Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 06:38:44 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: Letter to Roberto (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 17:10:55 -0700
From: National Commission for Democracy in Mexico <moonlight-AT-igc.apc.org>
To: chiapas-l-AT-profmexis.dgsca.unam.mx, ncdmusa-AT-conf.igc.apc.org,
    reg.mexico-AT-conf.igc.apc.org, ncdm-ally-AT-igc.apc.org,
    ncdm-usa-AT-mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
Subject: Letter to Roberto

A POCHA'S LETTER TO ROBERTO
by Cecilia Rodriguez
National Center for Democracy, Liberty, and Justice
an affiliate of the National Commission for Democracy in Mexico,
USA

"Today we have gathered to celebrate a certainty that upsets the
bureaucrats and the generals.  Technocrats can't decipher it,
merchants can't buy it, the police can't police it.  Recently, I
tried to define this certainty with these words: Creating and
fighting are our way of saying to the fallen companeros: You
didn't die when they killed you.
  This certainty has nothing to do with the Great Beyond.  It has
to do with the Great Here and Now, with the joy of the continuing
human adventure on earth.  We have the joy of our joys, and we
also have the joy of our sorrows, because the painless life that
consumer civilization sells in the supermarkets doesn't interest
us, and we're proud of the price of so much pain that we pay for
so much love.  We have the joy of our errors, stumblings that
prove the passion of moving and of love along the road.  And we
have the joy of our defeats, because the fight for justice and
beauty is also worthwhile when it is lost.  And above all we have
the joy of our hopes, with a full measure of disenchantment. 
When disenchantment has become an article of mass and universal
consumption, we go on believing in the astounding power of the
human embrace."
Eduardo Galeano
WE SAY NO

July 4, 1995
Dear Companero Roberto,
     Many years have passed since your death. I do not know if
you have ever heard me, they say that the dead live whenever they
are remembered.  I always remember you, especially in difficult
moment.
     I cannot forget your presence, your busy hands, your intense
gaze which never lost its potency regardless of your exhaustion. 
Most of all I remember your pigheaded question which has served
to transform my life.
     "What makes the Chicanos struggle?  Will they struggle so
that Mexico can be free and sovereign? Will they struggle for
reasons of their oppression in the United States?" In response to
my silence you would add, "Will they struggle for both these
reasons?"
     I don't know how many times I answered your question, but
you were never satisfied. You'd turn the question on its head,
and ask it again, in different words and different moments. 
Maybe you did this because you perceived my indifference, I
didn't believe you were sincerely interested in my answer--here,
mock concern and dishonesty is quite common.  Maybe you asked it
again because you sensed my great emptiness, that hole which did
not "understand" the concept of "patria"[nation] by which you
asked me to interpret the possibilities.  I was after all, a
product of a nation which rejected everything I was, and I was at
the same time, in spite of this impertinent border, the same as
you; and to tell you the truth sometimes the contradiction would
erase me, 1-1= zero.
     Now I believe you repeated the question because you were
trying to educate, provoke, force me to think beyond the obvious.
So your question has stuck in my consciousness all these years
like a thorn..no wait, that's not true.
     Your death was the first thorn.  Your death allowed me to
know you, and myself.  You were a profound love for your people.
I remember the long car rides we took together all over the
Mexican republic, and all that you knew about geography, culture,
cuisine--how I remember your detailed description of Mexican
cuisine and the enormous pleasure you got from sharing recipes
with me.  Your smile would spread all over your face and you
would let the steering wheel veer wildly as you described "a
little bit of cumin, poblano pepper, sauteed scallions.."  I
remember how sometimes the drowsiness would conquer the fiercest
will, and how then you would sail into Mexican history, sharing
with me the struggle for sovereignty, for dignity, for
"patria"[once again that concept that would sink me into
confusion]. The weight of sleep then would become a trance, and I
could clearly see the Heroic Children of Chapultepec and Vicente
Guerrerro there in the middle of the highway [inevitably, I'd
wake up].
     You were an unshakable faith in the possible.  Do you
remember how I would whine? It can't be done, I would cry, we
don't have this or that, all around me all I could see was
scarcity.  And you and your ever-present smile would listen to
the problem as though it were an interesting puzzle.  You showed
me how to fight, and you showed me that in addition to the
mountains and valleys in every struggle, there were high cliffs. 
You taught me it was necessary to go the edge of the cliff, and
jump; necessary to risk everything in order to find another
possibility, and that only that kind of courage would allow me to
move forward.
     You were a stubborn commitment to the future, honor,
dignity, an image of Mexico which I finally understand to be the
mortal enemy of this material and lonely culture. My alienation
and distance from this country grew, even as you taught me I had
to find the "patria"  here in order to remain. The Mexican in me
which you helped me find, made me want to return and live there,
and the fighter you had made me forced me to remain in the United
States, as a Chicana, as a political person who understood that
the United States would never allow Mexico to be free.  That's
why in the rage I felt when I lost you, your pigheaded question
became a compass and it guided my search for the answer. I have
learned many things.

