I’ve been reflecting on the ways in which the United States has responded to the traditional migration patterns of indigenous families and individuals of the Americas. The obvious to state is that I am extremely frustrated by the audacity of the US to force the descendants of these lands to recognize the USA government’s imagined “border” that exists between the US and Mexico. Beyond my frustration, however, I wonder- how is civil society responding to a State government, like Arizona, taking this international, human rights matter into their own hands? How is civil society responding to the failure of the Federal government to create a treaty that honors the daughters and sons of the Americas? How is civil society responding to the abandonment by the United Nations of the most vulnerable people in this hemisphere?
In March 2010, hundreds of thousands of Latinos, a large contingent of civil society, descended upon the mall on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to send a message to the President and Congress that the children of the Americas are here and we demand recognition. Absent from the immigration rights rally were African Americans, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered communities and the environmental movements. Before I continue, I must recognize the very few, daring, powerful Queer groups that were present in solidarity, like GLOBE and PRYDE of Make the Road New York. Groups like these, however, struggle within their own communities for their intersectional politics to be recognized.
Why weren’t there more African Americans at the immigration rally, supporting the familiar fight against discrimination and oppression by the laws of the US government?
I recently had a conversation with my friend Tamara, a self-identified African-American lesbian woman from Baltimore. I was explaining to her how I don’t claim Chicago as the place I am from, even though that is the city where I was born and spent many of my years growing up. I explained that all throughout my life, I traveled with my family to Mexico to visit my large, deeply rooted, extended family. I explained how papa would send a lot of money back so that his parents could invest in equipment to farm more efficiently and have electricity in remote areas. His investments back home are common among Latinos living in the US. The money acquired here goes back to help create infrastructure and stimulate the economy.
In response to me, Tamara said, “I can only go as far back as Baltimore. I know my people were African. I know I got some Native blood in me. Some European blood in me. But I can’t trace it back. I can only trace it to Baltimore.”
I have heard a similar story from many African Americans. For me, this explains why many policitized African Americans take an integrative approach to change and become a-part-of and step into leadership within the systems in the US that already exist. To me, this also explains some of the roots and philosophies of Hip-Hop – a language that’s about plural meanings and a culture about claiming one’s liberation, always reinventing itself to escape the captive hold of the oppressor.
Why weren’t the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered communities at the immigration rally, supporting a struggle and action similar to their own, on the same mall where they held their own march and rally only five months earlier to combat the discrimination against and oppression of LGBT people by the laws of the US government?
When I think about my own sexuality, I think about how it’s linked to my identity as a person of color from a low-income family living in the US. I think about my years as a teen and the rejection I experienced coming out to my family and society and the lack of resources or support available to me. It took me years to self-organize and discover the distant systems that existed. It took me even longer to figure out how to navigate those unfriendly, exclusive systems. When I think about other LGBT people of color organizing for the rights of LGBT people of color, I think of groups like the Audre Lorde Project, FIERCE! and Queers for Economic Justice. These groups confront head on the dilemma of uncovering the resources in this country and figuring out how to navigate existing systems in a way that honors the integrity of the complex, diverse identities of their members. These groups are laboratories for a multidimensional social movement. These groups, however, do not represent the dominant method of LGBT organizing in the US. That title is held by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Alliance.
I was a participant in the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Alliance’s annual Creating Change Conference in February, 2010. Creating Change is a conference that convenes activists and advocates for LGBT rights from around the US to share community organizing methods and build alliances. I attend this conference to gauge the work being done to advance the rights of LGBT people living in the US and to observe where and how resources are being used.
The priorities most visible to me at the conference were around marriage equality, employment discrimination, and hate-crime prevention. These are the issues put on the table by the majority white conference attendees. Now, don’t get me wrong. The issues are extremely important and affect many people, myself included. However, the value of these issues does not justify the exclusiveness that currently defines the LGBT movement in the US, an exclusiveness and a fund of legislative energy for the Federal government that has pushed us, the children of the Americas, to the side and has limited our struggle for dignified treatment and our rights to the land of our ancestors by the US government.
Why weren’t there environmental movements of the US at the immigration rally, supporting the familiar fight against exploitation and oppression by the laws of the US government?
In an economy that is entirely dependent on the mass consumption of Mother Earth and her resources for the production of wealth, entirely dependent on inhuman labor practices and the excretion of toxic waste, the people working for sustainability and environmental preservation is a struggle outside the realm of identity and within the realm of the natural and built environments. For the domestic Environmental Justice movement, social issues like race and class are central issues for thinking about environmental justice as it pertains to the people in the US affected most by Mother Earth’s degradation.
Across environmental movements there is a dominant emphasis on location-specific issues and dependence on federal and philanthropic funding to shift unhealthy environmental conditions and practices, often excluding from the dialogue how indigenous communities throughout the world are suffering from the affects of climate change and the exploitation of Mother Earth by capitalist and imperialist countries, primarily the US. The exception to this limited perspective is the work around environmental justice by mighty groups of indigenous brothers and sisters in the US, like the Indigenous Environmental Network, that has always held imperialism and capitalism as the culprit for the environmental plagues suffered by indigenous people around the globe.
In a place beyond the hyper-policed “borders” of the US, south of the fictional line, is a homeland with an indigenous popular leader and a communal people of warrior-survivors. In April of 2010, this indigenous leader and the people of this homeland, Bolivia, along with multiple leaders in Latina America, convened 35,000 people from around the world to produce a People’s Agreement and Declaration on the Right’s of Pachamama (Mother Earth). One of the central tenets to this agreement is the rights of indigenous communities suffering displacement and forced migration due to the environmental exploitation of capitalist and imperialist governments, again primarily the US. As the lands in the global south continue to become unlivable and unfertile, the inhabitants of the lands will continue to be forced to migrate in order to survive. Our people have and will always depend on the land for our survival and will move about this hemisphere as we have for hundreds of years to find that fertile land, in spite of any colonial and imperial restrictions the colonizer attempts to impose upon us.
It makes total sense why the US and local state governments are ringing the alarms and panicking. Pachamama and her children have awakened. And we are demanding our land be returned to us. It is in the interest of all our brothers and sisters, African American, LBGT or heterosexual, global south or east to imagine a borderless United States. What might your freedom feel like in a land where these discriminatory and oppressive governments had no authority over your existence? What might your existence feel like in a land where you could move freely between this land and Africa, to experience the land of your ancestors without stigma of being labeled unpatriotic? What might your existence feel like in a land where you were free to love whomever your heart desires or love yourself and your gender identity fearlessly? What might your life be like in a land where your body was healthy and in harmony with Mother Earth? The call for immigration reform and the recognition of the rights of the sons and daughters of the Americas is a call across civil societies to unite to disempower the discriminatory and oppressive state and federal governments in the US and to return the land to the people.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
¡Viva la Pachamama!
Cochabamba-Tiquipaya-La Paz, Bolivia
I write this entry from 12,000 feet above sea-level where clouds and people share the same horizon.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about how climate change and rising sea-levels will affect low-income people of color in waterfront communities in the United States. In the communities that exist high in the sky, I'm realizing how climate change, melting glaciers, and the scarcity of water for drinking and agriculture is already devastating the people of Bolivia.
