
Tzolkin, Haab, and Calendar Round
Spherical music, Magical Sound
Eye at the center, Dawn of our Face
Edge of the cosmos, Heart of all Space
Mysterious day-sign
Bringer of Birth
It comes from the Stars
And springs from the Earth
-2012-
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Open Letter to Silver School District on WAR
November 16, 2011
Open Letter to the Silver Consolidated School District:
Re: Jose Barrios Principal Michael Koury, Staff Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Padilla
CC: Superintendent Dick Pool, Ms. Jan Zinc, 2nd Grade Instructor
My name is Hueteotl Lopez and I am the father of a son who is in second grade attending Jose Barrios Elementary School. He is instructed by Ms. Jan Zinc. I write to you today first and foremost as a parent who wishes to express my concern about the tone in which the topic of war is being introduced to our children at Jose Barrios.
As you may or may not know, during this year and last year’s Veteran’s Day program that Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Padilla coordinate, I asked Mrs. Anderson and Michael Koury if there would be any invitation to a veteran for peace made that would teach and introduce the children to the concept of the need to end war. They said, “No. That their program wasn’t about that but simply to thank soldiers for their service to our country.” I disagreed and shared with them my feeling as a father of a young boy under their care that dismissing the teaching of peace and the end to war was hurtful. That leaving it out of their program is detrimental to the student’s development and understanding of the importance and need to get along with each other. That not mentioning peace in their thanking the soldiers in front of the students could easily lead to a child believing that war is good, heroic, necessary, and just an everyday part of life and that these thoughts are easily engrained deeply in the human mind when coupled with things that trigger an emotional response such as music, singing, salutes, prayers, colors, videos, flags, and men dressed in uniform.
My thoughts are for the growing children, whose hearts and minds are innocent and are especially sensitive to this. Children’s health and our community health depend on the cultivation of a peaceful world outlook that ensures compassionate behavior. I believe that this is what has been behind the effort to widely teach and commit ourselves in all schools to a “Bully Pledge”. It is also what has been the inspiration for the families of the Columbine killings to bring Rachel Scott’s teachings to the world through “Rachel’s Challenge” and begin to teach kids and adults to replace bullying with compassion and love for others.
War is bullying on a grand scale. It is the worst manifestation of the adult inability to challenge ourselves to find peaceful solutions to life’s problems. It is the worst example that we can provide and the most terrible legacy we can leave to our children. Teaching them to believe and obey by supporting the soldiers without questioning war is teaching them that they are somehow superior through war. The long line of soldiers in my family taught us differently. They taught us that fighting for freedom in some far off land and killing others for profit and wealth does nothing but bring the eventual death to all human life and freedoms.
As my children’s mentors and teachers I wish for you on Veteran’s Day and everyday to find it within yourself to creatively incorporate the message of peace. When our soldiers are honored please make it your patriotic duty to reinforce and incorporate school teachings that cultivate intelligence, a sense of co-existence, and peaceful behavior such as to not fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to not hurt other creatures, and to share and not be greedy. In the presence of our children I hope that you will not continue to romanticize war. I hope that as leaders that you will take responsibility by being honest with the kids about the realities of combat and call for its end and never resort to war yourself by dismissing, demonizing, removing, or ignoring those who lift their voice up in conscience for a better world. I invite you to view the videos below.
-Hueteotl Lopez
http://youtu.be/Y38GCA7qMOo & http://youtu.be/Y38GCA7qMOo
"The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service". -Albert Einstein
Open Letter to the Silver Consolidated School District:
Re: Jose Barrios Principal Michael Koury, Staff Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Padilla
CC: Superintendent Dick Pool, Ms. Jan Zinc, 2nd Grade Instructor
My name is Hueteotl Lopez and I am the father of a son who is in second grade attending Jose Barrios Elementary School. He is instructed by Ms. Jan Zinc. I write to you today first and foremost as a parent who wishes to express my concern about the tone in which the topic of war is being introduced to our children at Jose Barrios.
As you may or may not know, during this year and last year’s Veteran’s Day program that Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Padilla coordinate, I asked Mrs. Anderson and Michael Koury if there would be any invitation to a veteran for peace made that would teach and introduce the children to the concept of the need to end war. They said, “No. That their program wasn’t about that but simply to thank soldiers for their service to our country.” I disagreed and shared with them my feeling as a father of a young boy under their care that dismissing the teaching of peace and the end to war was hurtful. That leaving it out of their program is detrimental to the student’s development and understanding of the importance and need to get along with each other. That not mentioning peace in their thanking the soldiers in front of the students could easily lead to a child believing that war is good, heroic, necessary, and just an everyday part of life and that these thoughts are easily engrained deeply in the human mind when coupled with things that trigger an emotional response such as music, singing, salutes, prayers, colors, videos, flags, and men dressed in uniform.
My thoughts are for the growing children, whose hearts and minds are innocent and are especially sensitive to this. Children’s health and our community health depend on the cultivation of a peaceful world outlook that ensures compassionate behavior. I believe that this is what has been behind the effort to widely teach and commit ourselves in all schools to a “Bully Pledge”. It is also what has been the inspiration for the families of the Columbine killings to bring Rachel Scott’s teachings to the world through “Rachel’s Challenge” and begin to teach kids and adults to replace bullying with compassion and love for others.
