I am Oakland | 1

I am Oakland.

A day laborer, un jornalero, working at night
stands in the middle of an intersection under cold rainfall
selling light-sticks to fans going to a game at the Oakland Coliseum.
I stop at the red light. He looks over at me, waves the lights.
He is only wearing a hip-length yellow rain-coat.
The rain, the cold, survival, cross-border love, family, community.
Oakland is my home away from home.

 I am Oakland.

An artist makes Oakland his place, his home, his art.
He brings Frida Kahlo, levity, busts open multi-cultures, paints, listens to music as he excavates images with his pencil, poetry abounds, friends surround him.

Day laborers need art; artists are day laborers, too.
Day laborers are artists, too; they make Oakland street corners into familiar places, into a community that serves community.
Both lead a precarious existence of dreams beyond survival.

I am Oakland.
Where are the Ohlone?
Where are the Hills?
Where are the Flatlands?
Where is Chinatown?
Where is uptown, downtown, Jingle Town?

Our hands are the same, our hearts pound for the same joys and against the same sorrows.
We are Oakland?
Can we make Oakland a place for everyone, rich or poor, young or old, white or black, English-only or bilingual, indigenous, homeless, murmurers, working class? Women house workers, young men in hoodies & fedoras?
Where are you in this beautiful contradiction of art and day laboring on someone else's land?
Who will come to stay a while and who will disappear?

Poetica snapshot | danzantes on Ohlone lands

 

Arnoldo García

Poetica snapshot | danzantes on Ohlone lands

 

I do not want
to trade
The noise of one empire
For another.
The danzantes are lost
In space
My fists pound
We are in Ohlone lands
Now and forever
The four directions
Are meaningless
Without recognizing
Where we are
Without organizing
Where we belong
Without finding our place
In the cosmos of this land
Ohlone
Oh lone shell
Placed against my lips and spittle
I blast the sun into her own darkness
I scatter the ashes of your lie
The ahuehuetl vibrates
Setting off the car alarms
The danzantes bring in stars, suns, ghosts
They cannot hear anything except the ahuehuetl
The car alarm wails
Cries for the police to arrest
The terrestially cosmic movement
The ahuehuetl beats hearts into one
Serpent ondulating whirling dusty fire
The ahuethuetl stops the siren
The ahuehuetl abuelito flor crumbles the waves
Two students, one Mexican, one Black
Grumble
The Spanish are taking over everything
(They are not happy with the danzantes.)
And I do not want to trade
The noise
Of one empire
For another....

Hispanics.

Hispanics
NOTES.
arnoldo garcía

When you do not know the U.S. racial history of words, U.S. racial history period, and continue using them uncritically, the danger is that you will reproduce racism at a higher level.

Recently, (see my  twitter timeline for 140 character rants), I replied to an Occupy Oakland tweet that referenced an article about Bank of America ripping off African Americans and [sic] Hispanics. I replied: Decolonize occupy plus something to the effect that majority of us "Hispanics" are not "Hispanics" and majority are indigenous and Afro-descendents. There are Hispanics in the U.S. just like there are Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guaremalans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Chileans, Brazilians, Colombians, etc.

So lumping us together as "Hispanics" is not accidental -- why not lump us as "Mexicans," the majority of "Hispanics" in the U.S.? I bet you the Hispanics would be up in arms -- which wouldn't be a bad idea; they have done that before and beautifully.

 Don't get me wrong. I don't believe for one moment that the U.S. Southwest belongs to Mexico -- or the U.S. Here in Oakland, we are on Ohlone land. You can't erase the past. It might take a long time to retake it, relocate ourselves in the natural world. The triple conquest, the triple occupation of Indian lands and the colonializaion of many mentalities to make some believe they're white and others Hispanic, won't be overcome easily.

The history of anti-Mexican racism in the U.S. needs more action and discussion. In sum, why Hispanic and not Mexican, or Indian... to name us?

Before the 1960s came to a head, Texas and the rest of the U.S. used to count Mexicans as "white" during the Census. After the 1960s civil rights movements rocked the foundations of the U.S., we started being counted as Hispanics. Before the government christened us "Hispanics," to count Mexiicans would have been political suicide for Texas and other regions of the Southwest where we have been the "majority" for decades or what seems like forever.

When the U.S. government decided to name and lump us as Hispanic, the (internalized and not so internalized) racism we have all been subjected to made self-hatred and racism easier to maintain. Because Hispanic divided us racially and helped whiteify or bleach the mentality of the darker, indian and black Mexican and others who maybe did not want to be dark skinned, black in a white hierarchy of pain. Hispanic, now you're one of us, white, well almost white, if you can act like there's no Border Patrol and race police checkpoints....