Our political economies often segregate people of color struggles around the world. My time in Cochabamba has been a testament to the urgency for the struggles of the north and south to merge, and we can because the resilient children of the global south are living and fighting for change in the north. After a week of negotiations to create declarations of the rights for climate migrants and critical interventions for the shifting eco-systems, among 16 other working groups, with my hermanos y hermanas from developing countries around the world, it is clear to me our power to work together as pueblos in solidarity.
Working toward local and global justice in belly of the beast of capitalism and imperialism is often ugly. However, the 10's of thousands of people that came together to deepen their commitments to the rights of poor people around the world and the rights of Pachamama reaffirmed another world is possible. A world where the people that have been undervalued and exploited for hundreds of years are prioritized and treated with human dignity. A world where we the children of mother earth are in harmony with her. A world that is beautifully filled with local economies managed with the careful hands of los pueblos.
I feel assured of my ability to lead and work with the communities that are most affected by the violent and toxic abuse of Pachamama. I feel assured of our resilience in the United States when capitalism fails irreparably. I feel more prepared to build a new social order with mis comañer@s around the globe as we transition out of the systems of power as we know them today.
I write this entry from 12,000 feet above sea-level where clouds and people share the same horizon.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about how climate change and rising sea-levels will affect low-income people of color in waterfront communities in the United States. In the communities that exist high in the sky, I'm realizing how climate change, melting glaciers, and the scarcity of water for drinking and agriculture is already devastating the people of Bolivia.
Our political economies often segregate people of color struggles around the world. My time in Cochabamba has been a testament to the urgency for the struggles of the north and south to merge, and we can because the resilient children of the global south are living and fighting for change in the north. After a week of negotiations to create declarations of the rights for climate migrants and critical interventions for the shifting eco-systems, among 16 other working groups, with my hermanos y hermanas from developing countries around the world, it is clear to me our power to work together as pueblos in solidarity.
Working toward local and global justice in belly of the beast of capitalism and imperialism is often ugly. However, the 10's of thousands of people that came together to deepen their commitments to the rights of poor people around the world and the rights of Pachamama reaffirmed another world is possible. A world where the people that have been undervalued and exploited for hundreds of years are prioritized and treated with human dignity. A world where we the children of mother earth are in harmony with her. A world that is beautifully filled with local economies managed with the careful hands of los pueblos.
I feel assured of my ability to lead and work with the communities that are most affected by the violent and toxic abuse of Pachamama. I feel assured of our resilience in the United States when capitalism fails irreparably. I feel more prepared to build a new social order with mis comañer@s around the globe as we transition out of the systems of power as we know them today.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Activistas Norteamericanos Participan en la Inauguración con Presidente Evo Morales a La Primera Cumbre Mundial Sobre el Cambio Climático
PARA DIFUSION INMEDIATA
20 Abril 2010
Contacts (in Bolivia):
Joaquín Sánchez, UPROSE: +591 774 11248
Diana Wu, Movement Strategy Center+591 779 46796
Activistas Norteamericanos Participan en la Inauguración con Presidente Evo Morales a La Primera Cumbre Mundial Sobre el Cambio Climático
Cochabamba, Bolivia- Activistas Latinos y Afro-Americanos de centros urbanos de toda norteamérica y sus aliados de todo el mundo asistieron a la inauguración de la conferencia sobre el Cambio Climático y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra, invitados por el Presidente Boliviano Evo Morales en Cochabamba.
Morales convocó a la conferencia después del fracaso de las negociaciones políticas sobre el cambio climático en Copenhague el año pasado. Más de 15,000 delegados de 126 países oyeron las palabras del presidente Morales hoy en Tiquipaya-Cochabamba, Bolivia, y van a estar reuniéndose en grupos de trabajo esta semana, para desarrollar estrategias y proponer políticas sobre temas como bosques, el agua, deuda climática, y finanzas. Presidente Morales se comprometió a traer y promover éstas recomendaciones a la 16a Conferencia de los Partidos que se realizará en Cancún al final de este año.
La convocación incluyó una ceremonia de bendición multicultural de pueblos indígenas de todo el continente, y discursos por representantes de los movimientos sociales de los cinco continentes. Hablaron sobre la urgencia del crisis climático y la necesidad de acciones audaces que protegen los derechos humanos y del medio ambiente.
“El cambio climático y su impacto en la gente urbano ha sido ignorado por nuestro gobierno. El Protocolo de Kyoto y Copenhague fueron oportunidades para que el gobierno garantiza la sobrevivencia de las comunidades más vulnerables en los Estados Unidos. Estamos en Bolivia para aprender a trabajar juntos con los pueblos indígenas en la lucha contra la explotación de las empresas transnacionales y los gobiernos negligentes,” dijó Joaquín Sánchez de UPROSE (NY), y coordinador del proyecto Youth Justice, una iniciativa del empoderamiento de jóvenes en Brooklyn.
“Estoy aquí porque yo estaba en Copenhague y vi cómo las voces de la gente fueron limitados en el proceso de negociación. Quería asegurar que las voces de las comunidades internacionales que son los más afectados por el cambio climático se conectaron y en solidaridad en camino hacia a COP 16 en Cancún. Es importante que la gente en el sur ve que en el vientre de la bestia tambien hay comunidades que viven en las sombras de las industrias toxicas que vean en sus propias comunidades,” dijó Kari Fulton, Coordinadora de la Campaña Nacional para Jovenes de la Iniciativa para la Justicia Ambiental y el Cambio Climático y co-fundador de Checktheweather.net.
“Estoy aquí porque creo que lo más importante para nuestra sobrevivencia colectiva es que todo lo que hagamos sobre el cambio climático sea suficientemente grande para cumplir con la escala del problema, y que realmente transforma el capitalismo, el colonialismo, el racismo y el patriarcado, entre otras cosas. La explotación de la naturaleza y lo que WEB Dubois llamó “cuerpos oscuros” son tan entremezclados que cualquier solución que sólo trata a una parte, está condenada al fracaso,” dijó Diana Wu del Centro de Estategias del Movimiento y profesora de estudios ambientales. “Necesitamos conectar las luchas de las comunidades vulnerables en los EE.UU. con otras comunidades vulnerables y los movimientos sociales en el sur. La gente en esta delegación de los EE.UU. son los que lo estan haciendo.”
La delegación estará en Cochabamba durante la Conferencia (20-24 de abril). Celular local: +591 774 11248
###
20 Abril 2010
Contacts (in Bolivia):
Joaquín Sánchez, UPROSE: +591 774 11248
Diana Wu, Movement Strategy Center+591 779 46796
Activistas Norteamericanos Participan en la Inauguración con Presidente Evo Morales a La Primera Cumbre Mundial Sobre el Cambio Climático
Cochabamba, Bolivia- Activistas Latinos y Afro-Americanos de centros urbanos de toda norteamérica y sus aliados de todo el mundo asistieron a la inauguración de la conferencia sobre el Cambio Climático y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra, invitados por el Presidente Boliviano Evo Morales en Cochabamba.
