Tuesday, July 27, 2010

"I am Joaquin" Scholarship Opportunity



*Recent Scholarship Opportunity, "I am Joaquin," brings together two great works. Corky Gonzalez's poem, "I am Joaquin" and Chuy Ramirez's book, Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories, will be used for a Compare & Contrast Essay. Details have been released. You can find the questions, rubric, and additional information on
strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com

Updates for Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories


Chuy Ramirez has announced he will translate Strawberry Fields into Spanish in an attempt to grow the market for the publishing house, First Texas Publishers. The working title for the novel will be "Freza".

He said he is taking novelist and friend Genaro Gonzalez' advise and will be deleting several of the short stories that he included in Strawberry Fields. "We will shorten it by 10-15 percent," Chuy announced. "Ideally, the novella will be at around 225 pages."

Ramirez will be selecting a translator from about 15 submissions he has received. He says the translator and he will be working collaboratively on the project which he anticipates taking about 6 months.

Please contact us at firsttexaspublishers@gmail.com for more information.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Interview with Chuy Ramirez~Latino Books Examiner~


Interview with Chuy Ramirez

Chuy Ramirez is an attorney who practices law in McAllen, Texas and is a partner in the firm Ramirez & Guerrero, LLP. He was also a partner for twenty five years in the McAllen firm, Montalvo & Ramirez. Ramirez is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. At law school, he served as Articles Editor for the International Law Journal and published a note entitled, “Altering the Policy of Neglect of Undocumented Immigration from South of the Border," Vol. 18 in 1983. He lives in San Juan, Texas. Strawberry Fields is his first fictional work.

Welcome to Latino Books Examiner. Why don’t you start by telling us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write it?

Two things motivated me. With the exception of Gloria Anzaldua (Frontera/The Borderlands) and Richard Rodriguez (to some extent) few works with Chicano characters truly capture those precious moments in a human being’s life that are universal. Quite the contrary, too many works are more like Diego Rivera’s Mexican art, overly political, or mythical. Second, the universe is filled with non-fictional writings about migrants and immigrants. But there is no emotion there.

How could I create something different? How could I capture and convey in a fictional work to any reader (regardless of race or ethnicity) in entertaining fashion that border life, that migrant life of the first generation Chicanos in South Texas.

How would you describe your creative process while writing this book? Was it stream-of-consciousness writing, or did you first write an outline?

I would say both. I write or type whenever I can and I write whatever comes through. Then, I outline, redraft, re-outline and redraft.

How long did it take you to write the book?

It took about 10 years (which left over voluminous materials for other works), but the bulk of the drafting about 2 -3 years.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Yes. Of course.

What seems to work for unleashing your creativity?

Several things work for me: being at home, at leisure, being alone, reading, listening to music, sitting in my yard. Travel of any kind seems to allow me to separate myself from my daily work and move into a creative state.

How was your experience in looking for a publisher? What words of advice would you offer those novice authors who are in search of one?

We created a publishing house to publish this work.

What type of book promotion seems to work the best for you? Share with us some writing tips!

I do not have the experience to provide much. The publicist contacts libraries, bookstores, reading groups, book enthusiast, organizations, universities, and the use of the media via the Internet has thus far been a way to market the book.

I enjoy small groups of all types, interests and interacting. Writing tips? How about read! Read! Read! & Write!.

What authors or type of books do you read for fun?

I read mostly fiction-primarily novels: Bible, short stories, poetry, travelogues and photography. In the past year: Hemingway, King, Faulkner, Carlos Fuentes, James, Marquez, Borges, Dickens, Frost, Graham Green and Poe

Do you think a critique group is essential for a writer?

Yes, essential for a new writer.

Do you have a website/blog where readers may learn more about you and your work?
www.firsttexaspublishers.com

strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com

Do you have another novel on the works? Would you like to tell readers about your current or future projects?