War is bullying on a grand scale. It is the worst manifestation of the adult inability to challenge ourselves to find peaceful solutions to life’s problems. It is the worst example that we can provide and the most terrible legacy we can leave to our children. Teaching them to believe and obey by supporting the soldiers without questioning war is teaching them that they are somehow superior through war. The long line of soldiers in my family taught us differently. They taught us that fighting for freedom in some far off land and killing others for profit and wealth does nothing but bring the eventual death to all human life and freedoms.
As my children’s mentors and teachers I wish for you on Veteran’s Day and everyday to find it within yourself to creatively incorporate the message of peace. When our soldiers are honored please make it your patriotic duty to reinforce and incorporate school teachings that cultivate intelligence, a sense of co-existence, and peaceful behavior such as to not fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to not hurt other creatures, and to share and not be greedy. In the presence of our children I hope that you will not continue to romanticize war. I hope that as leaders that you will take responsibility by being honest with the kids about the realities of combat and call for its end and never resort to war yourself by dismissing, demonizing, removing, or ignoring those who lift their voice up in conscience for a better world. I invite you to view the videos below.
-Hueteotl Lopez
http://youtu.be/Y38GCA7qMOo & http://youtu.be/Y38GCA7qMOo
"The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service". -Albert Einstein
Friday, August 27, 2010
"Hope for Change" - An Essay on the 40th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium
“Hope for Change”:
The Slogan of the Established Opposition to the Establishment
August 29, 2010
Around 1971 in an autobiographical essay, The Brown Buffalo -Oscar Zeta Acosta- our famous militant Chicano lawyer who used key cases as a platform to put the entire system on trial, and who defended among others the East Los 13, the Biltmore Six, and Corky Gonzales, put it succinctly regarding why as Mexicans we can’t or won’t ever realize our goals of freedom when he stated, “We don’t kid ourselves anymore. We know we’re headed for a head-on collision with the rest of society. We’re absolutely convinced of it and we’re not being paranoid or nothing. We know that the main thing we want now is not better education or better jobs or better housing, because we know that they are not possible to achieve.” “You can’t be a class or a nation without land. Without it, it doesn’t have any meaning. It’s that simple. So we are beginning to see that what we’re talking about is getting land and having our own government, period. It is that clear-cut. As to what land, that is still in the future. We have to develop the consciousness of land as the principal issue, just as three years ago we had to develop the consciousness of identity as the principal issue.”
We arrive 40 yrs. later preparing this month to memorialize the attacks of rioting police, Ruben Salazar’s assassination, and to celebrate the August 29, 1970 Chicano moratorium against the war in Vietnam. What we are facing today as indigenous people is no different from when Oscar spoke these prophetic words four decades ago. Land is still the number one issue at hand in which all else, class, race, and social-political standing falls under. Was Acosta correct? Let us look at history.
Ask yourself: was it not land that was at the heart of the issue in 1498 when the pirate Columbus and his invader henchmen touched down on our shores? Land was at the heart of the matter in 1519 when Columbus’ homeboy the European boat person Cortez illegally immigrated here. Land was at the heart of the issue in 1776 when those European alien Pilgrims declared their independence from their British oppressors and began, step-by-step, from the east coast all the way to the west to dispossess our ancestors of Native tribal land. Land was at the heart of the matter on September 16, 1810 when Father Miguel Hidalgo’s “Grito de Dolores” summoned all Mexicans to pick up arms and fight for our independence from Spain. Land was likewise at stake in 1863 when the French invaders tried to install the imperial government of Maximilian. In response, President Benito Juarez, defender of land and independence, resisted against the foreign occupiers and put Maximilian and his wife in front of a firing squad, killing them for violating Mexican sovereignty and trying to continue to propagate the enslavement of our race. After Juarez died, land was still at the heart of the matter in 1848 when the descendents of the Spanish ownership class in the government of Mexico sold us out and allowed the U.S. to use military force to steal all of the Southwest and occupy it. When the early 1900’s rolled around we witnessed the Mexican Liberal Party jump on the scene whose war cry was, “Tierra y Libertad!” or “Land & Liberty!” Its leaders included courageous men like Ricardo and Enrique Flores-Magón, Librado Rivera, and Práxedis Guerrero - one of the most developed Mexican writers and military strategists who coined the slogan, “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”. His contemporary was Emiliano Zapata who used this slogan successfully to continue to rally the people to realize that land and the control of it was at the heart of the matter and would be the only way that the Mexican Revolution of 1910 would be won. In 1994 the Zapatista’s (EZLN) in Chiapas did not forget their history.
