Hey! Joe Blowhard, Illegal immigration is not the real cause of your miserable lot in life; the real culprit is your failure to accept the responsibility handed down to you by what you, with pious pomposity, call "Our Funding Fathers" Without fully grasping the ideals set forth by their inspiration, sweat and blood, you have been shitting all over the Republic they entrusted to your stewardship.
You are messing it up royally.
Your complacent laziness fueled the apathy acquired after you got the two car garage, your children in college, annual vacations and cheap prices on immigrant labor and imports. It is so easy to get used to some luxuries because of all the American Continent, you got the biggest crumbs from the table of our imperialist masters.
And that was during the good times - happy days if I may say so - but you have also seen the down side, if not in you, in the people around you and your reaction to blame and remove the symptoms has been the same time and time again.
And you kept on voting against your enlightened self best interest by supporting people who enact and practice Corporatist Doctrines or you just didn't bother to vote at all.
SFCA April 10, 2006 - Late night/early morning
What a day!
The first good omen was the sunshine on my SRO* Hotel's windowsill around 11AM which prompted me to call out to my 9 yr. old mix Siamese Lynx friend and roommate Bianca's attention from her usual mid morning slumber, "Bianca, mija, look, sunshine". Out of the corner of my eye as I was getting into the shower stall, I saw her push out the window curtain and disappear behind it to indulge on one of her favorites feline pleasures.
National Action Day for Immigrant's Rights! And a rarity in San Francisco these days, spring sunshine after a full month of rain for an event at 24th & Mission Sts. at noon and a march from 16th to 24th Sts. at 5PM.
Dressed, groomed and after exchanging byes with Bianca, I left my room. At the Lobby, I saw my neighbor at the hotel sitting by the fire, it always gives me pleasure to talk to him, he is a conservative, but we can and do talk political stuff, I never fail to enjoy these exchanges because I see where is he coming from.
After the good morning greetings, he asked me:
"Where are you going?"
To exercise Democracy, I'm marching for Immigrant's rights" I replied.
"As long as you march with the American Flag" I turned around toward the voice and there he was, Joe Blow himself, condescending smile and all, doing his usual regurgitating of the right-wing echo-chamber-brain-dummying-fodder that passes as facts for them. I could see O'Reilly's, Limbaugh's and the other Regressive's faces in his revolting right wing political vomit. I find his ignorance obscene and his holier than thou attitude, obnoxious.
He doesn't have any problems with Irish or Italian Flags flying on St. Patrick's or Columbus Day. Burn the Mexican Flag, It is your right of expression I said to his suggestion, you have that right in this country and yes, were you to do it in Mexico, you most likely will end up in a jail of that corrupt corporatist government; we're talking about The US and not Mexico, immigrants can see the difference; we appreciate better than many US natives the promise that is the US Constitution because we have lived that difference.
We went back and forth for a little while until he really set me off with his comment to my assertion that the US population is the most over entertained and under informed hence it lives in an egregious ignorance of geopolitical issues, vindictively, he pointed out that not withstanding ignorance, it is the wealthiest.
By this time, the discussion had heated and the voices were raising, I reminded him of how ignominiously and shameful was the way these riches were acquired and regarding coming here and asking to have a say in our destiny, why not? The US uses Latin America as it's backyard economic playground and have had a lot to say in how we are governed and live. "What is good for the goose is good for the gander" That's what I say.
He dared impute our loyalty to this country and with "Latinos have died and are dying for this Country" as my parting words, I broke away toward the front door only to see that true to form, San Francisco's weather had changed dramatically, it had started to rain again, without umbrella and dressed to enjoy springtime, I turned around and being late for the noon event by this time, I went back to my room to ruminate on the issues brought out by the discussion, take care of a few things and change to warmer clothing for the 5PM PDT March.
SFCA April 11, 2006 - Mid afternoon
Try hard as I can to not take it at a personal level, the put downs of Latino people's countries, education and culture hurts because of the plain ignorance that engenders racism and xenophobia among other fears and which is not exclusive to the US by any stretch of the imagination, it is indeed reflected in Latin Americans as it is in any other ethnic group in any part of the world, as it is in me and with relatively few exceptions and to different degrees, they exist within every person alive today - Too general? Hmmm... Maybe, but I cannot help to wonder how many of us have done a brutally honest inventory of ourselves on these issues lately? Just a rhetorical question because I truly believe that there is at least a tinge of racism involved in the discussions and positions.
After getting updated on the dominant topics of discussion at DKos with focus on immigration and two solid hours of reading Articles of the Mexican Constitution for the second day in a row, I decided to get going and complete my narrative of yesterday's experiences, no easy task because they are so rich and numerous that I find it difficult to choose what to exclude to avoid writing a marathon diary which, I'm afraid to say, may be inevitable. I'll just take my time to complete it today and as a good Mexican, post it mañana. (Sorry, I couldn't resist touching on the stereotype which in my case and this time, it is true.)
Yesterday, five hours after the heated discussion, I walked the one block from my place to 16th & Mission to join the March, the rain had stopped.
The weather was pleasant enough for scores of people to wrap their sweaters and jackets around their waists, others chose to keep them on, as I did too, the temperature was just right.
After 37 years of life in this city and this neighborhood, for me, community gatherings/demonstrations resemble a family reunion more than anything else, the predominantly Latino event was festive, full of human energy and potential. All around you were young families, a group of them appeared to be three couples, I counted 11 children with them ranging on age from babies in carriages to toddlers and a specially beautiful and vivacious aprox. 7 yr. old girl in a pretty dress with a small American Flag in one hand and a also small Mexican flag in the other, with a bright smile on her brown face was enthusiastically marching and chanting with palpable determination: "Si se puede!", "Si se puede!".
