"Little Haiti," Miami, Florida. ©theunapologeticmexican.org

THE REPORTING OPPORTUNITY AND IMMIGRATION CONFERENCE I attended May 7-9 was quite an amazing experience. There was so much information and energy and ideas and new reality crammed into such a small time and space that there is no doubt I will be mulling it over and brewing on it and coming to a full understanding of it all over the next week, at least. Within a week or two, I’ll release a special NWN video where I hope to express cinematically what I will communicate here now with images and fotos.

Without a doubt, I am extremely grateful for the chance to have attended the May 7-9 French American Foundation’s Covering Immigration: An International Media Dialogue in Miami, Florida.

I am grateful to the French-American Foundation, to the Knight Foundation, to New America Media, to La Opiñión, to Sandy Close, Claudia Nuñez, and to all the journalists and scholars who shared their wealth of expertise and experience with all of us. I am also grateful to the Miami Workers Center and the African Heritage Cultural Center in “Little Haiti” for being so welcoming to the lot of us, dropping into their midst as if tourists starving for information about their lives. I am grateful to all the service workers at the EPIC hotel (especially my own housekeeper, Helen) for being so helpful and professional at their jobs. Finally, I am happy to have made some new friends at the conference—intelligent, energetic, good-hearted, and ambitious human beings.

As usual—and this really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with my work at this point in the game—the influence and mechanisms of race and class stood out to me and were worth noting. As I was representing both New Media and Ethnic Media (as it is called in the US…for now) I consider those elements part of my work, important parts of my observations. (Or essential parts of my milieu, I might word it, after so much company with so many very French-speaking people.)

The view from my hotel balcony

3…2…1…boom.

As you can imagine, Nezua did once again drop down some…controversial statements into the midst of the well-catered and arranged event. (Mmmmm! So well catered.) Not intending to, only speaking from my heart, and again—it ought to be clear by now to anyone with any familiarity with my subject matter that this is to be expected if you are going to ask me to observe and report on any event. Just as I did when flown to the last (as named) YearlyKos Convention in 2007. Just as I did in my doc on the DNC08 convention, the trip I took sponsored by Kenneth Cole Productions in 2008. In the case of the YearlyKos event, as this time, there were a few moments perhaps, of misunderstanding. Maybe there were a few people taking it personally as well as wondering why on earth I might head out on such a course…as if I am disappointing the Hand That Feeds.

It’s powerful, touchy stuff to talk about race and class. I also am convinced these are the conversations we absolutely need to have in this society. The pretense that these differences are not everywhere and that they do not affect everything and can be cordoned off for special conversations that don’t intrude or provoke is a dangerous one to maintain.

This doesn’t mean bringing up such topics is easy. As usual, it can be a terrifying and nearly nauseating task to take on. Because the messaging we absorb all our lives is one that screams never to bring these up in such ways. And pushing back on that inner indoctrination is not effortless.

I want to be careful not to make too big a deal out of the few arguably negative reactions that inevitably follow in these cases. Because while those seem to hit the belly harder than the positive, the truth is those are far fewer. In this case, numerous people came to me—I should note they were overwhelmingly (though not in every instance) people of color themselves—and showed me great support and thanks for bringing up the topics I did. In fact, overall, I’d say the reactions were 90% positive and unwavering in their stance on the matter.

"The Brown Contingent" is what the very fabulous Mona (Eltahawy) named us here in the hall. As such we decided it was best if we photographed ourselves stacking and otherwise doing brownish things. This moment was after my presentation and they found me, or we found each other, and talked more on the things I discussed. They were very supportive and it meant a lot.

There is no feeling quite like taking that risk, taking that leap, feeling shameful and as if in danger for doing so (a result of flouting the indoctrination and social pressure that guards against these conversations happening)—and then being immediately surrounded by people who understand exactly what you mean and give you love for taking that risk. If that were not always the case when I do these things? I imagine I couldn’t keep doing them, wouldn’t keep taking those risks. Because the nervous system usually takes a big hit when “cracking the bubble” as Sandy worded such dialogues on Sunday.

Stylish French Cat, Mona Eltahawy, Damaso Reyes, and Mizanur Rahman. This is, unfortunately, one of the worse pictures (focus-wise) I've taken in a while. Yet, the joy cannot be obscured.