Flash forward to 2010. The Chicano Moratorium and its organizers use the number 40 to denote the continuation in the struggle for justice. But, have we in the Chicano movement always been faithful to our predecessors land based struggles? It goes without saying that every aspect of the Chicano Movement plays a very important role and saying that it failed in certain respects does not make the entire struggle irrelevant. Unquestionably the Moratorium was the beginning of a more serious anti-war/anti-police brutality stance in L.A. and at the same time Chicano’s everywhere were addressing education, housing, drugs, jobs, and civil rights. But I will venture to say that outside Reies Lopez Tijerina, Corky Gonzales, and maybe even the Brown Berets to a certain extent, the Chicano movement by and large has failed to develop a sustained consciousness of land as our principal issue. The consequences and repercussions associated with land acquisition or repossession which is one of the gravest threats to an occupier, a homesteader, or a squatter may have prevented this. But today, it is imperative for us to resurrect the idea that land held in common is the only path to peace and justice. It is the only way to feed and clothe ourselves which in turn will provide us with the opportunity to benefit entirely from our labor, employ our creative talents, and create the opportunities to further develop our intellectual capacity that will make us free human beings and not slaves in bondage to private land owners and corporate profiteers who pimp us.
Whether working as wage slaves or on land that we don’t own or organizing ourselves around a cause that is intimately connected to property, all of our struggles have in on way shape or form originated from land dispossession. It has been this way ever since the first thief appeared and said, “This piece of earth is mine”. Today, as it always stands, the most critical issues we face such as education, housing, employment, imprisonment, health-care, and so-called immigration reform are deeply connected to our lack of land. This cannot continue to be overlooked or left out of the equation because it has everything to do with self-determination. The Brown Buffalo was right. Until we come to accept and rally around this historical reality we cannot begin any meaningful discussion or debate or much less get to the root of our problems if the issue of land is not taken into consideration and at the forefront of our thoughts and organizational strategies.
Will our leaders agree? Unfortunately not once since Obama has been (s)elected have I heard any of the Chicano/a political establishment and their religious and academic counterparts mention land with regard to immigration and our lack of control thereof in Mexico or in the Americas. Could it be that they have been made afraid to say anything about land by those who scare everyone into thinking that we supposedly want Aztlán back? Or that we absurdly hate and want to expel all white people? Every one of their internal discussions and public debates is always framed around asking the ownership class for permission for us to either stay here and absurdly be licensed, made legal, be given a pardon (amnesty), or a pinche green card to be allowed freedom of movement in occupied America. We have the numbers and power to demand and receive everything and anything we want but why is the opposite happening? Because the Chicano establishment, who are no different from that heavily entrenched Spanish/Mexican establishment south of the boarder, have continuously allowed the discussion of our presence here to be framed around us as visitors which allows our very long and distinct history and relationship to the earth/land in the so-called Americas to be overlooked and outright hidden.
This is behavior that can best be identified as cultivating submission and begging for acceptance. For example, their relationship and faith in the Democratic Party has turned us into nothing but political chumps who invest our hopes and dreams in Obama as a fraud. Through buying into false hope the Chicano elite has nicely adopted and allowed words of mass appeal to be used such as immigrants, reform, the Dream-Act (American Dream), and amnesty (a pardon) to frame our demands. And, as if it is possible, they even go so far as to plead with our tormentors for us to be treated fairly and humanely. This is a very non-confrontational response to lethal attacks on our children, families and community. The Chicano elite commits a severe disservice to all of the people of the world fighting for their humanity when they behave this way. But it is not without reason. The words adopted for our demands by most of our leaders express their aspirations and it’s safe to say can do nothing but lead to actions that sell us out and secure their own careers. These words speak volumes about their goals and intentions for our lives. When they materialize it will only keep us in a tight straight jacket on display as good little Mexicans and continue to pull us head first by the chains around our necks into one category: INTEGRATION. The kind of integration that causes Mexicanos by the thousands to become Border Patrol Agents, police officers, lawyers to prosecute us, judges to give out life sentences to our youth, doctors who push poison for profit, and Scabs that cross picket lines and kill the union. It’s the type of poisonous integration that causes immigrant college graduates to become blindly loyal to their host nation and use their degrees as a springboard out of the community to never return and help the Barrio but to go on to help international capital consolidate its power for trade-offs such as nice cars, expensive homes, thousand dollar purses, and all the other trappings of a society that should not be emulated any place on a sane earth. We’re talking about the type of wretched integration that gives our people debt, diabetes, shopping sickness, dyed hair, fake breasts, alcoholism, and war fever. Thus, when speaking of our future and freedom and the kind of change we are seeking, anything connected to integrating in any way whatsoever into the American nightmare will only continue to destructively feed us to Capitalism and bring us full circle right back to the same problems over and over again chasing our tails and pausing only long enough to lick our masters feet and ask for more scraps to eat from his table.
For centuries during any and all of our upheavals the Mexican political establishment on both sides of the imposed border have worked closely hand in hand with our oppressors to guide and steer any grassroots working class movement towards the clutch of the hairy hand of the beast that, when all is said and done, is lifted up to his bloody insatiable mouth where he hungrily puts all of us whole to be chewed up, swallowed and sent down the same old tunnel of conformity where we’re digested and assimilated and then evacuated devoid of any revolutionary substance. At his dinner table, which is the world and everything in it, the bloody beast sinks his fangs in and severs our spine effectively putting out any rebellious fire through the ages that keeps us standing on our own two feet to challenge him. Again and again it happens and always with the unwavering help of his favorite little faithful children and messengers….The Mexicano/Chicano elite, the House Negroes of the Barrios…those whose strategy throughout all time has been self-preservation and placing no real demands on the power structure.