I have material collected for a novella set in current time involving a dying woman who spent 4 years as child in the Tulelake Concentration Camp in northern California during World War II. Like other Japanese of that era, she disappeared into another community, leaving behind her culture, language and memories. Now, she has developed a mother-son relationship with the attorney who is preparing her will and trusts and she desperately wants to revisit that time of childhood which she recalls as an idyllic setting. The attorney will eventually fulfill her dream by traveling to Tulelake during a Japanese pilgrimage carrying her wishes.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell my readers?

Keep reading.

Thank you Mayra Calani a multi-genre author and book reviewer hails from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She’s a member of NuncaSola, a group of dedicated Latina writers, agents and editors. Visit Mayra at www.MayraCalvani.com. Email her at mayra.calvani@gmail.com.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

"I am Joaquin" Poem By: Rodolfo 'Corky' Gonzalez

I Am Joaquin
by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Yo soy Joaquín,
perdido en un mundo de confusión:
I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, [the economic
caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation, 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 spirit, despite physical hunger,
or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. [there is no choice: a chicano must
Choose between “victory of the spirit” or selling of the soul to American capitalism.]
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 [the safe harbor is the language and culture, but it is not a Mexican culture,
It is a culture that is peculiarly, impiedly rural, poor and Catholic.]

I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble,
leader of men, king of an empire civilized
beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés,
who also is the blood, the image of myself.
I am the Maya prince.
I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas.
I am the sword and flame of Cortes 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 the Christian church took its place in God's 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 Indian 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 who in the year eighteen hundred and ten
rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry--
El Grito de Dolores
"Que mueran los gachupines 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 of all those
who have come this way,
I placed on that fortress wall
to wait for independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero!
all companeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands 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 its 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 begin again.
I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez, guardian of the Constitution.
I was he 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 breadth
of his country's land to kings or monarchs or presidents of foriegn powers.
I am Joaquin.
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 earthy people.
I am Emiliano Zapata.
"This land, this earth is OURS."
The villages, the mountains, the streams
belong to 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 the Rurales,
coarse and brutal,
I am the mountian Indian,
superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering machine guns
are death to all of me:
Yaqui
Tarahumara
Chamala
Zapotec
Mestizo
Español.
I have been the bloody revolution,
The victor,
The vanquished.
I have killed
And been killed.
I am the despots Díaz
And Huerta
And the apostle of democracy,
Francisco Madero.
I am
The black-shawled
Faithfulwomen
Who die with me
Or live
Depending on the time and place.
I am faithful, humble Juan Diego,
The Virgin of Guadalupe,
Tonantzín, Aztec goddess, too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquín.
I rode east and north
As far 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 Elfego 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 or principle, good or bad.
Hidalgo! Zapata!
Murrieta! Espinozas!
Are but a few.
They dared to face
The force of tyranny
Of men who rule by deception and hypocrisy.
I stand here looking back,
And now I see the present,
And still I am a 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 gachupín will 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 stinking 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 land 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 threacherous 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 their 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 señores,
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 the 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 the tears of anguish
as I see my children disappear
behind the 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 have endured.
Part of the blood that is mine
has labored endlessly four 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 and 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 farmlands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke-smeared cities,
we start to MOVE.
La raza!
Méjicano!
Español!
Latino!
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 spirit is strong,
My faith unbreakable,
My blood is pure.
I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

RUBRIC for "I am Joaquin"




Use this Rubric as a guide

Scholarship "I AM JOAQUIN"


First Texas Publishing Inc.
$400 Scholarship Top Prize
For a 7-10 page Essay

Compare and contrast Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez’s 1964 poem, “I Am Joaquin”, with Chuy Ramirez’s 2010 Strawberry Fields.

Writing the Essay:


1.Strawberry Fields is available for purchase on www.amazon.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com

2.Poem (I Am Joaquin) is attached;

3.Length of essay: recommended, at least 7-10 pages

4. Use APA style to cite all sources;

5.Cover Page including title, entry name, address, e-mail, & phone number.

6. Typed double-space;

7. Mail to: First Texas Publishers-Essay Scholarship Contest, PO BOX 181, San Juan, Texas 78589 or send digitally to ramirezbook@gmail.com;

8.If you have any questions please forward to mirta_espinola20@hotmail.com or ramirezbook@gmail.com. All questions and answers will be posted.