Sandy Close wrote to me, in an email after the conference:

Nezua,
You added a great deal to the conference through your honesty and humility.
Thank you.

Sandy Close, Executive Director of New America Media

This brought tears to my eyes. Because in such events and speaking opportunities, I am trying my best to present these issues without aggression, but instead with a calm and centered front, and a more receptive energy. Which is a very difficult line to walk at times. For me. It is no easy feat to move surely and strongly on unsure ground, and yet remain unguarded and ready to respond with sensitivity to any lashback.

But if I can do that? It means I am growing in my craft as well as in my own skin. And that means I can be more effective in the world doing the things I do.

Of course there will also always be those who hear words on race and class as not only an affront to, but practically violent toward polite society. And if you think about it, they are right. Even when you speak those words calmly. Because polite society is another way of saying status quo. And today’s status quo is one that crushes people of color on the regular. And thus, it deserves a sort of violence. Not necessarily physical, but ideological. At least initially, to break the inertia and confidence of its arc.

So we cannot get hung up on supportive energy from all, or if everyone likes what we say. Though these affirmations from like-minded community help center my mind and push back on the inevitable doubt that tries to insert itself when you attempt to upset a standing order, destructive or otherwise.

But there is a creation happening in the midst of that destruction, as well. One of the most rewarding results of invoking these conversations, I’ve found is that it can spur further revelation or sharing of thoughts that might otherwise remain cloaked in caution. Such as after my presentation amidst the Q&A and back and forth. What a great feeling, to see that perhaps you have helped start or enable a conversation wherein people feel comfortable discussing something so important to them…and thus to the larger society and its method of informing itself in all quadrants about all quadrants.

I know I learn and feel inspired from those talks. Such as when Professor Kwong (for example) spoke of how “objective” lens shuts out many ideas, like his writing about Chinatown in ANY way that isn’t about the Chinese New Year. How he has an extremely difficult time getting any articles published if they present Chinese American culture or Chinese Americans in a way that the dominant culture (my phrase, not his) doesn’t desire to reinforce. And then Demaso jumped in and spoke about how a newsroom will miss stories and angles if “we all look the same.” And how today’s emerging Ethnic Media or the appearance of changes that facilitated the rise of Ethnic Media present a challenge to journalism. And an important one.

I think those are powerful things to be saying and discussing in such a setting as we were in. They are a boon to the future of journalism and social cohesion—not racial division as some might think. After all, as I said in my presentation, as I see it “Ethnic Media” arose because various communities felt we were not represented in the fake objectivity of the dominant culture’s media. If the larger view and conversation expands to represent all of us, that draws us back together, doesn’t it?

I like mine pulpy

I know by some reactions, as well as the fact that many whom were there will be reading my reporting on this to see both how they are portrayed and how I saw things overall that I need to clearly state a couple things.

1. I am not a traditional journalist.

Roles like mine are something new. Organically made possible and necessary by cultural realities and technological advances that won’t go away. You cannot align this image over the old blueprint. Attempting to do so will yield a distorted result.

I do not need to be warned about getting emotional or remaining Objective™ or being too “passionate.” What I do relies on my feelings and third eye and heart and all those other things that are not to be found in the AP Stylebook. I am a new media journalist. Or a writer/activist/artist/reporter who began as a counselor and filmmaker and melds it all together. Find a word or phrase that works. The exact title doesn’t matter to me right now. What I do know is that I have a function and I know my path by feeling it out intuitively. While I was trained minimally by MTV in NYC as prep for my year-long gig repping Oregon, I did not go to J-School. I don’t need to for what I do. I do need to honestly report what I see, not try to hoodwink anyone, do my very best to be right on any numbers or facts that I can. But also to employ other senses…ones I think as a human society (in the USA) we are long taught are ephemeral, unimportant, unreliable, and dangerous. I happen to feel that this overall judgment on the less tangible senses of the human creature is extremely dangerous to our existence. At least if it is the only approach it sure is.

So. That’s what I do. Please frame all I offer you in that light. Don’t try to evaluate it by an old filter. Through that mesh, what I do will seem all wrong. As if you drank a cup of orange juice but were expecting to feel milk run over your tongue.