Morales convocó a la conferencia después del fracaso de las negociaciones políticas sobre el cambio climático en Copenhague el año pasado. Más de 15,000 delegados de 126 países oyeron las palabras del presidente Morales hoy en Tiquipaya-Cochabamba, Bolivia, y van a estar reuniéndose en grupos de trabajo esta semana, para desarrollar estrategias y proponer políticas sobre temas como bosques, el agua, deuda climática, y finanzas. Presidente Morales se comprometió a traer y promover éstas recomendaciones a la 16a Conferencia de los Partidos que se realizará en Cancún al final de este año.
La convocación incluyó una ceremonia de bendición multicultural de pueblos indígenas de todo el continente, y discursos por representantes de los movimientos sociales de los cinco continentes. Hablaron sobre la urgencia del crisis climático y la necesidad de acciones audaces que protegen los derechos humanos y del medio ambiente.
“El cambio climático y su impacto en la gente urbano ha sido ignorado por nuestro gobierno. El Protocolo de Kyoto y Copenhague fueron oportunidades para que el gobierno garantiza la sobrevivencia de las comunidades más vulnerables en los Estados Unidos. Estamos en Bolivia para aprender a trabajar juntos con los pueblos indígenas en la lucha contra la explotación de las empresas transnacionales y los gobiernos negligentes,” dijó Joaquín Sánchez de UPROSE (NY), y coordinador del proyecto Youth Justice, una iniciativa del empoderamiento de jóvenes en Brooklyn.
“Estoy aquí porque yo estaba en Copenhague y vi cómo las voces de la gente fueron limitados en el proceso de negociación. Quería asegurar que las voces de las comunidades internacionales que son los más afectados por el cambio climático se conectaron y en solidaridad en camino hacia a COP 16 en Cancún. Es importante que la gente en el sur ve que en el vientre de la bestia tambien hay comunidades que viven en las sombras de las industrias toxicas que vean en sus propias comunidades,” dijó Kari Fulton, Coordinadora de la Campaña Nacional para Jovenes de la Iniciativa para la Justicia Ambiental y el Cambio Climático y co-fundador de Checktheweather.net.
“Estoy aquí porque creo que lo más importante para nuestra sobrevivencia colectiva es que todo lo que hagamos sobre el cambio climático sea suficientemente grande para cumplir con la escala del problema, y que realmente transforma el capitalismo, el colonialismo, el racismo y el patriarcado, entre otras cosas. La explotación de la naturaleza y lo que WEB Dubois llamó “cuerpos oscuros” son tan entremezclados que cualquier solución que sólo trata a una parte, está condenada al fracaso,” dijó Diana Wu del Centro de Estategias del Movimiento y profesora de estudios ambientales. “Necesitamos conectar las luchas de las comunidades vulnerables en los EE.UU. con otras comunidades vulnerables y los movimientos sociales en el sur. La gente en esta delegación de los EE.UU. son los que lo estan haciendo.”
La delegación estará en Cochabamba durante la Conferencia (20-24 de abril). Celular local: +591 774 11248
###
Friday, April 9, 2010
queer resilience; Cochabamba, Bolivia; NYC Climate Justice Youth Summit
over the last few months, there have been multiple instances when i tried to write my meditations and political musings. my body has been so exhausted, it has been hard to get passed the first couple of sentences, sometimes passed a few words. but this time my motivation is different. i am writing this on the heels of watching a documentary on netflix.
since i've been single, i have had some "spare" time on my hands and have tried a whole range of activities to keep me entertained. instead of cyber-cruising for hot, NSA... (i'm just sayin'), although that's not really my thing anyway (i mean), i decided to finally consider one of my therapist's suggestions. my therapist is ALWAYS recommending shit. so tonight, i finally drank the kool aid. tonight. after a long ass day at work (typical) and many failed attempts to connect with friends (everyone seems to be out of town- it is conference season, i suppose), i decided to watch Nuyorican Dream.
loca, that shit was heavy. the story is about a Puerto Rican family's struggle in NYC. one of the protagonists is Robert, the eldest of his mother's children. He was the only one in the family to graduate from high school and college. He's a teacher. Robert is surrounded by his mother who migrated from Puerto Rico who was forced to abandon her education to work the fields as a child, his younger brother who is in and out of prison and his sisters who are single mothers struggling with drug addictions. The documentary follows the family for 4 years and does an excellent job of capturing Robert's personal struggle to balance an active life with his family plagued with the conditions of poverty and his autonomy as "someone who made it out of the ghetto". At one point in the film Robert says "it hurts to be so far from and so close to my family. it hurts. it's almost like i can touch them but i can't feel them or they can't feel me anymore." This brotha gets deep on a few occasions throughout the film.
In spite of the poverty, the drugs, the lack of opportunities, amid the chaos, Robert prevails. this brotha got a resilience that sexier than ricky martin doing yoga at the beach with his beau. what distinguishes Robert from his siblings is really one thing- he's gay. the more i thought about his sexuality within the context of his environment, the more i concluded that this sexuality stuff is what cores are made of, what dreams are made of. being able to define and choose one's sexual allegiances and to name our desires is a endless source independent of power.
it's this power that has pushed me beyond the limitations imposed upon me by others. this particular power has stretched my political muscles in ways that have transformed entire systems of oppression. how beautiful is that?
watching the documentary, i couldn't help but to think about where i've come from and where i'm going. in the immediate sense, i'm headed to the Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos Sobre el Cambio Climatico y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra (World's People Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. how does queerness change up the conversation about Mother Earth's rights? what's does a queer mother earth look like? is she a lesbian (she betta be)? what will this queer body be exposed to at this particular conference and what will this queer body expose to others in that particular space?
as the son of obatala, i often ask these types of questions. i'm hoping elegua knocks some practical sense into me and get me back on track to thinking about what the hell i'm going to be talking about in bolivia. after these messages, we'll be right back.
-----
okay, so, i was reading my last post from march 2009 (over a year ago) and realized i was pontificating about a youth of color encuentro on climate change. 1 year later, it's called the first ever NYC Climate Justice Youth Summit- Our People, Our 'Hoods, Our Future, taking place next weekend, April 16-17 (a day after, me voy a Bolivia). It's been a busy year. I am proud of the work I've been able to achieve in the last year. Shout outs to ALL the supporters and mentors that have provided guidance and love that has brought this summit to bear. it's been a pleasure working with so many wonderful people committed to getting the generations that will be most affected by climate change informed about the issues and empowered to take action. I am thrilled to see the outcomes of the upcoming summit and to build with the burgeoning leaders in the environmental justice movement. feel free to come through to check out the summit if you're in town. we've all put a lot of love and hard work into this project. axe!
register online @ www.uproseyouthsummit.blogspot.com
since i've been single, i have had some "spare" time on my hands and have tried a whole range of activities to keep me entertained. instead of cyber-cruising for hot, NSA... (i'm just sayin'), although that's not really my thing anyway (i mean), i decided to finally consider one of my therapist's suggestions. my therapist is ALWAYS recommending shit. so tonight, i finally drank the kool aid. tonight. after a long ass day at work (typical) and many failed attempts to connect with friends (everyone seems to be out of town- it is conference season, i suppose), i decided to watch Nuyorican Dream.
loca, that shit was heavy. the story is about a Puerto Rican family's struggle in NYC. one of the protagonists is Robert, the eldest of his mother's children. He was the only one in the family to graduate from high school and college. He's a teacher. Robert is surrounded by his mother who migrated from Puerto Rico who was forced to abandon her education to work the fields as a child, his younger brother who is in and out of prison and his sisters who are single mothers struggling with drug addictions. The documentary follows the family for 4 years and does an excellent job of capturing Robert's personal struggle to balance an active life with his family plagued with the conditions of poverty and his autonomy as "someone who made it out of the ghetto". At one point in the film Robert says "it hurts to be so far from and so close to my family. it hurts. it's almost like i can touch them but i can't feel them or they can't feel me anymore." This brotha gets deep on a few occasions throughout the film.