9.Deadline for Submission October 15, 2010;

10.1st prize: $400; 2nd prize: $200, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card for $50; 3rd prize: $100, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card $25

11. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize essays will be posted on the following sites: SF Facebook page, strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com,

12. No restrictions, but recommend that writers have some college course background.

Samples of Essay Topics: Writers are not limited to the following topics. These are just suggestions.

1.The extent to which Gonzalez and Ramirez follow or deviate from the traditional Mexican historical model for Chicanos in America? (for instance, is there such a “traditional model”? Describe it.)

2.Address to what extent the world for Gonzalez’ Joaquin character and Ramirez’ Joaquin character is a world full of “confusion” as opposed as to a world full of “complexity”. What is this “confusion”? What are the “complexities”?

3.Does Ramirez’ Joaquin character reject “modern society” as Gonzalez’ Joaquin character does? Or does he embrace it? How does Ramirez’ Joaquin deal with modern society as opposed to Gonzalez’ Joaquin?

4.In Gonzalez’ America do Chicanos have an effective choice? What about in Ramirez’ America? What are those choices, if any?

5.How important is Mexican pre-Columbian history to Gonzalez’ Joaquin. How about for
Ramirez’Joaquin?

6.What roles do the Catholic Church, religion and the Bible play in the worlds of both Joaquin’s

7.What role does music (the corridos and ballads) play in Gonzalez work and Ramirez work?

8.Address the Machismo in Gonzalez’ and Ramirez’ works;

9.Address the role of women in Gonzalez and Ramirez’ works;

10.Do Gonzalez and Ramirez have a message of hope for Chicanos in America? Address in their works;

11.What credit to Mexican history-culture/Spanish history-culture do the writers attribute for any characteristics of chicanos in America?

12.Gonzalez uses the word “inferiority complex”; Ramirez uses both the “inferiority complex” and “the affliction”. What do these terms? And to what do they attribute the complex and how do they address/deal with it in their works?
First Texas Publishing Inc.
$400 Scholarship Top Prize
For a 7-10 page Essay



Compare and contrast Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez’s 1964 poem, “I Am Joaquin”, with Chuy Ramirez’s
2010 Strawberry Fields.


Writing the Essay:

1.Strawberry Fields is available for purchase on www.amazon.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com
2.Poem (I Am Joaquin) is attached;
3.Length of essay: recommended, at least 7-10 pages
4. Use APA style to cite all sources;
5.Cover Page including title, entry name, address, e-mail, & phone number.
6. Typed double-space;
7. Mail to: First Texas Publishers-Essay Scholarship Contest, PO BOX 181, San Juan, Texas 78589 or send digitally to ramirezbook@gmail.com;
8.If you have any questions please forward to mirta_espinola20@hotmail.com or ramirezbook@gmail.com. All questions and answers will be posted.
9.Deadline for Submission October 15, 2010;
10.1st prize: $400; 2nd prize: $200, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card for $50; 3rd prize: $100, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card $25
11.The 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize essays will be posted on the following sites: SF Facebook page, strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com,
12.No restrictions, but recommend that writers have some college course background.


Samples of Essay Topics: Writers are limited to the following topics. These are just suggestions.

1.The extent to which Gonzalez and Ramirez follow or deviate from the traditional Mexican historical model for Chicanos in America? (for instance, is there such a “traditional model”? Describe it.)
2.Address to what extent the world for Gonzalez’ Joaquin character and Ramirez’ Joaquin character is a world full of “confusion” as opposed as to a world full of “complexity”. What is this “confusion”? What are the “complexities”?
3.Does Ramirez’ Joaquin character reject “modern society” as Gonzalez’ Joaquin character does? Or does he embrace it? How does Ramirez’ Joaquin deal with modern society as opposed to Gonzalez’ Joaquin?
4.In Gonzalez’ America do Chicanos have an effective choice? What about in Ramirez’ America? What are those choices, if any?
5.How important is Mexican pre-Columbian history to Gonzalez’ Joaquin. How about for
Ramirez’Joaquin?
6.What roles do the Catholic Church, religion and the Bible play in the worlds of both Joaquin’s
7.What role does music (the corridos and ballads) play in Gonzalez work and Ramirez work?
8.Address the Machismo in Gonzalez’ and Ramirez’ works;
9.Address the role of women in Gonzalez and Ramirez’ works;
10.Do Gonzalez and Ramirez have a message of hope for Chicanos in America? Address in their works;
11.What credit to Mexican history-culture/Spanish history-culture do the writers attribute for any characteristics of chicanos in America?
12.Gonzalez uses the word “inferiority complex”; Ramirez uses both the “inferiority complex” and “the affliction”. What do these terms? And to what do they attribute the complex and how do they address/deal with it in their works?