2. It’s not about you.

This one I offer to those who feel hurt by anything I say on race and class and culture. It’s not about you! In fact, I only ran into one person whose energy I found rather disturbing, as he raised his voice talking about how it was appalling and wrong to “smear” FAIR and CIS; that younger reporters are fine, but they should be “trained” (do you see a leash in your mind?); that we ought take sympathy on Arizona for passing SB 1070 and not boycott, and so on. He was an older gentleman and I understand that he comes from a completely different world, or uses a wholly different lens that I do. I disagree entirely with him. But feel no need to demonize him. I feel he simply doesn’t understand certain currents or angles or viewpoints that are alien to his experience.

My larger point is that my comments on systemic patterns that happen to be symbolized and manifested at any given moment by concrete happenings are still not about individuals. Or their hearts. Or their intentions. Or their goodness. I know it can be possible to mix critique of systems up with criticism of a person. We are all capable of making that mistake from time to time.

I just think we need to talk about these things. I must trust each human can deal with hurt feelings in the end. I know I’ve had to. It’s up to me to grow past that. That’s life, eh? Just as I would have to respond to those who have said at various times that “being called racist is the most damaging thing that can happen to a writer/journalist/pol/person” with “No, the damages of racism upon communities and souls and bodies….that is the most damaging thing. Please don’t redirect the camera in that way…that angle misses the big picture.”

Rolling into Miami!

Before you go shipping that nitro…

I am aware that I am potentially annoying you by talking all around the event at this point, while not yet having talked about it but bear with me if you will—even though my regular readers are probably saying “Why is he re-explaining all this? We know his take on it, we won’t misinterpret! Enough disclaimers!” But there will be people reading this post who are not used to the way we discuss these things. And in this case, I’d do all I can do avoid misunderstandings.

Outside the Hotel

Here’s another surprise for ya: I agreed to not post my video on the event until I showed it to the organizers. This is something I never do. I figure if you have me appear to speak and know what my work is about (and if you don’t, then you really should have researched), then it is my right to tell truthfully what I saw.

But I did agree to having the video pre-approved anyway. I was approached before I left by two very cool gents and had no real issue with agreeing to that. Honestly, I think I am partially at fault for perhaps inspiring some anxiety about how I was going to present my findings. But I would make clear that by saying repeatedly on Saturday “Just wait til you see the footage,” it was only my way of pushing back on the couple voices that insisted my views were off/inappropriate. It wasn’t “Oh wait til I drop this bomb on you,” it was simply me saying “I cannot argue this point here and now. I’d much rather express what I experienced with cinema. It will simply make things clearer to you.” But I think perhaps the “just wait til you see the footage, then you’ll get it” was misread as something more threatening. Again, given the view that some have that being called racist is something terribly damaging, I can understand anxiety around this. But the truth is, I received different responses in some cases than some others did. This only reinforces the things I am saying. So my point was, “you won’t understand the full truth of what I am clumsily saying here until you can view for yourself those responses.”

Dinner on Friday

The Two Gents said no, they didn’t think I would mischaracterize people’s comments; they trusted the “professionalism of my approach.” And I sure appreciate that.

Because yes, I know these journalists are all professionals with careers and I am not out to harm any person. I know aside from my repeating “Just wait, then, until you see the video,” I—as THE BLOGGER—am simply not predictable, am not bound to conventions in place, am my own editor, and so it is easy for people to feel threatened by what I might write or create.

But while I certainly am a small fish in the scheme of things, I take the power that my words and film might have seriously. I do feel a certain responsibility. I do not believe in hurricaning through lives and saying anything you want in the service of a personal mission…actions involving messaging and communications and film (as they have the potential to impact society exponentially) must be weighed carefully.

Also, the practical reality is even if you are telling truths the world needs, a career or opportunities can be destroyed (mine) or at least greatly harmed if powerful or well-monied people who have reached out a hand to you feel they were burned.

These are tricky things to weigh. But in the end of course I always value my responsibility to the human race to be truthful about what I see and feel. Because my eyes, heart, and belly and mind were given to me by the highest authority. And nobody here on earth supersedes that imperative. And if my career in some way needs to take a hit in that service, okay. I am calm about that. [Update: Some wording strikes me reading back and I know why, and I know why it is not so hard for me to prioritize telling my own truth...it's because my blog is not my career. It is what I do because I must! My career is art.)