They represent and uphold its power and inequality while faking progress by calling on us in the present day to believe in the hope for change served up and embodied in a black president whose bloodlines are the same that course through his slave masters veins. In this way we infinitely shuffle forward in a stupor paralyzed so that we may never be able to leave the realm of that ring of formal and electoral prison politics where the creators of slavery and its perpetuators eternally defend their heavyweight accomplice titles as Mayors, Priests, CEO’s, Senators, Governors, Congressmen/women, and Presidents whose names on the floor of the House and Senate and in the halls of all government are co-operation, compromise, moderation, patience, reform, respect, submission, non-violence and hesitation in the face of exploitation by rapacious bankers and bosses, terror by tyrants, bloody pursuits by La Migra, occupation by war mongering invaders, mass murder by malignantly wicked bomb droppers, hunger because of gluttonous hoarders, and imprisonment by sadistic men in a suit who wear the symbol of the noose in the form of a tie around their necks who consult with men in robes with gavels falsifying and misrepresenting their power over our souls in this earthly prison they build to house our bodies in. But, the Mexican soul cannot be imprisoned! Ya Basta! We are not naïve. We have a long tradition of resistance. We do not want your standards! Our ancient indigenous hearts are not self-serving and we do not seek any longer to trade our long term visions and goals for short term gains. Our children are too important to us, our mother earth and the entire universe as human beings means too much to us. Everything is on the line.
Do you think you can outwit the underdogs? Our strength as Mexicans in the face of prejudice, alienation, and being used as scapegoats has always been in precisely the fact that we do not fit in and don’t want to. From the underground, no papers or fingerprints to track us, illegal, with no choice but to rebel, we squeeze our trigger fingers and push forward with pride in our brown griminess, our sweat, our dirt, our gutters, our partaking in food we harvest and eat with our hands, and all the while embodying absolutely the greatest expressions of beauty the world has ever seen. Deport us? We are the ultimate desert guerrillas who flower when there is no water and like our ancestors when banished can survive on frogs, snakes, bugs, and mosquito larvae long enough to return and build a cosmic society. We are master improvisers and can adapt to any and all of the worst and most inhospitable conditions you can throw at us. We can survive alone on empty stomachs with only the spiritual food our protector Tonatzin can provide. We labor passionately with pride and Beavers are put to shame with the massive amount of work we do.
Under attack, our survival as a species, as artists, as a group will never be above ground, in the spotlight, in the malls, in the voting booths, on tell-a-lie-vision, on Facebook, or in the halls of any government built with the materials and on the foundation of authority that shelters all of the vultures, shacklers, and bloodsuckers of humankind. Our future victories, like the Vietnamese, will be won from the underground sown together with the threads of poverty that has kept us humble before God for centuries. Call us pagans if you will but our spiritual reality is grounded and connected to that which can be our only provider – the land -La Tierra. And we will defend it to the death.
“Bloodthirsty radical Chicano communists” is what they hurl at us for talk like this. For wanting nothing less than what America’s “founding fathers” killed everyone for, land to empower ourselves. For this we are counseled to have respect, to be non-violent, and given speeches, warnings, and chastisements about our being murderous for calling upon our connection to land and the need for independence. But we are not and never have been the initiators of violence because violence begins with poverty and today we are poorer and dying faster than the time when the Chicano Moratorium was founded. Are we evolving as a people? Maybe Oscar Acosta was right on point when he wrote about progress and the Chicano establishment, identity, and integration when he said:
“I don’t think you’re going to see too much more of demonstrations against education or things of that sort. I think that has petered itself out. A lot of kids have gotten into OEO projects and school projects as a result of the movement, so they’ve been in college for a few years now and they are as hip to what’s being taught in the colleges as the white radicals have been for some years now. They think it is a waste of time, that it takes away what little you have of your identity.
A perfect example is the National La Raza Law Students Association, here in Los Angeles, which I am pretty much associated with. The very first day they started school here on some OEO project I went in and spoke and told them, ‘Half of you will never be lawyers. Those of you that do are going to become so only because of your race. You got into these programs because you’re Chicano. So you owe something to your Raza. Yet, I predict that in three years I’m going to be fighting fifty percent of you guys. You’re going to be my enemies.’ They laughed. But it is a fact. This past year I’ve been working on these major cases of importance to Chicanos not only organizationally but legally, and often I’ve been unable to get the assistance of the Chicano law students. My prophecy to them has come true, except I was wrong in one respect. It is not fifty percent I’m fighting. It is about seventy-five percent. This is why I’m no longer pushing for more school programs, more handouts, and more welfare. I think that will destroy the movement.”
On the 40th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium let us not become so nostalgic that we romanticize our prior actions and confrontations with Capital and the military industrial complex. Let us continue to evolve in our political and social movements for justice with nothing less than land in mind. I implore you to remember our prior struggles with a sober sense of militancy, what worked and what didn’t, and most of all to defend yourselves and stop asking the creator of your punishing and impoverished co-dependent existence for your freedom or for anything that will hold you in bondage to them. In many ways we can’t blame the system anymore. We have to stand up in mass together and create our independence. One of our most effective weapons for accomplishing this when they stand in our way is to push the idea that their “American Revolution” continues. And why can’t we call upon their historical fight for liberation? Every one of us should carry a copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with us and commit it to memory. Our struggle is of the same cloth and like other people who have used the American Revolution to inspire their struggles for freedom and independence the entire world is watching to see what the Mexican is going to do.