I Am Joaquin
by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Yo soy Joaquín,
perdido en un mundo de confusión:
I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, [the economic
caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation, 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 spirit, despite physical hunger,
or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. [there is no choice: a chicano must
Choose between “victory of the spirit” or selling of the soul to American capitalism.]
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 [the safe harbor is the language and culture, but it is not a Mexican culture,
It is a culture that is peculiarly, impiedly rural, poor and Catholic.]

I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble,
leader of men, king of an empire civilized
beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés,
who also is the blood, the image of myself.
I am the Maya prince.
I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas.
I am the sword and flame of Cortes 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 the Christian church took its place in God's 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 Indian 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 who in the year eighteen hundred and ten
rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry--
El Grito de Dolores
"Que mueran los gachupines 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 of all those
who have come this way,
I placed on that fortress wall
to wait for independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero!
all companeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands 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 its 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 begin again.
I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez, guardian of the Constitution.
I was he 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 breadth
of his country's land to kings or monarchs or presidents of foriegn powers.
I am Joaquin.
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 earthy people.
I am Emiliano Zapata.
"This land, this earth is OURS."
The villages, the mountains, the streams
belong to 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 the Rurales,
coarse and brutal,
I am the mountian Indian,
superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering machine guns
are death to all of me:
Yaqui
Tarahumara
Chamala
Zapotec
Mestizo
Español.
I have been the bloody revolution,
The victor,
The vanquished.
I have killed
And been killed.
I am the despots Díaz
And Huerta
And the apostle of democracy,
Francisco Madero.
I am
The black-shawled
Faithfulwomen
Who die with me
Or live
Depending on the time and place.
I am faithful, humble Juan Diego,
The Virgin of Guadalupe,
Tonantzín, Aztec goddess, too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquín.
I rode east and north
As far 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 Elfego 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 or principle, good or bad.
Hidalgo! Zapata!
Murrieta! Espinozas!
Are but a few.
They dared to face
The force of tyranny
Of men who rule by deception and hypocrisy.
I stand here looking back,
And now I see the present,
And still I am a 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 gachupín will 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 stinking 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 land 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 threacherous 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 their 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 señores,
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 the 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 the tears of anguish
as I see my children disappear
behind the 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 have endured.
Part of the blood that is mine
has labored endlessly four 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 and 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 farmlands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke-smeared cities,
we start to MOVE.
La raza!
Méjicano!
Español!
Latino!
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 spirit is strong,
My faith unbreakable,
My blood is pure.
I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!

Monday, July 12, 2010

UTPA highlights on Alumni & Author, Chuy Ramirez

http://portal.utpa.edu/utpa_main/dua_home/alumni_home/news_home

First Texas Publishers and Chuy Ramirez would like to thank UTPA for their support.

Welcome to the Chuy Ramirez Blog

Works of Fiction:

Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories

Toy Soldiers-to be released

Joaquin's Journey-to be released


Essays:

Altering the Policy of Neglect of Undocumented Immigration from South of the Border, Vol. 18 in 1983

Igualada: Exploring The Gloria Anzaldua Link Between Powerlessness and Chicano/a Self-Expression













E-MAIL ME

E-MAIL ME
firsttexaspublishers@gmail.com

Chuy Ramirez at STC Pecan Library Campus