However, I'm not worried about the approval. Because as I said...this is not about individuals. And to make my points I need single out nobody. And surely they are not interested in censoring my discussing race and class and cultural divides entirely! And certainly not when it comes to immigration! These things are definitely all interwoven.

And if they don't want me to discuss even that much, well. I'll peel that orange when I come to it.

©theunapologeticmexican.org

Gaze of the Other

One thing that strikes me in these situations when you drop into a setting to connect with the reality of those who live there, is the differences in class and positioning in the world. Maybe that is because you approach attempting to connect. This is what makes me videotape the lavish buffets that always appear at conventions and such (or often do.) That’s what made me feel more at home with the (latina and latino) NYU janitors and cleaning ladies than almost all of my peers there. I simply cannot be unaware of different racial, cultural, or socioeconomic signifiers and positions.

The Stylish French Cat (on left in the “brown contingent” photo) spoke to me about his similar sensation when sitting in Starbucks with his interviewees. There was “something off” about that particular setting and situation and contrast to him.

Another tall, well-spoken intelligent seeming white cat (forgive me, bro, I forgot your name) spoke to me in the lobby of the hotel on our way to dinner, as well. He mentioned my words the day before on our walking into these settings in such a way—a way where class privilege and signifiers shriek out of a gap. “It’s not the ideal situation,” he admitted.

First Course at Gabbiolo

What to do? I certainly am not saying reporters should get blisters in the sun and arrive with dusty hair and hungry! Nor that these conventions that are purposely comfortable in order to buffet the human spirit a bit from the weariness of the travel we make (many from out of the country) and the long, busy days should be held at motels or in tents, or anything. I know I sure wasn’t lamenting, refusing, or feeling shame over the five course meal at Gabbiolo’s, complete with fantastic wine and dessert! In fact, I’m still salivating over it.

I am simply pointing out that the disparity in watcher and watched distorts the information gathered. And this mostly becomes dangerous when that is not acknowledged in the reportage itself, in some way. And thus the danger of false “objectivity” which never says “Here I am, with my particular lens, at this particular time, and thus am seeing this particular angle.” The Objective™ voice pretends to be the godvoice, to be neutral and not situated on any particular piece of land or from any particular era and thus lacking a viewpoint that can be evaluated and separated from the text itself.

Stylish French Cat’s example was “Africa Experts” who were there one time, “or who have a neighbor who was in Africa once.” The Objective Façade (damn, I am hitting all the French words today, yeah!) brings a bias, erases the serial number, and calls it Truth.

Ethnic Media in Europe and the United States

The conference documents themselves stated that the US is “further ahead” in terms of “Ethnic Media.” It is taken more seriously, more widely supported, and  is more legitimized. The Europeans themselves are aware of this. On the other hand, one or two seemed to yet grapple with the very voice/tone/angle/”passion” that has led this to be so! At moments, it may be a hard bridge to gap, in such a short time. The one between the US and the UK, or France, for example. But I think we did pretty well, anyway. I can only imagine how, for example, my voice—already considered confrontational in the USA!—comes across to them, if Ethnic Media is much less part of the conversation where they normally operate. So in that sense, I appreciate that we did as well as we did.

I really enjoyed the French people I spoke to. There’s always been something about their way of avoiding as many hard divisions that we have in the US that really appeals to me. Their newspaper front pages are, apparently, often a melange (ooh, “melange”!) of departments all weighing in on one topic. (Possibly where Huffpost got their “Big News Page” idea for various hot topics.) Rather than walled off, isolated columns appearing in the same area. In my very limited experience of their literature (translated to English), the “French” way of writing and thinking on page often wanders and free associates and takes you through an experience, through the thoughts until you have become filled with the idea and story that the author wished to impart to you. As opposed to a tightly structured, tightly-contoured, and arranged series of parts. Is this making sense? I am interested in minds that see this type of movement and mezcla as viable. It feels like freedom to me.