FIRST LESSON - We the immigrants.
     After having interviewed "legal" immigrants who speak 
English, USA Today says that the majority believe there should be
walls on the border, an identification card [a la South Africa],
and that they have felt NO discrimination.

     Here's the truth[in words fear will never let them say].
They want to learn English [in order to stop the humiliation
because they cannot speak it]. They want to become citizens [so
that their persecution as Mexican citizens, and the fear of
deportation, and the shame of belonging to a culture which is
trashed can end].  They want to live here [so they too can have
two cars, a good house, plenty of food, who wouldn't?]. They
don't want any more Mexicans here [so they can forget, so they
can say goodbye forever to the poverty, and the oppression and
too many Mexicans here may bring the specter with them].
     I remember the face of my first teacher who was disgusted
with my name, and finally pronounced it by spitting it out of her
mouth as though she were spitting shit. How can I tell these new
immigrants that the only way you get accepted here, is bleached
and re-constituted into nothing? Vulgar discrimination is gone,
and in its place is a subtle, gentle racism which is just as
vile.  They can pat you on the back and love you dearly, but when
you dare to be their equal, they cannot hear or see you, you are
a shadow, because you are so low and they above all, want to
remain above you.
     Here, at last resort you can live in a shopping mall, the
poor man's version of Disneyland.  The soft and colored lights,
the cold air, the speckles of sun on the well-placed trees are
comforting.  You can be hungry and escape it in the shopping
mall, on television, in the easy routine of work to home, to the
cold beer and Chicano music, to the pleasure of keeping hunger at
arm's length instead of on top of you.
     And well, something's better than nothing so the devil
carries us into the greatest market of the world.

SECOND LESSON- The "High" spanics
     I don't remember when they started to call us "hispanics",
but labels are important here. In the drunkenness of privilege,
to be "hispanic" these days is now like the first step on its
ladder.
     You set up an office and decorate it with an Aztec calendar,
with adobe arts and crafts and indigenous weavings..you make
speeches about "hispanic" issues and they pay you good money
[awards and scholarships if you behave yourself].  You represent
"opportunity", the market accommodates you and uses you as an
"example".
     And now with NAFTA these hispanics are the greatest
defenders of neo-liberalism, and it's true what a friend of mine
used to say that there are no greater oppressors than the
oppressed--they fight to be more conservative than the
conservatives, and more American than anybody.
     NAFTA sentences the majority of Mexicans to slavery, and a
handful of "Hispanic leaders" will be allowed to become the
servile flunkies of the great owners of capital in Mexico and the
United States.  In addition to the Hispanics, now the Mexican
consulates position themselves as "defenders of the Mexicans";
and they come to the neighborhoods with their fists full of
money, promises, and calls to the nationalist conscience. Now
they worry about being present in Mexican communities.

     Where were they when we were in the streets fighting? When
they infiltrated our movement, jailed all who could not be
killed, and isolated the few who remained in order to neutralize
them?
     It isn't the fierce attack on immigrant rights which moves
them, nor is it a newborn conscience.  They are moved by fear..of
the Zapatistas..of their ideas...of what they represent...