In spite of the poverty, the drugs, the lack of opportunities, amid the chaos, Robert prevails. this brotha got a resilience that sexier than ricky martin doing yoga at the beach with his beau. what distinguishes Robert from his siblings is really one thing- he's gay. the more i thought about his sexuality within the context of his environment, the more i concluded that this sexuality stuff is what cores are made of, what dreams are made of. being able to define and choose one's sexual allegiances and to name our desires is a endless source independent of power.
it's this power that has pushed me beyond the limitations imposed upon me by others. this particular power has stretched my political muscles in ways that have transformed entire systems of oppression. how beautiful is that?
watching the documentary, i couldn't help but to think about where i've come from and where i'm going. in the immediate sense, i'm headed to the Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos Sobre el Cambio Climatico y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra (World's People Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. how does queerness change up the conversation about Mother Earth's rights? what's does a queer mother earth look like? is she a lesbian (she betta be)? what will this queer body be exposed to at this particular conference and what will this queer body expose to others in that particular space?
as the son of obatala, i often ask these types of questions. i'm hoping elegua knocks some practical sense into me and get me back on track to thinking about what the hell i'm going to be talking about in bolivia. after these messages, we'll be right back.
-----
okay, so, i was reading my last post from march 2009 (over a year ago) and realized i was pontificating about a youth of color encuentro on climate change. 1 year later, it's called the first ever NYC Climate Justice Youth Summit- Our People, Our 'Hoods, Our Future, taking place next weekend, April 16-17 (a day after, me voy a Bolivia). It's been a busy year. I am proud of the work I've been able to achieve in the last year. Shout outs to ALL the supporters and mentors that have provided guidance and love that has brought this summit to bear. it's been a pleasure working with so many wonderful people committed to getting the generations that will be most affected by climate change informed about the issues and empowered to take action. I am thrilled to see the outcomes of the upcoming summit and to build with the burgeoning leaders in the environmental justice movement. feel free to come through to check out the summit if you're in town. we've all put a lot of love and hard work into this project. axe!
register online @ www.uproseyouthsummit.blogspot.com
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Power Shift-ed 2009
Uprose @ Power Shift 2009
Report Back, March 3, 2009
The 2nd annual Power Shift conference on Global Warming organized by the Energy Action Coalition took place between February 27 and March 2, 2009. I attended the conference to learn about the youth work done by organizations throughout the nation. 12,000 people, mostly youth, attended the conference. Of this number, only 1100 were people of color: this included Indigenous peoples, African Americans, Latin@s and Asian and Pacific Islanders. In a city that is 73.6% people of color, it was strange to encounter a DC where the overwhelming majority of the people, 90%, were White. I spent the first day swimming through a sea of dangerous liberal ideas and organizers in a daylong institute on the use of personal narrative as a method of organizing. I listened to participants tell their stories about changing the world and the dire conditions of their privileged, private college campuses. When I shared with them that when I was a child I was obese because there were no green spaces in my community on Chicago’s Southwest side for me to exercise and that on one end of my neighborhood was a mega-county jail and on the other end was a coal burning power plant, I received blank stares and nods of- confusion? empathy? understanding? solidarity?
I continued navigating the conference and linked up with other organizers of color and learned they were having similar experiences and shared my criticisms about the conference. Some of these people were:
Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus in DC,
SeaSunz/AshEl Eldridge of Art in Action in Oakland,
Jihan Gearon, ED of the Indigenous Environmental Network AZ/MN,
Nia Robinson, ED of the Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative in Oakland,
Among many others.
One of the observations I made was the challenge in making environmental justice work appealing to youth. After participating in a few workshops given by Jihan and Nia, I realized that environmental justice as it is understood by these organizers in particular, the handful of EJ of color organizers at the conference and by UPROSE, is a fierce, complex, and holistic method of organizing that considers economic, social and environmental injustices. I also realized that, unfortunately, EJ often get’s written off as “some white shit” or a white person’s struggle. After attending the workshops given by the “Rev.” of the Hip Hop Caucus and SeaSunz from Art in Actions, I was reminded that arts, music, and creative expression draw in the youth. After multiple conversations throughout the weekend with Julien Terrell, the youth organizer at Youth Ministries, I learned that YMPJ, too, is struggling to recruit and retain youth and struggling to get the youth to fully understand the issues and the value of becoming educated about the issues and agreed the absence of youth voice in the EJ movement is a priority.
While taking all of this in, I couldn’t help but think about how urgent it is to have a conference on climate and environmental justice for youth of color in NYC. This calling was especially inspired by one of the youth I met from Youth Ministries. In a workshop on Climate Justice we both were in, he was asked “Is change possible?” by the workshop facilitator and he responded, “Of course it is possible! If there was no hope or if it wasn’t possible, then we wouldn’t be here. We have to have hope! Otherwise we all should just go home.”
And so it will come to be. On the evening of the Sunday of my departure from DC, multiple EJ youth groups convened to debrief and discuss the potential for a national action by youth of color. I had spoken to most of the organizers that attended that meeting about the environmental justice encuentro we are planning for the spring of 2010. I return to Sunset Park, inspired, connected, and hella busy with work!!
Axé,
Joaquín Sánchez, Jr.
Youth Organizing Coordinator,
UPROSE
Report Back, March 3, 2009
The 2nd annual Power Shift conference on Global Warming organized by the Energy Action Coalition took place between February 27 and March 2, 2009. I attended the conference to learn about the youth work done by organizations throughout the nation. 12,000 people, mostly youth, attended the conference. Of this number, only 1100 were people of color: this included Indigenous peoples, African Americans, Latin@s and Asian and Pacific Islanders. In a city that is 73.6% people of color, it was strange to encounter a DC where the overwhelming majority of the people, 90%, were White. I spent the first day swimming through a sea of dangerous liberal ideas and organizers in a daylong institute on the use of personal narrative as a method of organizing. I listened to participants tell their stories about changing the world and the dire conditions of their privileged, private college campuses. When I shared with them that when I was a child I was obese because there were no green spaces in my community on Chicago’s Southwest side for me to exercise and that on one end of my neighborhood was a mega-county jail and on the other end was a coal burning power plant, I received blank stares and nods of- confusion? empathy? understanding? solidarity?