One of the things I am attempting to do by drawing out all the nuance is avoid implying or giving the impression to anyone that this trip and this experience were not useful. Nor that the money was not wisely spent, nor that other journalists should not attend if they are lucky enough to have the opportunity. Exactly the opposite. I feel these types of discussions galvanize thought and spur progress. And I have no hesitancy in saying I felt damn honored to be amongst all these professionals.

I only offer my experience so that if desired, the organizers can think on it and use it to make the next one even better…at least to include the awareness of this dynamic, or more discussion in such directions. But again, I did not operate under any such seemingly altruistic agenda. I simply spoke what I saw and felt.

Karla Gomez-Escamilla of Univision exchanges looks with me as we are given an unexpected post-discussion/ pre-dinner speech about not letting our 'passion' or what we heard in the field get in the way or overshadow our journalism on these topics.

Objectivity: the Man Behind the Curtain

“You don’t know how he’s gonna hit you,” said Mona (she’s the one flashing the peace sign in group shot above), about the so-called “Objectivity Lens” of much Mainstream Media. He’s a man behind a curtain. Won’t show his face. “That’s why I left that world,” she said. I’m tired of that type of objectivity. “I want to tell you how I feel and how I see things,” she laughed, loudly, with what I perceived as a damn enchanting British accent.

And I encouraged her to please do so, please keep on. Mona is a spirit-filled, wise, powerful voice and she’s shaking things up, informing the world, and shattering Muslim stereotypes left and right, every time she speaks on her community.

Stylish French Cat said The Objective Lens is a way of keeping YOU OUT. “No! This is objective! No room for you!” he laughed, dramatically holding both his hands up.

Professor Kwong mentioned how the typical gatekeepers would only allow articles from him that prop up their own visions of Chinese culture. He said the “Objective” model is one that functions to exclude. And that the objectivity model is a misleading one.

Mizanur said “I don’t mind even FOX news having an agenda. I don’t have a problem with expansion of the menu. More choices, to me, is good.”

Karla Gomez-Escamilla of Univision (I repronounce the way she says it from time to time in the back of my mind…oonee-vis-YON!) and I met at the first breakfast and hit it off right away. Over the next two days, we spoke a lot about these things, and as she is a working TV reporter, I’ll keep all her words off the record. But we spoke of all the currents in play, and speaking for myself, I’m glad she was there. There were moments her presence—and what I knew to be her background and opinions and experience—were a touchstone of safety and comfort. Even without words. After all, at this event I was—and even called as much over and over—”The Blogger.” The potential for me to have been isolated, given not only that aspect, but also in what I kept talking about, was high. Again, I have a lotta love for all the friends I met who made sure to surround me with support, both days.

Chicken Plus!

In my presentation, I spoke of the MSM as being ethnic media in its own right! Just not the brown contigent of Ethnic Media. A different ethnicity. It is the lens that pretends it is no lens. It is the invisibled lens. You’ve heard me speak about this in years past as The White Lens.

I spoke of my ideas on Ethnic Medias’ strengths—prefaced by the warning that I can only speak for what I know of Ethnic Media. Not all “ethnic media.” Also adding that race and ethnicity and culture matters are obviously unique to each country and that country’s history. I said that communities of color have longer memories when it comes to history. Here in the US, we factor in slavery, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wounded Knee, General Sheridan, the US invasion into Mexico, the CIA interference in Latin America, or the railroads and how they came about when we speak of the echoes that still play out in oppressions and laws and politics today. Etc.

I said that Ethnic Media, in many cases, would know right away there is something problematic about dropping off a van of mostly white—or simply outsiders—into a community of color and then prompting that community to reveal the divisions they have between them and other communities of color. Ouch. Which was our assignment, in essence. To fish out the positive interactions they have with new immigrant communities, as well as the conflicts. [UPDATE: I tried to leave this out, but doing so leaves a question mark as to the strength of my reaction. The first day we were given our papers explaining the assignment there was only the directive that we should discover the conflicts. That completely weirded me out, and I was glad to see when they handed out updated papers the next day, the assignment was much more even-handed, and was changed to the version I posted above: to find out the positive "as well as" the negative. So if anything, those planning this adjust and self-examine quickly, and clearly are aware enough to be on guard for those kinds of biases. I felt better after the edit, but still found the entire scene odd. I also brought up to the group that I noticed this edit, and was happy to see the change.]