Today, they have you believing that Arizona is where the fight is. And while this happens and they have the entire nation focused on one southern state, Obama and his henchmen receive another $33.5 billion for a total of $321 billion dollars in their colonial war to consolidate power and the monopoly over the land, resources, and drugs in the Middle East. They put Arizona in the spotlight and quietly send over 46 U.S. warships and 7000 Marines to Costa Rica to prevent any liberation movement from taking control away from their CIA arms and drug money in Colombia. And while they have you believing that Obama is a benevolent black man who inherited a bad situation that is causing him to leave his promises to us unfulfilled, you are peacefully marching in Arizona while they pass a bill on the floor of the House for $600 million in border militarization dollars on top of all of the million dollar spy-drones, surveillance cameras, radar technology, ground sensors, National Guard soldiers, and more fencing. And all of this in fear of the Mexican! Wake up Raza! Arizona is a microcosm of the entire country and like all U.S. citizens who can be deported under the Patriot Act, Mexicans are under siege! No more apathy. We are indigenous to this entire continent and have a psychological advantage because of it. You are not a visitor much less an immigrant. Act like this is your home!
Follow the example of among others, Unión del Barrio, the South Central Farmers, Mujeres de Maíz, and the gente at El Proyecto Jardín. These are our current day heroes who exemplify courageous acts of independence: that of challenging big developers who stop at nothing to keep land away from impoverished communities and who bulldoze and clear-cut, killing trees and destroying food to keep us poor and in a dependent state. The brothers and sisters from the collectives above hit after hit continue organizing around life returning full-circle back to our roots and gathering what resources we have and improvising, organizing, creating, planting, sharing, building, growing, cultivating, tending, and helping every human being from every race produce our freedom in the form of carefully fed soil and tenderly picked food. Gardens are our present day political parties and independence is our harvest. Multiply these sacred spaces by the millions and our future will be in our hands. Communities like this are not hoping for change. They are creating it by teaching and turning out youth whose loyalty is being invested not in political figures or lies but in the earth, art, music, eachother, and plants for knowledge, medicine, balance, understanding, and healing. As we acquire knowledge in this way we revolutionize and learn that it’s in our best interest to reject what the devil offers up in the form of energy sucking cancer causing cell phones, vaccinations, oil dependence, chemically laden foods, drugs, cosmetics, poisoned water, or obesity and laziness causing reservation and mission foods like beef, pork, milk, soda, alcohol, and fast food. Our indigenous selves have stepped forward and arrived on the scene with pride and solutions to our preservation as a species. We are here…the original “organic” gardeners whose traditions will save the planet and the human race from the destruction set upon it by the emissaries of Babylon. Adelante! Tierra y Libertad!
-2012-
Your Local Field Chicano,
El Machete
Hueteotl Lopez -
(Nephew of Mangas – Chief of the Brown Buffalo Party – East Los 13)
*Immediately following this essay on my blog you will find Union del Barrio's essay on the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Please read it. It is one of the most engaging and forward thinking essays written immediately after Obama was elected.
The Slogan of the Established Opposition to the Establishment
August 29, 2010
Around 1971 in an autobiographical essay, The Brown Buffalo -Oscar Zeta Acosta- our famous militant Chicano lawyer who used key cases as a platform to put the entire system on trial, and who defended among others the East Los 13, the Biltmore Six, and Corky Gonzales, put it succinctly regarding why as Mexicans we can’t or won’t ever realize our goals of freedom when he stated, “We don’t kid ourselves anymore. We know we’re headed for a head-on collision with the rest of society. We’re absolutely convinced of it and we’re not being paranoid or nothing. We know that the main thing we want now is not better education or better jobs or better housing, because we know that they are not possible to achieve.” “You can’t be a class or a nation without land. Without it, it doesn’t have any meaning. It’s that simple. So we are beginning to see that what we’re talking about is getting land and having our own government, period. It is that clear-cut. As to what land, that is still in the future. We have to develop the consciousness of land as the principal issue, just as three years ago we had to develop the consciousness of identity as the principal issue.”
We arrive 40 yrs. later preparing this month to memorialize the attacks of rioting police, Ruben Salazar’s assassination, and to celebrate the August 29, 1970 Chicano moratorium against the war in Vietnam. What we are facing today as indigenous people is no different from when Oscar spoke these prophetic words four decades ago. Land is still the number one issue at hand in which all else, class, race, and social-political standing falls under. Was Acosta correct? Let us look at history.