I continued navigating the conference and linked up with other organizers of color and learned they were having similar experiences and shared my criticisms about the conference. Some of these people were:
Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus in DC,
SeaSunz/AshEl Eldridge of Art in Action in Oakland,
Jihan Gearon, ED of the Indigenous Environmental Network AZ/MN,
Nia Robinson, ED of the Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative in Oakland,
Among many others.
One of the observations I made was the challenge in making environmental justice work appealing to youth. After participating in a few workshops given by Jihan and Nia, I realized that environmental justice as it is understood by these organizers in particular, the handful of EJ of color organizers at the conference and by UPROSE, is a fierce, complex, and holistic method of organizing that considers economic, social and environmental injustices. I also realized that, unfortunately, EJ often get’s written off as “some white shit” or a white person’s struggle. After attending the workshops given by the “Rev.” of the Hip Hop Caucus and SeaSunz from Art in Actions, I was reminded that arts, music, and creative expression draw in the youth. After multiple conversations throughout the weekend with Julien Terrell, the youth organizer at Youth Ministries, I learned that YMPJ, too, is struggling to recruit and retain youth and struggling to get the youth to fully understand the issues and the value of becoming educated about the issues and agreed the absence of youth voice in the EJ movement is a priority.
While taking all of this in, I couldn’t help but think about how urgent it is to have a conference on climate and environmental justice for youth of color in NYC. This calling was especially inspired by one of the youth I met from Youth Ministries. In a workshop on Climate Justice we both were in, he was asked “Is change possible?” by the workshop facilitator and he responded, “Of course it is possible! If there was no hope or if it wasn’t possible, then we wouldn’t be here. We have to have hope! Otherwise we all should just go home.”
And so it will come to be. On the evening of the Sunday of my departure from DC, multiple EJ youth groups convened to debrief and discuss the potential for a national action by youth of color. I had spoken to most of the organizers that attended that meeting about the environmental justice encuentro we are planning for the spring of 2010. I return to Sunset Park, inspired, connected, and hella busy with work!!
Axé,
Joaquín Sánchez, Jr.
Youth Organizing Coordinator,
UPROSE
Sunday, March 1, 2009
a brown man's environmental study
sunday evening, march 1, 2009.
the window i look out of is lightly tinted,
along highway 895,
riding north on a commercial bus,
from washington dc to new york city.
i was in 'dc' to attend a conference on,
climate change,
'global warming',
'global chaos',
'this generation's challenge'.
i return to new york with a wealth of knowledge,
about our adapting climate,
and a sense of the urgency these changes have-
on working class and poor communities-
brown, black communities,
first nation peoples communities,
and an understanding about these communities in particular,
as environments targeted by fuel burning,
money making,
governmental endorsed agencies.
i return to new york-
clear that this 'generation's challenge',
is code for the dangers the privileged of this land are in,
clear that in addition to the economic and social injustices
people of color,
we, the land tillers,
have endured for more than half a millennium-
of colonization,
we have paid the price for the violence enacted upon our environment,
by those with wealth who carelessly consume resources -
and intoxicate our earth.
'this generations challenge',
still does not hold the privileged self or a privileged people accountable.
i return to new york,
inspired to continue questioning-
and educating-
those who are affected most,
about the issues that create,
living conditions on the edge of demise-
physical, mental, emotional.
and i am reminded of my own articulated struggles,
the nursing and health i find when i am able to sit and write,
mark my place on the world.
i am reminded of a performance piece i worked on in 2008.
i haven't had the opportunity to share it with many people,
and i invite you to continue reading.
below is an excerpt from the introduction.
i welcome your thoughts, questions, and offerings...
looking out a window,
to the future and working to make that possible;
a snow storm is expected-
this first night of march,
i hope it doesn't hold me back...
excerpt:
I stand here at a crossroads in my life.
I entered graduate school and began questioning:
“am I living in the post-identity?”
As an undergraduate student, I first struggled and then fought to articulate a voice of difference that challenged the dominance of normative expression and values: heteronormatives, racial normatives, economic normatives, linguistic normatives, and intellectual normatives.
This fight initiated a furious examination of my self, my body, and my ideas.
After deep soul searching I recognized,
maybe it isn’t me?
After entertaining that thought
I examined the people who conform to the institution that maintains
the oppression of difference.
With this offering,
I invite you to reflect on the ways in which you participate in that conformity,
in those oppressive practices,
to celebrate the ways in which you resist those practices.
I challenge you to do more.
I am at the gate of the academy,
crossing another border.
I am under surveillance,
I am being asked to show them mí pasaporte,
the whiteness that should have been instilled in me by now
that allows me to pass,
on to the other side.
Pero soy mojado.
I got this far crossing through the rio Bravo,
from the streets of the Chi to the academy.
This Chicano body is a match striking against the surface,
through resistance,
I become fire,
I throw myself in the river to cool off,
and i float with the river current,
de costa a costa,
not cutting through el rio como el gringo has tried to convince me to do.
When I was younger I thought Chicano was a word that married Chicago and Mexicans.
It is.
The movement prophesized our arrival.
Claiming territory,
their territory,
just as they colonized our territory.
The 1.5 million Mexicans living in Chicago is no coincidence.
We migrate far north and settle in lands that were never/
have always been
our own-
to reclaim the territory stolen from our first nation brothers and sisters.
We impregnate the land con nuestra raza,
convert commercial spaces in to botanicas,
spiritual warehouses where one finds the tools to practice our indigenous and African religions.
We replace their God with ours,
and mount Nuestra Madre,
Coatlicue,
Tonantzin,
Guadalupe
on the altars of their temples.
We convert their schools into fortresses of resistance,
sites where the reproduction of their culture is disrupted and transformed into something new.
What does our resistance generate?!
Many of us work within these sites of new beginnings and resistance to contribute to the formation of a critical resistance,
critical cultures,
cultures in movement,
cultures that have arrived,
culturas informadas por la facultad de cada uno de nosotros.
Our bodies enter the confines of their movement towards spiritual sterilization,
the institutions of education en el America,
and we respond viscerally to the sting,
a chemical and soulful reaction.
We stare them in the face and in ours they see reflected the failures of their technologies,
y durante todos estos intercambios,
buscamos a la America.
My body, with the river,
sails along and through the land,
con la gracia de nuestra madre yemaya-
movement without ever touching the land you stole from me.
The earth facing the sun is burning.
Once the feathered serpent on land and in the sky,
I am now a scaled coyote, submerged in water.
I, the river dweller, make my way through the land without ever getting burned.
I know your landscape well,
better than you know yourself,
because you can’t see yourself.
I leave a trail for others to follow.
Under water, we can’t be seen.
I am at a crossroads in my life,
never really here,
never, really, will I ever be,
there.
i search for the rifts in your anatomy to fill with water.
To lubricate the incrustations,
the calluses of your feudal system that stifles the germination of a world
that loves itself.
once the dry earth,
you will be the fluid river for me to move through.
This performance is about corporal movement.
The movement of brown queer bodies.