THIRD LESSON - The Zapatistas
     We want the Z to mark the end to the humiliation of Mexicans
on both sides of this impertinent border.  We want it to mark the
end to hopelessness, to dependence, to inferiority imposed by the
conquerors armed with weapons and lies.
     We want the Z to mark the end of the hallucination which
says that exploitation is humanity's nature, or sitting beneath
the tree to catch the crumbs which fall from the mouths of those
who eat well is normal.  We want the Z to mark the end to a world
where 20% of the population consumes 80% of the wealth.  After
the end, will come the beginning, the dawn, the birth.  And this
is what the Zapatistas did--they told the "patria" the simplest,
clearest and most important thing "we can make a better world,
because that is our decision."
     So the people from the consulate tell me "Why are the
Zapatistas so pretentious--they're indigenous, what the hell do
they know about national affairs?"
     What daring!!They go to the end of the cliff, to seek the
possible, to risk everything.
     So one midnight in San Andres Sacamach'en I stood for three
hours hoping to glimpse the Zapatista delegates.  My neck spun
like a turkey's. The rain was warm and slow.  Each passing moment
brought with it more and more campesinas, and I helped them up to
stand in front of me so they could see [over there you know, I'm
a giant].  We stood there forever, shoulder to shoulder,
straining to catch a glimpse of their ski-masks. I still don't
know if it was the fog, my clouded eyes, or exhaustion, but I did
feel your presence, and heard your voice in the murmur of all the
other voices.  That night I couldn't stop smiling, and the smiles
passed like an infection from face to face among that bunch of
bodies warmed by hope and the future.

FOURTH LESSON - The ones who feel pity
Once I was told,
     "The indigenous people of Chiapas are so special..and that's
      why we have to travel down there in order to learn from
      them..my..but they are so inspiring.."
     And I sat there biting my tongue. The indigenous are here in
the United States working in the fields of agriculture, the
cities are also full of them.  They stand on the corners waiting
for work, they clean the floors, they find them floating face
down in the river or suffocated in the trunks of cars, their
children beg on the border while they baby sit the children of
others for $20 dollars a day, they build the houses, and run and
bow their head when the migra detains them.
     See, over here social justice is also a commodity.  You can
get a job in social justice, and your struggle is timid. You can
be an "analyst" and sit and pass judgement, analyzing strengths
and weaknesses and maintaining your distance so the failures and
the errors are not yours. You can make a "hobby" of social
justice, it can be something you do in your spare time so your
conscience is at peace.
     Shall I tell those who pity us that my grandfather was one
of those who caught snakes to eat and who died ignorant of his
birth date and his real name? There are indigenous people under
their feet, made of flesh and blood--not postcard cardboard. But
I bite my tongue.  My insolence would disturb their emotions.

FIFTH LESSON - The ones Santa Anna sold for chewing tobacco.
     When I was small my Mother taught me that we were "pochos,
the ones Santa Anna sold for chewing tobacco" cheap merchandise
which Mexico abandoned when they lost the lands in 1845. And so
that was why, for real Mexicans, we were "another matter,
something else."
     From the humiliation of racism, we found rebellion, from
rebellion we found the mother country, from the mother country we
learn that we do not belong there either. We carry the
humiliation of conquest, the loss of our heritage, the privilege
and the shame of life in one of the cruelest and most arrogant
countries of the world, and also the most comfortable.  Can we be
like a thorn, the Achilles heel of the beast, because we are not
fooled by its comfort, or seduced by its power, because we were
born in the poison of this great lie, and we are immune to its
virulence?
     In San Andres Sacama'chen, a Chicano approached the peace
cordon.
"Let me by" he told a military policeman. And the policeman
shrugged his shoulders and let him by.
"Where are you going?" a civilian asked as he went by the
military cordon. "Where's your credential?" He studied it and
told the Chicano he could not be there "Here there are only
Mexican CITIZENS..this is for us.." the man murmured, with a
small smile on his lips.
     When the Chicano found me again he was furious, cursing and
yelling at the top of his lungs he kind of babbled one thing
after another--we come to help, they're ungrateful, they don't
know how to treat people, that's why Mexico's so backward, blah,
blah, blah.
     And I kept walking quickly hoping the people around us could
not hear him. "Stop acting like a gringo" I muttered finally.
"What, WHAT????" and his eyes were filled with fire.
     So both of us stood there, arguing while the campesinos of
San Andres waiting to join the peace cordon turned to stare at
us. They covered their mouths as their eyes crinkled with
laughter.  The wind came down to stir the trash on the ground,
and to slap us playfully.