Ask yourself: was it not land that was at the heart of the issue in 1498 when the pirate Columbus and his invader henchmen touched down on our shores? Land was at the heart of the matter in 1519 when Columbus’ homeboy the European boat person Cortez illegally immigrated here. Land was at the heart of the issue in 1776 when those European alien Pilgrims declared their independence from their British oppressors and began, step-by-step, from the east coast all the way to the west to dispossess our ancestors of Native tribal land. Land was at the heart of the matter on September 16, 1810 when Father Miguel Hidalgo’s “Grito de Dolores” summoned all Mexicans to pick up arms and fight for our independence from Spain. Land was likewise at stake in 1863 when the French invaders tried to install the imperial government of Maximilian. In response, President Benito Juarez, defender of land and independence, resisted against the foreign occupiers and put Maximilian and his wife in front of a firing squad, killing them for violating Mexican sovereignty and trying to continue to propagate the enslavement of our race. After Juarez died, land was still at the heart of the matter in 1848 when the descendents of the Spanish ownership class in the government of Mexico sold us out and allowed the U.S. to use military force to steal all of the Southwest and occupy it. When the early 1900’s rolled around we witnessed the Mexican Liberal Party jump on the scene whose war cry was, “Tierra y Libertad!” or “Land & Liberty!” Its leaders included courageous men like Ricardo and Enrique Flores-Magón, Librado Rivera, and Práxedis Guerrero - one of the most developed Mexican writers and military strategists who coined the slogan, “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”. His contemporary was Emiliano Zapata who used this slogan successfully to continue to rally the people to realize that land and the control of it was at the heart of the matter and would be the only way that the Mexican Revolution of 1910 would be won. In 1994 the Zapatista’s (EZLN) in Chiapas did not forget their history.
Flash forward to 2010. The Chicano Moratorium and its organizers use the number 40 to denote the continuation in the struggle for justice. But, have we in the Chicano movement always been faithful to our predecessors land based struggles? It goes without saying that every aspect of the Chicano Movement plays a very important role and saying that it failed in certain respects does not make the entire struggle irrelevant. Unquestionably the Moratorium was the beginning of a more serious anti-war/anti-police brutality stance in L.A. and at the same time Chicano’s everywhere were addressing education, housing, drugs, jobs, and civil rights. But I will venture to say that outside Reies Lopez Tijerina, Corky Gonzales, and maybe even the Brown Berets to a certain extent, the Chicano movement by and large has failed to develop a sustained consciousness of land as our principal issue. The consequences and repercussions associated with land acquisition or repossession which is one of the gravest threats to an occupier, a homesteader, or a squatter may have prevented this. But today, it is imperative for us to resurrect the idea that land held in common is the only path to peace and justice. It is the only way to feed and clothe ourselves which in turn will provide us with the opportunity to benefit entirely from our labor, employ our creative talents, and create the opportunities to further develop our intellectual capacity that will make us free human beings and not slaves in bondage to private land owners and corporate profiteers who pimp us.
Whether working as wage slaves or on land that we don’t own or organizing ourselves around a cause that is intimately connected to property, all of our struggles have in on way shape or form originated from land dispossession. It has been this way ever since the first thief appeared and said, “This piece of earth is mine”. Today, as it always stands, the most critical issues we face such as education, housing, employment, imprisonment, health-care, and so-called immigration reform are deeply connected to our lack of land. This cannot continue to be overlooked or left out of the equation because it has everything to do with self-determination. The Brown Buffalo was right. Until we come to accept and rally around this historical reality we cannot begin any meaningful discussion or debate or much less get to the root of our problems if the issue of land is not taken into consideration and at the forefront of our thoughts and organizational strategies.
Will our leaders agree? Unfortunately not once since Obama has been (s)elected have I heard any of the Chicano/a political establishment and their religious and academic counterparts mention land with regard to immigration and our lack of control thereof in Mexico or in the Americas. Could it be that they have been made afraid to say anything about land by those who scare everyone into thinking that we supposedly want Aztlán back? Or that we absurdly hate and want to expel all white people? Every one of their internal discussions and public debates is always framed around asking the ownership class for permission for us to either stay here and absurdly be licensed, made legal, be given a pardon (amnesty), or a pinche green card to be allowed freedom of movement in occupied America. We have the numbers and power to demand and receive everything and anything we want but why is the opposite happening? Because the Chicano establishment, who are no different from that heavily entrenched Spanish/Mexican establishment south of the boarder, have continuously allowed the discussion of our presence here to be framed around us as visitors which allows our very long and distinct history and relationship to the earth/land in the so-called Americas to be overlooked and outright hidden.