The movement of this brown queer body,
as it documents the movement of other brown queer bodies,
in this country,
in these institutions,
or absent from these institutions.
the window i look out of is lightly tinted,
along highway 895,
riding north on a commercial bus,
from washington dc to new york city.
i was in 'dc' to attend a conference on,
climate change,
'global warming',
'global chaos',
'this generation's challenge'.
i return to new york with a wealth of knowledge,
about our adapting climate,
and a sense of the urgency these changes have-
on working class and poor communities-
brown, black communities,
first nation peoples communities,
and an understanding about these communities in particular,
as environments targeted by fuel burning,
money making,
governmental endorsed agencies.
i return to new york-
clear that this 'generation's challenge',
is code for the dangers the privileged of this land are in,
clear that in addition to the economic and social injustices
people of color,
we, the land tillers,
have endured for more than half a millennium-
of colonization,
we have paid the price for the violence enacted upon our environment,
by those with wealth who carelessly consume resources -
and intoxicate our earth.
'this generations challenge',
still does not hold the privileged self or a privileged people accountable.
i return to new york,
inspired to continue questioning-
and educating-
those who are affected most,
about the issues that create,
living conditions on the edge of demise-
physical, mental, emotional.
and i am reminded of my own articulated struggles,
the nursing and health i find when i am able to sit and write,
mark my place on the world.
i am reminded of a performance piece i worked on in 2008.
i haven't had the opportunity to share it with many people,
and i invite you to continue reading.
below is an excerpt from the introduction.
i welcome your thoughts, questions, and offerings...
looking out a window,
to the future and working to make that possible;
a snow storm is expected-
this first night of march,
i hope it doesn't hold me back...
excerpt:
I stand here at a crossroads in my life.
I entered graduate school and began questioning:
“am I living in the post-identity?”
As an undergraduate student, I first struggled and then fought to articulate a voice of difference that challenged the dominance of normative expression and values: heteronormatives, racial normatives, economic normatives, linguistic normatives, and intellectual normatives.
This fight initiated a furious examination of my self, my body, and my ideas.
After deep soul searching I recognized,
maybe it isn’t me?
After entertaining that thought
I examined the people who conform to the institution that maintains
the oppression of difference.
With this offering,
I invite you to reflect on the ways in which you participate in that conformity,
in those oppressive practices,
to celebrate the ways in which you resist those practices.
I challenge you to do more.
I am at the gate of the academy,
crossing another border.
I am under surveillance,
I am being asked to show them mí pasaporte,
the whiteness that should have been instilled in me by now
that allows me to pass,
on to the other side.
Pero soy mojado.
I got this far crossing through the rio Bravo,
from the streets of the Chi to the academy.
This Chicano body is a match striking against the surface,
through resistance,
I become fire,
I throw myself in the river to cool off,
and i float with the river current,
de costa a costa,
not cutting through el rio como el gringo has tried to convince me to do.
When I was younger I thought Chicano was a word that married Chicago and Mexicans.
It is.
The movement prophesized our arrival.
Claiming territory,
their territory,
just as they colonized our territory.
The 1.5 million Mexicans living in Chicago is no coincidence.
We migrate far north and settle in lands that were never/
have always been
our own-
to reclaim the territory stolen from our first nation brothers and sisters.
We impregnate the land con nuestra raza,
convert commercial spaces in to botanicas,
spiritual warehouses where one finds the tools to practice our indigenous and African religions.
We replace their God with ours,
and mount Nuestra Madre,
Coatlicue,
Tonantzin,
Guadalupe
on the altars of their temples.
We convert their schools into fortresses of resistance,
sites where the reproduction of their culture is disrupted and transformed into something new.
What does our resistance generate?!
Many of us work within these sites of new beginnings and resistance to contribute to the formation of a critical resistance,
critical cultures,
cultures in movement,
cultures that have arrived,
culturas informadas por la facultad de cada uno de nosotros.
Our bodies enter the confines of their movement towards spiritual sterilization,
the institutions of education en el America,
and we respond viscerally to the sting,
a chemical and soulful reaction.
We stare them in the face and in ours they see reflected the failures of their technologies,
y durante todos estos intercambios,
buscamos a la America.
My body, with the river,
sails along and through the land,
con la gracia de nuestra madre yemaya-
movement without ever touching the land you stole from me.
The earth facing the sun is burning.
Once the feathered serpent on land and in the sky,
I am now a scaled coyote, submerged in water.
I, the river dweller, make my way through the land without ever getting burned.
I know your landscape well,
better than you know yourself,
because you can’t see yourself.
I leave a trail for others to follow.
Under water, we can’t be seen.
I am at a crossroads in my life,
never really here,
never, really, will I ever be,
there.
i search for the rifts in your anatomy to fill with water.
To lubricate the incrustations,
the calluses of your feudal system that stifles the germination of a world
that loves itself.
once the dry earth,
you will be the fluid river for me to move through.
This performance is about corporal movement.
The movement of brown queer bodies.
The movement of this brown queer body,
as it documents the movement of other brown queer bodies,
in this country,
in these institutions,
or absent from these institutions.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
excerpt from: navigando fronteiras
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, México
Pueblo Chiquito, Infierno Grande
|
Ferry Boat, Caribbean Sea
Playa del Carmen-Cozumel, Quintana Roo, México
9/15/2003
“I can’t believe I’m on this ferry boat. I guess I was lucky to catch the last one. I hope he has his cell phone on. I have no idea where I’m going… I wonder where el grito de la independencia is on the island? Maybe I can just drop off my bags and go join the party, wherever it is. I hope he has his phone on…”
An extended vacation? How dare I. What is a lifelong sacrifice for many of those I work with in this small city has been referred to as an “extended vacation” by me. Typical of an American that is oblivious to her own freedom, her own privilege. An “extended vacation”? Labor in the sun, selling your knowledge of a place, a country, a moment you call home, to American tourists. Parched throat. Disorienting headaches caused by the heat, causing amnesia. Extended vacation? Where did I pick up that idea?
The sunset, the sunset, my reward is gained all in one simple sunset to the west, adjacent to the Bahia de Banderas, Vallarta! Tastes like a paleta de limón after walking from el Mercado en el Viejo Vallarta to the edge of the serra, on a bench in the plaza in front of la Catedral de la Virgen de Guadalupe, I sit, content, licking my paleta, “tan rico que sabe.” I smile, am comforted by the company of the liberated pigeons pacing back and forth in the plaza y la compania de la Virgencita… that is what the sunset in Vallarta does for me- it raises its white flag to me, or is it I who raise a white flag to the sunset, to myself? And I am reminded that I am where I am. Nor could I, nor would I, be anywhere else at that moment. Or all the moments added together, all those moments that would amount to a day, a week, a life.
That moment: Jorge fue el amor de mi vida una noche en agosto. His thick Mexican accent sounded like atole that fills you with heartiness. The tamale in between his legs filled me with just as much life. Entangled in one another’s embrace. “estas- tienes calor or estas caliente?” -is heat not the condition for arousal? Was I in a state of lust? Drunken stupor? Casual? Connection? Maybe he said a line of two that caught my attention. “I’m here today and who knows where I’ll be next year…” “I hate responsibility.” Or maybe waking up next to him this morning was just as comfortable as it seemed… as if though there was no other possibility in regards to my awakening that morning, or lack there of.
