is the name of a blog that began on May 1 of 2006. This is the second incarnation of that blog, the first can be found here. In the first act, El Grito, are many stories and essays and good dialogues with a fantastic readership cultivated over two years, and much of the foundation—in terms of literature, conversation, opinion-threshing, familial wandering and historical exploration—upon which this second house was built.
I, the writer of this blog, am an American citizen by birth (2nd generation, born in Los Angeles to a Chicano from El Paso and a “white” girl from NYC), and am proud to be such a Xicano. I’m descended from Indians and Romanians and there’s a splash of Killer Robot blended in and it all makes for a delicious family crest. And just so it’s clear, I do not always look like the above foto. Sometimes I look like this. Or this. But usually, I am pretty sexy, it’s true.
Anyway.
I’d guess that my point of view comes from a melding of diverse situations, much like my genetic makeup. I grew up in the 1970s in a subculture of a community practicing Eastern spirituality and living in multiple-family/communal living situations. My parental figures were the right age to be part of the “hippie” generation. In fact, for a time, I’d say that’s what they were. These things, as well as my moving around a lot and at times into areas where to even the teachers my name was strange and unpronounceable, helped shape my viewpoint today. But these are guesses. Either way, I am not a product of mainstream practice and thought. And so it follows.
But this blog began with very specific purpose. It was about Mexican Pride, self-love, Xicano Power!
Because in too many places in this land—the USA—in which I’ve grown, it is understood if not spoken that All Things Mexican are inferior in some special way. I have lived in many of these places, and that’s most places in the country as far as I’ve seen. It’s everywhere a television can be found, at least.
This is not one of those places. This is a place that does not subscribe to the racist and anti-indigenous spin produced by USA media outlets and government agents who want to obscure the hand of the USA in both the world’s history as well as related to Mexico’s current conditions. This is a place where we take care to outline the interconnected roles and systems that wed colonizer and colonized; conqueror and oppressed; dominant and not-dominant, empire and those in the shadow of the empire; elites and peasants, and our own participation in the entire carnival.
Yes, I am often furious with the actions of the USA’s military machine or apathetic or cruel political actions. But I am not “against the USA” as a rule or anything so bland and blunt and boring and static. I am for those times that this country has been prescient and enlightened enough to model itself after the highest of ideals, so many of which are found in our oldest and dearest legal documents. I am against cruelty and hypocrisy and vampiric government policy and abuse of the People and abuse of authority and abuse in general. These things certainly do not belong, only, to the USA! But this is where I have lived my entire life.
I do not outline outrage or what I see as fault in the system for any reason beyond that I want to know the world I live in can be sane and make sense and be kind and beautiful, in addition to all the terrible and horrific things we know it can be. I know the planet can be kind and fair and good. I want to believe we as humans can be, as well. There is a battle raging, the issue seems undecided. We strike a place, walk in a direction, speak with intent, stand on and for a side. This blog is a tiny thing, but it is one of those things.
I do want to make it clear that I am not here to pretend to be a voice for those who now live in Mexico or for those who come here (to the USA) directly from Mexico. Theirs is a different culture and framework and experience. So I can’t speak for them, but I will stand with them, and at every turn. Because I consider them raza.
Words are dangerous, especially so many. We hear different things, see different things. You attempt to define too long and you rule out any sense of breath and sway and shift, all those things that everything is made of. Yet some words are too broad. The word “liberal” or the word “left” or the word “progressive.” I’m afraid I don’t know what they mean in too many cases.
Right here, I want to write the words anti-racist, anti-white-supremacy, anti-misogyny, anti-homophobia, anti-imperialist, pro-earth, pro-woman, pro-child, pro-indigenous rights, pro-migrant rights. Today I believe in fighting for and speaking up for such values even when they do not benefit electoral situations, possibilities, or parties.
What I write about here is simpler. And aside from my thoughts, and even then, it is about my life. What life is like in this society for someone who identifies as I do, what my life has been like here, what it has meant to me, how it has affected me, and how that inspires me to act now. I try to be honest about it, keeping in mind that we change all the time, and at times, even a day old post can be about as right as an outright lie.
Thanks for reading and for all you contribute to the joint. It ain’t no little thing.
The painting used in the banner art and the button icon on the front page and which I’ve altered and screened back in this blockquote styling is by David Alfaro Siqueiros, a brilliant Mexican muralist. The art references the Mexican Revolution and resistance to gachupine/conquistadorial oppression and occupation.
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