This is behavior that can best be identified as cultivating submission and begging for acceptance. For example, their relationship and faith in the Democratic Party has turned us into nothing but political chumps who invest our hopes and dreams in Obama as a fraud. Through buying into false hope the Chicano elite has nicely adopted and allowed words of mass appeal to be used such as immigrants, reform, the Dream-Act (American Dream), and amnesty (a pardon) to frame our demands. And, as if it is possible, they even go so far as to plead with our tormentors for us to be treated fairly and humanely. This is a very non-confrontational response to lethal attacks on our children, families and community. The Chicano elite commits a severe disservice to all of the people of the world fighting for their humanity when they behave this way. But it is not without reason. The words adopted for our demands by most of our leaders express their aspirations and it’s safe to say can do nothing but lead to actions that sell us out and secure their own careers. These words speak volumes about their goals and intentions for our lives. When they materialize it will only keep us in a tight straight jacket on display as good little Mexicans and continue to pull us head first by the chains around our necks into one category: INTEGRATION. The kind of integration that causes Mexicanos by the thousands to become Border Patrol Agents, police officers, lawyers to prosecute us, judges to give out life sentences to our youth, doctors who push poison for profit, and Scabs that cross picket lines and kill the union. It’s the type of poisonous integration that causes immigrant college graduates to become blindly loyal to their host nation and use their degrees as a springboard out of the community to never return and help the Barrio but to go on to help international capital consolidate its power for trade-offs such as nice cars, expensive homes, thousand dollar purses, and all the other trappings of a society that should not be emulated any place on a sane earth. We’re talking about the type of wretched integration that gives our people debt, diabetes, shopping sickness, dyed hair, fake breasts, alcoholism, and war fever. Thus, when speaking of our future and freedom and the kind of change we are seeking, anything connected to integrating in any way whatsoever into the American nightmare will only continue to destructively feed us to Capitalism and bring us full circle right back to the same problems over and over again chasing our tails and pausing only long enough to lick our masters feet and ask for more scraps to eat from his table.
For centuries during any and all of our upheavals the Mexican political establishment on both sides of the imposed border have worked closely hand in hand with our oppressors to guide and steer any grassroots working class movement towards the clutch of the hairy hand of the beast that, when all is said and done, is lifted up to his bloody insatiable mouth where he hungrily puts all of us whole to be chewed up, swallowed and sent down the same old tunnel of conformity where we’re digested and assimilated and then evacuated devoid of any revolutionary substance. At his dinner table, which is the world and everything in it, the bloody beast sinks his fangs in and severs our spine effectively putting out any rebellious fire through the ages that keeps us standing on our own two feet to challenge him. Again and again it happens and always with the unwavering help of his favorite little faithful children and messengers….The Mexicano/Chicano elite, the House Negroes of the Barrios…those whose strategy throughout all time has been self-preservation and placing no real demands on the power structure.
They represent and uphold its power and inequality while faking progress by calling on us in the present day to believe in the hope for change served up and embodied in a black president whose bloodlines are the same that course through his slave masters veins. In this way we infinitely shuffle forward in a stupor paralyzed so that we may never be able to leave the realm of that ring of formal and electoral prison politics where the creators of slavery and its perpetuators eternally defend their heavyweight accomplice titles as Mayors, Priests, CEO’s, Senators, Governors, Congressmen/women, and Presidents whose names on the floor of the House and Senate and in the halls of all government are co-operation, compromise, moderation, patience, reform, respect, submission, non-violence and hesitation in the face of exploitation by rapacious bankers and bosses, terror by tyrants, bloody pursuits by La Migra, occupation by war mongering invaders, mass murder by malignantly wicked bomb droppers, hunger because of gluttonous hoarders, and imprisonment by sadistic men in a suit who wear the symbol of the noose in the form of a tie around their necks who consult with men in robes with gavels falsifying and misrepresenting their power over our souls in this earthly prison they build to house our bodies in. But, the Mexican soul cannot be imprisoned! Ya Basta! We are not naïve. We have a long tradition of resistance. We do not want your standards! Our ancient indigenous hearts are not self-serving and we do not seek any longer to trade our long term visions and goals for short term gains. Our children are too important to us, our mother earth and the entire universe as human beings means too much to us. Everything is on the line.
Do you think you can outwit the underdogs? Our strength as Mexicans in the face of prejudice, alienation, and being used as scapegoats has always been in precisely the fact that we do not fit in and don’t want to. From the underground, no papers or fingerprints to track us, illegal, with no choice but to rebel, we squeeze our trigger fingers and push forward with pride in our brown griminess, our sweat, our dirt, our gutters, our partaking in food we harvest and eat with our hands, and all the while embodying absolutely the greatest expressions of beauty the world has ever seen. Deport us? We are the ultimate desert guerrillas who flower when there is no water and like our ancestors when banished can survive on frogs, snakes, bugs, and mosquito larvae long enough to return and build a cosmic society. We are master improvisers and can adapt to any and all of the worst and most inhospitable conditions you can throw at us. We can survive alone on empty stomachs with only the spiritual food our protector Tonatzin can provide. We labor passionately with pride and Beavers are put to shame with the massive amount of work we do.
Under attack, our survival as a species, as artists, as a group will never be above ground, in the spotlight, in the malls, in the voting booths, on tell-a-lie-vision, on Facebook, or in the halls of any government built with the materials and on the foundation of authority that shelters all of the vultures, shacklers, and bloodsuckers of humankind. Our future victories, like the Vietnamese, will be won from the underground sown together with the threads of poverty that has kept us humble before God for centuries. Call us pagans if you will but our spiritual reality is grounded and connected to that which can be our only provider – the land -La Tierra. And we will defend it to the death.