He was my supervisor, though. Was he harassing me? Was he exploiting his position of power?
Those kisses, the dandelion colored highlights in his thick dark hair. The Pond’s brand powder foundation compact that made his complexion flawless (although a few shades lighter than his skin color), the smashed and smudged lip and eye liner on the counter in his bathroom. Lube. Condoms. Make-up. Mouthwash. Cotton swabs. Cologne. His Queer necessities. The kiss to my hand before he fell asleep. His long, heavy dark arms, and dark legs, el pecho, la panza, y la cara- cafés. The sweat above his lip as we walked down the cobblestone streets of el Viejo Vallarta late that night. He hugged me as we walked up the sidewalk ascending on a slope. He kissed and kissed- he kissed my teeth after I hit myself with a bottle.
Why do these moments, these thoughts, torture me, fill me?
“Todo esto para mi?”
Am I naïve? I’m very attentive, very affectionate, very vulnerable. I’m shown the littlest affection and I evaporate. I need to balance between my solids and evaportations. What is my liquid state?
Una noche en octubre, fue me perdicion. I should have known I needed to stay away from him after I learned about his addiction. After the times he stood me up and didn’t give an explanation. After the messages he left me to call him back and when I would, his phone would be turned off. This was our last chance to be together, for him to be healthy, for him to open his eyes. “Jorge, I’ve come to see a lot of ugliness in this world. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the corrupt heart. El Corazon es doloroso, esta dañado- mi motivo es tranquilizarlo.”
We made plans to leave el Infierno Grande called Vallarta together, where addictions, Jorge’s crack addiction, are nurtured. I had been squatting in an apartment at a tenement on the southern side of the city. The day before we were scheduled to depart, the place where I’d been squatting had been padlocked. My passport was on the other side of the lock. I would not be able to board the plane without my passport. Jorge left. “Quedate en mi departamento until you get your passport, then you meet me in Cozumel.” I made arrangements with the landlord of the apartment where I squatted to remove my personal belongings from his property the day we were supposed to depart, the day Jorge departed. Jorge departed. I stayed behind. I collected my belongings and took my bags to Jorge’s apartment. Prepared to travel the following day, to join Jorge, mi enamorado, en Cozumel. I was scheduled for a flight early the following morning from Vallarta to Can Cun with a layover in Mexico City. I would then take a bus from the airport in CanCun to Playa Del Carmen. From Playa, I would take a ferry to Cozumel. “Aqui te espero, chiquito” dijo el.
Before I laid down for a nap at 2 am the morning I was supposed to travel, I sat on the toilet, reading, thinking, among other things. I heard voices coming in through one of the windows. “La Llorona!” I was filled with fear. Finished up on the toilet, washed up, walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom, then into the kitchen. I saw human figures on the other side of the glass door and screen door in the kitchen that led outside. The human figures then knocked. “Llorona, eres tu?” I thought to myself.
“Si, quien es?” I said.
“Policia Federal.” They said.
I was in shock. I opened the door. I thought they we bringing me news about the plane Jorge was on having crashed into a skyscraper in Mexico City.
“Donde esta Jorge?” a woman asked.
“Se mudo a Cozumel. Hoy se fue.” I responded.
“Y tu, quien eres?” she asked.
“Un amigo de Jorge. Me dejo quedar aqui por una noche. Manana me voy.”
“Amigo de Jorge? El no me dijo nada? Por que estas en mi propiedad y donde estan mis muebles?” she said scornfully.
Apparently, the furniture and the TVs Jorge had sold before he left Vallarta we not his property and were apart of the fully furnished apartment that he was renting from this woman who stood before me.
“Well, I don’t know where Jorge is. All I know is that my furniture is missing and I don’t know who you are and you are on my property” said the landlady to me.
Pause.
“You are under arrest,” said the Policia Federal.
I couldn’t open my mouth. I stood still. Let them tie me up. And before being led out of the apartment, asked if my two bags could be brought along with, still hopeful that the situation would work itself out and that I would be on the morning flight away from this big hell. I was thrown on to the back of a pick up truck, in my pajamas. I had just had my hair done. Tight braids against my scalp. My hair is long and thick and I felt hotter when I had it down. So that I wouldn’t need to compromise my desire (perhaps need) to have long hair, I had a woman on the beach braid it for fifteen dollars, a price she gave to locals. In order to preserve the braids, I would need to wrap it up and tie it. That was not possible where I was going.
We arrived at the police station. I was questioned. Read my rights. At the time, none of what was being told to me made sense. I was arrested a few times before in the u.s., in Chicago, as a minor, and practiced my rights as a minor, conscious that no real action could be taken against me. In a Mexican context? I was 19 now. Very adult. They spoke a language I didn’t understand. The searched my bags. In one of my bags I had a plastic bag that was tied up. They tore it open. Pulled out a Sergio Valente denim skirt, a black Baby Phat blouse, a bra and silicon-filled breast enhancers, my titties, a pair of strappy and pretty Dolce & Gabana stilettos, and a long, straight, black wig. Before moving to Mexico, I was cross dressing and doing sex work in Chicago. I had brought an “emergency kit” just in case I couldn’t figure out another way to make money in Vallarta. I refused to go hungry. They asked me if the clothes and wig belonged to me. I said yes. The three men in the room laughed, said “ladron y puto?!” and tossed my belongings back in the bag. I was placed in a cell with a dirt floor with ten other men. The sun began to rise. The ceiling of the cell had a small crack to let in very little light. I stood, barefoot, near the bars, away from the filth, the stench of a cell that was never cleaned, away from men who’d been in and out of the jail, who seemed to be familiar with the conditions. I was eager to have another opportunity to speak to someone about my situation. While staring out of the cell, I felt a hand on my shoulder by one of the men in the cell. “Estas bien Chiquita? Quieres que te ayudo calmar?”
No words.
No expression.
Four days.
My mind popped out of my body.
And traveled.
Is still traveling…
“Bienvenido a Cozumel” I hear on the loudspeaker. “I hope he has his phone on.”
Pueblo Chiquito, Infierno Grande
|
Ferry Boat, Caribbean Sea
Playa del Carmen-Cozumel, Quintana Roo, México
9/15/2003
“I can’t believe I’m on this ferry boat. I guess I was lucky to catch the last one. I hope he has his cell phone on. I have no idea where I’m going… I wonder where el grito de la independencia is on the island? Maybe I can just drop off my bags and go join the party, wherever it is. I hope he has his phone on…”
An extended vacation? How dare I. What is a lifelong sacrifice for many of those I work with in this small city has been referred to as an “extended vacation” by me. Typical of an American that is oblivious to her own freedom, her own privilege. An “extended vacation”? Labor in the sun, selling your knowledge of a place, a country, a moment you call home, to American tourists. Parched throat. Disorienting headaches caused by the heat, causing amnesia. Extended vacation? Where did I pick up that idea?