SIXTH LESSON- The militias, and the answer to your question
     I've had the honor to work with people who struggle because
their heart is very big and because they have a social
conscience, which, in this country, is considered something akin
to mental illness.
     Like Gail, for example. She comes from that part of the
country where the militias are organizing themselves, and her
family in the traditional American way sent her to one of the
better universities. One day she left there to fulfill her
commitment to the poor. With her education, her blue eyes and
blonde hair, and her protestant background--well, it didn't make
much sense to me.
     First, she taught herself to speak Spanish and tolerated our
mockery and rejection. It was like she was the object of the
accumulated humiliation which had fermented and rotted in our
hearts and flowered in bitterness and suspicion. I can't deny
that there was not a thirst for revenge in all our banter.  She
took one of the most difficult responsibilities in the
organization, you know, those thankless jobs that for the most
part, remain unseen.  I thought to myself at first, she'll leave
eventually, and told her so with a sneer "people like you dislike
working with people like us..you refuse to give us the right to
give direction...if you stay five years I'll be very surprised."
     Well, she's completed her five years, years filled with
deprivation, loneliness, tension, political intrigue, and the
profound distrust of those closest to her.  Now I would gladly
give my life for her, as I would for you.  Gail is a good
companera because the years have shown that her struggle is her
life, and not a pastime. She goes to visit her family sometimes.
That part of her seems to be a curio, a set of lessons about who
she is.
     Once she returned from a family reunion. She was quiet and
distant.
     "How's your family?" I asked. With a deep sigh she shook her
head and studied her hands.
     "It occurs to me that they are the ones" she said "I share a
few days with them and they are so kind--but they'd be shocked
and angry at how I live, they'd hate you just because of the
color of your skin..I think some of them are perfect candidates
for the militias.." she bows her head "So much hate, so much
ignorance, so much fear, and there are many, many of them who
think that way..but they are my people..and I don't know if
there's any way of avoiding another civil war..and it looks like
I'll be on the opposite side from my own family."
     Her eyes filled with tears, and for a brief moment, an
enormous sadness fills the room.  And now it occurs to me
Roberto..in Mexico the slogan is --we are all Indians, we are all
Marcos.  Today we must fight for Mexico, because a free,
democratic and just Mexico where all the Indians and the Marcos'
can live in peace, will free the "pochos" from their humiliation,
and will let them walk on to find a new country, together with
the other pariahs of the United States.  Then, when it is our
turn to struggle our slogan will be "we are all pochos".
     And we'll be fighting together, Gail and I [if I can still
walk and have teeth], with the blacks, and the Indians, and the
Asians, and the homosexuals, and the dishwashers, and those who
speak half-English, or only English, or street dialect.  We will
all be pochos, because our country will be of many colors, many
languages, many cultures, and mixed cultures, because our country
will be called "______________", because our country will have no
borders and we will construct it with humility before history,
with our imagination, with our capacity to go beyond the color of
the skin, and the differences which make it difficult for us to
work together.
     I finish this letter now, Roberto, with the inevitable hole
in my chest when I think of you.  Not because I've lost you, on
the contrary, you're more alive than ever in the fierce struggle
of the Zapatistas; but because I miss you.  If you were alive you
see, you'd listen to this long diatribe of mine and then you'd
say,
     "OK, so you've answered the question, now I have another
      one for you..."
With Love and respect,
FROM A POCHA WHO LEARNED TO WALK FROM YOU
P.S. My Spanish has improved, don't you think.  Now all I've got
to do is learn the damned accents...


     





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