“Bloodthirsty radical Chicano communists” is what they hurl at us for talk like this. For wanting nothing less than what America’s “founding fathers” killed everyone for, land to empower ourselves. For this we are counseled to have respect, to be non-violent, and given speeches, warnings, and chastisements about our being murderous for calling upon our connection to land and the need for independence. But we are not and never have been the initiators of violence because violence begins with poverty and today we are poorer and dying faster than the time when the Chicano Moratorium was founded. Are we evolving as a people? Maybe Oscar Acosta was right on point when he wrote about progress and the Chicano establishment, identity, and integration when he said:
“I don’t think you’re going to see too much more of demonstrations against education or things of that sort. I think that has petered itself out. A lot of kids have gotten into OEO projects and school projects as a result of the movement, so they’ve been in college for a few years now and they are as hip to what’s being taught in the colleges as the white radicals have been for some years now. They think it is a waste of time, that it takes away what little you have of your identity.
A perfect example is the National La Raza Law Students Association, here in Los Angeles, which I am pretty much associated with. The very first day they started school here on some OEO project I went in and spoke and told them, ‘Half of you will never be lawyers. Those of you that do are going to become so only because of your race. You got into these programs because you’re Chicano. So you owe something to your Raza. Yet, I predict that in three years I’m going to be fighting fifty percent of you guys. You’re going to be my enemies.’ They laughed. But it is a fact. This past year I’ve been working on these major cases of importance to Chicanos not only organizationally but legally, and often I’ve been unable to get the assistance of the Chicano law students. My prophecy to them has come true, except I was wrong in one respect. It is not fifty percent I’m fighting. It is about seventy-five percent. This is why I’m no longer pushing for more school programs, more handouts, and more welfare. I think that will destroy the movement.”
On the 40th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium let us not become so nostalgic that we romanticize our prior actions and confrontations with Capital and the military industrial complex. Let us continue to evolve in our political and social movements for justice with nothing less than land in mind. I implore you to remember our prior struggles with a sober sense of militancy, what worked and what didn’t, and most of all to defend yourselves and stop asking the creator of your punishing and impoverished co-dependent existence for your freedom or for anything that will hold you in bondage to them. In many ways we can’t blame the system anymore. We have to stand up in mass together and create our independence. One of our most effective weapons for accomplishing this when they stand in our way is to push the idea that their “American Revolution” continues. And why can’t we call upon their historical fight for liberation? Every one of us should carry a copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with us and commit it to memory. Our struggle is of the same cloth and like other people who have used the American Revolution to inspire their struggles for freedom and independence the entire world is watching to see what the Mexican is going to do.
Today, they have you believing that Arizona is where the fight is. And while this happens and they have the entire nation focused on one southern state, Obama and his henchmen receive another $33.5 billion for a total of $321 billion dollars in their colonial war to consolidate power and the monopoly over the land, resources, and drugs in the Middle East. They put Arizona in the spotlight and quietly send over 46 U.S. warships and 7000 Marines to Costa Rica to prevent any liberation movement from taking control away from their CIA arms and drug money in Colombia. And while they have you believing that Obama is a benevolent black man who inherited a bad situation that is causing him to leave his promises to us unfulfilled, you are peacefully marching in Arizona while they pass a bill on the floor of the House for $600 million in border militarization dollars on top of all of the million dollar spy-drones, surveillance cameras, radar technology, ground sensors, National Guard soldiers, and more fencing. And all of this in fear of the Mexican! Wake up Raza! Arizona is a microcosm of the entire country and like all U.S. citizens who can be deported under the Patriot Act, Mexicans are under siege! No more apathy. We are indigenous to this entire continent and have a psychological advantage because of it. You are not a visitor much less an immigrant. Act like this is your home!
Follow the example of among others, Unión del Barrio, the South Central Farmers, Mujeres de Maíz, and the gente at El Proyecto Jardín. These are our current day heroes who exemplify courageous acts of independence: that of challenging big developers who stop at nothing to keep land away from impoverished communities and who bulldoze and clear-cut, killing trees and destroying food to keep us poor and in a dependent state. The brothers and sisters from the collectives above hit after hit continue organizing around life returning full-circle back to our roots and gathering what resources we have and improvising, organizing, creating, planting, sharing, building, growing, cultivating, tending, and helping every human being from every race produce our freedom in the form of carefully fed soil and tenderly picked food. Gardens are our present day political parties and independence is our harvest. Multiply these sacred spaces by the millions and our future will be in our hands. Communities like this are not hoping for change. They are creating it by teaching and turning out youth whose loyalty is being invested not in political figures or lies but in the earth, art, music, eachother, and plants for knowledge, medicine, balance, understanding, and healing. As we acquire knowledge in this way we revolutionize and learn that it’s in our best interest to reject what the devil offers up in the form of energy sucking cancer causing cell phones, vaccinations, oil dependence, chemically laden foods, drugs, cosmetics, poisoned water, or obesity and laziness causing reservation and mission foods like beef, pork, milk, soda, alcohol, and fast food. Our indigenous selves have stepped forward and arrived on the scene with pride and solutions to our preservation as a species. We are here…the original “organic” gardeners whose traditions will save the planet and the human race from the destruction set upon it by the emissaries of Babylon. Adelante! Tierra y Libertad!
-2012-
Your Local Field Chicano,
El Machete
Hueteotl Lopez -
(Nephew of Mangas – Chief of the Brown Buffalo Party – East Los 13)
*Immediately following this essay on my blog you will find Union del Barrio's essay on the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Please read it. It is one of the most engaging and forward thinking essays written immediately after Obama was elected.
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