The sunset, the sunset, my reward is gained all in one simple sunset to the west, adjacent to the Bahia de Banderas, Vallarta! Tastes like a paleta de limón after walking from el Mercado en el Viejo Vallarta to the edge of the serra, on a bench in the plaza in front of la Catedral de la Virgen de Guadalupe, I sit, content, licking my paleta, “tan rico que sabe.” I smile, am comforted by the company of the liberated pigeons pacing back and forth in the plaza y la compania de la Virgencita… that is what the sunset in Vallarta does for me- it raises its white flag to me, or is it I who raise a white flag to the sunset, to myself? And I am reminded that I am where I am. Nor could I, nor would I, be anywhere else at that moment. Or all the moments added together, all those moments that would amount to a day, a week, a life.
That moment: Jorge fue el amor de mi vida una noche en agosto. His thick Mexican accent sounded like atole that fills you with heartiness. The tamale in between his legs filled me with just as much life. Entangled in one another’s embrace. “estas- tienes calor or estas caliente?” -is heat not the condition for arousal? Was I in a state of lust? Drunken stupor? Casual? Connection? Maybe he said a line of two that caught my attention. “I’m here today and who knows where I’ll be next year…” “I hate responsibility.” Or maybe waking up next to him this morning was just as comfortable as it seemed… as if though there was no other possibility in regards to my awakening that morning, or lack there of.
He was my supervisor, though. Was he harassing me? Was he exploiting his position of power?
Those kisses, the dandelion colored highlights in his thick dark hair. The Pond’s brand powder foundation compact that made his complexion flawless (although a few shades lighter than his skin color), the smashed and smudged lip and eye liner on the counter in his bathroom. Lube. Condoms. Make-up. Mouthwash. Cotton swabs. Cologne. His Queer necessities. The kiss to my hand before he fell asleep. His long, heavy dark arms, and dark legs, el pecho, la panza, y la cara- cafés. The sweat above his lip as we walked down the cobblestone streets of el Viejo Vallarta late that night. He hugged me as we walked up the sidewalk ascending on a slope. He kissed and kissed- he kissed my teeth after I hit myself with a bottle.
Why do these moments, these thoughts, torture me, fill me?
“Todo esto para mi?”
Am I naïve? I’m very attentive, very affectionate, very vulnerable. I’m shown the littlest affection and I evaporate. I need to balance between my solids and evaportations. What is my liquid state?
Una noche en octubre, fue me perdicion. I should have known I needed to stay away from him after I learned about his addiction. After the times he stood me up and didn’t give an explanation. After the messages he left me to call him back and when I would, his phone would be turned off. This was our last chance to be together, for him to be healthy, for him to open his eyes. “Jorge, I’ve come to see a lot of ugliness in this world. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the corrupt heart. El Corazon es doloroso, esta dañado- mi motivo es tranquilizarlo.”
We made plans to leave el Infierno Grande called Vallarta together, where addictions, Jorge’s crack addiction, are nurtured. I had been squatting in an apartment at a tenement on the southern side of the city. The day before we were scheduled to depart, the place where I’d been squatting had been padlocked. My passport was on the other side of the lock. I would not be able to board the plane without my passport. Jorge left. “Quedate en mi departamento until you get your passport, then you meet me in Cozumel.” I made arrangements with the landlord of the apartment where I squatted to remove my personal belongings from his property the day we were supposed to depart, the day Jorge departed. Jorge departed. I stayed behind. I collected my belongings and took my bags to Jorge’s apartment. Prepared to travel the following day, to join Jorge, mi enamorado, en Cozumel. I was scheduled for a flight early the following morning from Vallarta to Can Cun with a layover in Mexico City. I would then take a bus from the airport in CanCun to Playa Del Carmen. From Playa, I would take a ferry to Cozumel. “Aqui te espero, chiquito” dijo el.
Before I laid down for a nap at 2 am the morning I was supposed to travel, I sat on the toilet, reading, thinking, among other things. I heard voices coming in through one of the windows. “La Llorona!” I was filled with fear. Finished up on the toilet, washed up, walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom, then into the kitchen. I saw human figures on the other side of the glass door and screen door in the kitchen that led outside. The human figures then knocked. “Llorona, eres tu?” I thought to myself.
“Si, quien es?” I said.
“Policia Federal.” They said.
I was in shock. I opened the door. I thought they we bringing me news about the plane Jorge was on having crashed into a skyscraper in Mexico City.
“Donde esta Jorge?” a woman asked.
“Se mudo a Cozumel. Hoy se fue.” I responded.
“Y tu, quien eres?” she asked.
“Un amigo de Jorge. Me dejo quedar aqui por una noche. Manana me voy.”
“Amigo de Jorge? El no me dijo nada? Por que estas en mi propiedad y donde estan mis muebles?” she said scornfully.
Apparently, the furniture and the TVs Jorge had sold before he left Vallarta we not his property and were apart of the fully furnished apartment that he was renting from this woman who stood before me.
“Well, I don’t know where Jorge is. All I know is that my furniture is missing and I don’t know who you are and you are on my property” said the landlady to me.
Pause.
“You are under arrest,” said the Policia Federal.
I couldn’t open my mouth. I stood still. Let them tie me up. And before being led out of the apartment, asked if my two bags could be brought along with, still hopeful that the situation would work itself out and that I would be on the morning flight away from this big hell. I was thrown on to the back of a pick up truck, in my pajamas. I had just had my hair done. Tight braids against my scalp. My hair is long and thick and I felt hotter when I had it down. So that I wouldn’t need to compromise my desire (perhaps need) to have long hair, I had a woman on the beach braid it for fifteen dollars, a price she gave to locals. In order to preserve the braids, I would need to wrap it up and tie it. That was not possible where I was going.
We arrived at the police station. I was questioned. Read my rights. At the time, none of what was being told to me made sense. I was arrested a few times before in the u.s., in Chicago, as a minor, and practiced my rights as a minor, conscious that no real action could be taken against me. In a Mexican context? I was 19 now. Very adult. They spoke a language I didn’t understand. The searched my bags. In one of my bags I had a plastic bag that was tied up. They tore it open. Pulled out a Sergio Valente denim skirt, a black Baby Phat blouse, a bra and silicon-filled breast enhancers, my titties, a pair of strappy and pretty Dolce & Gabana stilettos, and a long, straight, black wig. Before moving to Mexico, I was cross dressing and doing sex work in Chicago. I had brought an “emergency kit” just in case I couldn’t figure out another way to make money in Vallarta. I refused to go hungry. They asked me if the clothes and wig belonged to me. I said yes. The three men in the room laughed, said “ladron y puto?!” and tossed my belongings back in the bag. I was placed in a cell with a dirt floor with ten other men. The sun began to rise. The ceiling of the cell had a small crack to let in very little light. I stood, barefoot, near the bars, away from the filth, the stench of a cell that was never cleaned, away from men who’d been in and out of the jail, who seemed to be familiar with the conditions. I was eager to have another opportunity to speak to someone about my situation. While staring out of the cell, I felt a hand on my shoulder by one of the men in the cell. “Estas bien Chiquita? Quieres que te ayudo calmar?”
No words.
No expression.
Four days.
My mind popped out of my body.
And traveled.
Is still traveling…
“Bienvenido a Cozumel” I hear on the loudspeaker. “I hope he has his phone on.”
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