Reflejos Sobre La Frontera

En el nombre de Nuestra Madre, nosotras sus Hijas y la Alma de cada una de nosotras. Comienzo este reflejo usando la lengua hibrída de mis antepasados, de mis contemporaneos, y de la raza que nos espera mañana. Hablando de una existencia en las fronteras, an existence on the edges of realities, at what cost do we on the borderlands exist? I recently spent a week recovering archives of a story about a woman whose body was found strangled and burned in a garage en la madrugada del dia 12 de diciembre. Lo que descubri fue lo siguente:

Man found dead in fire was strangled
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-garagefire_webdec14,1,4286563.story

Tribune staff report
7:14 PM CST, December 13, 2007DiggDel.icio.us

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An autopsy Thursday determined that a man found dead after a garage fire Wednesday morning in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood had been strangled, authorities said.

The man's body was found badly burned about 7 a.m. after firefighters put out a fire near 21st Street and Homan Avenue, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Rich Rosado said.

The death of the unidentified man was ruled a homicide, according to a Cook County medical examiner's office spokeswoman.

The body of the man was the body of a transgender Chicana named Jackie.

Jackie grew up in Little Village, the largest barrio mexicano in the Midwest. For years she mediated conflict between homophobic gang members and the transgender women in the community, many of whom work, perform, form a community at La Cueva, una cantina que queda por la 26 en La Villita. She was a fighter, an activist, a dreamer, a sister, a brother, a daughter, a friend. Mi hermana, quien enfrentaba, borraba, y imaginaba a nuevas fronteras, dia tras dia, ésta es mi oración para ti. Como te gustaba la botella, cabrona!

Nos echabamos unos traguitos at “Sylvia’s Place” and you’d tell me, “Don’t be scared, girl, these niggas ain’t gonna to do shit to you. You’re with me! Queen Jackie, I used to be a Latin King, now I’m a Latin Queen! And they love it!!” You were right. I was scared. I was trying to pass, be butch. I had a tight fade, I’d wear loose fitting jeans that fell just below my ass, tucked the cuffs of my jeans into my Timberland boots to call attention to my heavy, masculine swagger whenever I walked across a room. I’d wear a fitted NY Yankees cap, sometimes, to add to the freshness of my butchness, diamond earrings to give off a little bling. The butch effect worked- at the gay club, in Boystown, where everyone else was queening out.

But in the ‘hood?! I set myself up to be approached by guys in the neighborhood with a: “Whatchu be about, dawg?” Ooh, those guys were fine, and if they only knew what I wanted to be about with them, then we really would have been trouble. But instead I turned to you to explain my position, to translate to them that I was one with you, en tu ganga, una ganga that was no threat to their’s. You’d step in and say “He don’t be about shit, nigga. That’s my girl, leave her alone, she’s with me!”

They would respond, “Aww, my bad, Jackie, you roll up in this bitch with mutha fuckas looking mad hard and shit, you can’t even tell who’s who anymore." Y0u’d turn to me and say, “ooh, papí, you’re giving “boy” doooown! They can’t even spook that you’re a faggot. I love it!”

The way you advocated for me is the way you advocated for the girls working the streets or having a night out in La Villita. “Dejalas en paz, pendejos. Te parto la madre!!” Your politics said 26^th Street was a big enough world for all kinds of Mexicanos, even the Joticanos.

Jackie, mamas, you were able to say “fuck you” with authority, with assurance because you were them. You saw yourself in the mirror with the men who tried to harass you, or the girls, or gay boys like me, and you said “Fuck you, nigga!” and resisted their violence; you, as Anzaldua would put it, “put history through a sieve, winnowed out the lies, looked at the forces that we as a race, as women, have been a part of. Luego botastes lo que no vale, los desmientos, los descuentos, el embrutecimiento. Aguardastes el juicio, hondo y enraízado, de la gente Antigua” y dijistes “chingan a tus madres, cabrones!! Conmigo no chingues!”

I’d stand there, in awe. “You are fucking amazing, Jackie.” I admired your courage, your fearlessness. I admired your strength. To resist. To love yourself. To be yourself. To survive as the person you dreamed yourself to be. Como una mujer! “I’m a fucking drag queen, I don’t give a fuck!”

Pero ahora veo que te ha costado, que te han cobrado. Encontrada en un garaje, en tu barrio patria, La Villita, quemada, estrangulada, sacrificada. Esto no es La Villita cual tu imaginabas. Dios te bendiga y guarda, manita. Ahora solo tengo la memoria de ti, y esta historia, esta narración de ti, porque ni ese respeto nos lo han dado.

I sit here, at the edge of the cliff, of my reality. I look over to yours, my own, and I am comforted in the embrace of Coatlicue. Has it ended or is it just beginning? I realize what’s left for me to do is dialogue with her about our next move.

♫♪ Desde el cielo una hermosa mañana, desde el cielo una hermosa mañana, La Guadalupana, La Guadalupana, La Guadalupana bajo al Tepeyac... ♪♫.

¿esa mañana, en diciembre, mientras que nuestra estrella de la mañana se levantó a dar nos, sus hijas, vida, fuistes tu olvidado?

Te extrañare, hermana. Mandame un postal del Tepeyac.

Tu amigo,

Joaquín