This sentiment is highly misinterpreted by non Latino US Natives, there's tremendous fear that we have divided loyalties, how can we avoid it? We are capable of embracing both our native and adopted lands simultaneously, our children identify as Americans primarily, but we derive our patriotic pride and allegiance to our Mexican-American Heritage and the same applies to natives of other countries.
As we marched, on both sides of the street, business owners and their employees would come out to the sidewalk where they joined spectators showing their support for us with cheers and noise. People looking out their apartment building's windows were banging metal objects, there was this man who had a pan on the left hand and with a huge spoon in his right hand was hitting the bottom of the pan hard and continuously with what appeared to be anger or maybe just frustration, marchers were acknowledging their support and taking pictures of them.
The ironies in this Latino immigration issue are countless, the Latin American Community is a good fit to the prevalent "American Culture". I can't help but to thank the Regressives for their dumb move that is galvanizing this large voting block into actions to oppose them, I see the majority of us voting Democratic for a long time.
Latinos being over 90% Catholic, tend to be conservative, anti abortion and extremely family oriented but if I were to be a regressive, I could be very concerned because Latinos place their welfare above their religious affiliation, or as we say in Mexico "Primero comer que ser Christiano" (Roughly it means: Eating is before than being a Christian), we are not afraid to criticize, laugh at or even lampoon our governments, churches and priests because we know that in Latin America, for the most part, God eats at the rich man's table.
I kept on hugging friends, some of them I haven't seen in a while, as well as the ones that I'm currently working with on housing, homeless, transgender, immigration and mental health issues, even Barbara showed up in crutches, she is nursing a soccer injury on her ankle she just re-injured, after a block and a half into the march she had to quit because the pain was getting unbearable.
As we were approaching the end of the march at 24th St., I saw a friend I haven't seen since 2000, we used to dance in the same Mexica (Aztec) Dancers group Xiuhcoatl (Fire Serpent) and that year was the last time I danced for our communities' welfare.
He told me there was a bunch of Danzantes Mexica up front and we promptly marched faster to hook up with them. I wanted so much to greet and hug them. I danced in their circle for some years and it was in this group that I came out to this community as a Transgender woman. As is the case in the population in general, the majority of them supported me and the group's Chief, our Malinche, and with only a couple of exceptions, both women and male warriors honored me by deciding that henceforth I join the women's circle, which I did until I left them late in 1999.
We caught up with them at the intersection of 24th and Mission ST., there were so many of them, in addition to Xiuhcoatl, Xitlalli (Falling Star) and Mixcoatl Anahuac (Cloud Serpent Universe (Milky Way Universe)) Were also represented.
As we were greeting each other, less than 15 feet away there was a commotion and yells in Spanish to back up, to make way, to let them trough, I saw the crowd parting and I saw a group of about a dozen running young men and women chasing somebody, I could see their Norteño gang colors, almost immediately the kids started walking in the opposite direction with policemen herding them back.
The group was marching single file at fast pace, they went by me about 5, 6 feet away and I could see their faces, both boys and girls had a hard look in their faces, they turned east on 24th and by the side of MacDonald's they were intercepted by cops waiting for them, as I was looking at the proceedings, I was pushed hard from my right, the push was so hard I almost fell down and my fall was prevented by another hard shove from my left, for a couple of seconds my body went into defensive mode until I saw that they were police, I was directly in the path of a police contingent zeroing in to enclose the group of young people.
They corralled the group of over a dozen boys and girls, they were about 25 ft. from my position, I started to get concerned when the crowd started to get restless and many Latino men in their twenties started to move kind of encircling the police and kids, knowing the resentment that many Mexicans feel toward the police because of the racist elements in the force and their perennial abuse of us, I was afraid that a confrontation would ensue.
I was not the only one afraid of what my erupt, at that time, Tigre, the drummer of the group Mixcoatl Anahuac, started to drum. The Mexica, including me, started the most primeval form of prayer, we danced and almost immediately a circle began to form, we danced and danced, the crowd's tension was effectively defused when they joined in the dance with more enthusiasm than proficiency, the dancing continued for about an hour until the party pooper police started to politely urge us to get back on the sidewalks and thus end the event and restore the usual heavy Mission Street traffic.
After having an espresso and talking to old friends at La Boheme on 24th St, (My favorite Cafe), I made my way back home, I intended to walk the eight blocks, I stopped at Popeye's Fried Chicken on 22nd and Mission to buy some to have as dinner (I know, very greasy but I indulge in it from time to time when the craving appears)
In retrospect, I ponder that right outside Popeye's, a young Latino man was shot and killed, as a matter of fact, there are few areas in this neighborhood in which no young Latino person has died. Our kids are killing each other and from time to time they are helped by the police in this violent and destructive behavior.
We are invested in our communities, we have shed our blood in the streets, there's not much of a future anymore, we pay taxes and still the services for our kids are being cut, the social economic support is dwindling due to cuts to help the richest, people of color are working two or three part time jobs at a time to make ends meet, both father and mother work and the children are on their own for the most part without supervision.
This is why we march, we want to make our contributions to this society count in a positive way to enhance the welfare and well-being of our oppressed and neglected communities.
Joe Blow, do not be afraid of us, we'll be supporting issues and candidates who want to help common folk like you and us. In the final analysis and after the books have been written, you'll learn that we really loved the promise of this country, I can assure you that we we'll do our best to help bring this promise to fruition for all of us.
We have joined the movement to make of this society, "A most perfect Union"
What a day! I loved it!
Aurora
* Single Resident Occupancy.
** Short for "Mi" (My) "Hija" (Daughter) Mi hija - Mija