There was some pushback to the things I said to the group. I know I didn’t word everything as perfect as I would have liked. I know, too, though, that the process of interacting with free speech and getting to the bottom of these things will be imperfect and at times messy. And yes, we must be careful not to be essentialist or to overgeneralize.

The Big Cheese. (And Mizanur.)

I feel it is far more perilous to pretend these dynamics are unimportant.

What should also be made clear is that I was not informed of this practicum part of the experience until after I had agreed to speak on a panel! I had no idea the trip would involve my going out and into a community for a couple/few hours and interviewing people. If it was in the documents they sent me, I missed that part (very possible). Regardless, that part came as a total surprise. As it was, though, Miami was Part TWo of a two part (International) symposium, the first of which was in Paris. (Damn! Missed that one!) So everyone but me, pretty much, knew we’d have the reporting component.

I also loved the field trip and am very glad it was, indeed, a part of the trip.

Sandy Close of New America Media said on the penultimate day of the symposium “I always learn the most when I am uncomfortable.”

And that’s why I’d never want anyone to draw the conclusion on this event that it was not supremely educational and worthwhile, despite ripples in the smoothly-ironed fabric of our planned dialogues. Because part of what happened—conflict and all—was part of what needs to happen and is happening everywhere.

As Mizanur said to me, this is the way news is trending, like it or not.

Maybe that is because the Objective Model was never objective to begin with and has in fact been a detriment to justice and democracy.

We were warned to apply sunscreen liberally. Here are some folks putting some on before we took our field trip.

You deconstruct…but do you create?

The gentleman who was speaking up hard for anti-immigrant extremist groups FAIR and CIS also said that writers like myself, bloggers like myself (he did not mention me by name, but to tell you the truth, many things he said might have been interpreted as almost direct responses to some of my writing and videos) who “go off into their own tribal enclaves” are dangerous. He sounded very worried, to be honest.

I am not dangerous to him. At least that is not my intention, nor do I put any energy into harming him or wishing him ill.

Again, though, if we go back to the Polite Society idea, you can see how voices like mine (voices not “trained” and reined in to the standing order and conventions) might be perceived as dangerous.

But I am not here to simply deconstruct or challenge or as some say about us “ethnic media” types, to complain. I see this type of writing more as…sweeping sand and clutter and debris away from the floor so you can see where the weak spots are. So you can travel safer, faster, and truer. I am certainly not saying I see all, or have all the answers. Which is why Ethnic Media is very often associated with community, with the need to connect with each other and support our communities, and from which political action is basically inseparable. This consciousness and tradition is passed down in our communities from generation to generation.

When I dropped into the African Heritage Cultural Center on Saturday, I had little urge to either cleverly or directly inquire to them—as someone from outside their community with only an hour or so to spare to build up any rapport—regarding the conflicts between US-born African Americans and Haitian immigrants or Cubans. I am not saying that these conflicts do not exist!

What you don't see is that the moment after I surprised him with a lens in his face, we grinned at each other and shook hands without uttering a word.

But I am saying…why? Why go in there and try to get at that? In this short time? What is the interest there, first? And I have to say, I steered away from that for the most part. I am glad the organizers were sensitive to this, to the fact that the conversation or day might go otherwise. And they did remind us that those questions were only suggestions before they sent us out on our trips.

Though I did, a few times, attempt the questions, anyway. And what I found—it’s what I expected to find, even though I may have been assuming too much by extrapolating from how the activist/community-oriented Ethnic Media blogger-types I am familiar with are—these people wanted, instead, to speak of how their solidarity crossed over divisions in communities of color. They talked to me about how we are all in this together. About how we are not settling for the conditions in which communities of color find themselves, and are fighting it. About how nobody is illegal, and if someone is, then its everyone but the indigenous. They were mostly black, Haitian, Latino, and they radiated and demonstrated such love and acceptance of each other and positive energy that I was swept up and was reminded of my days at Centro Cultural de la Raza where as a young chico, I first remember feeling that community love.

Love and Community

That’s what it’s about.

I’m not saying there are not tensions that need to be explored! Especially when they erupt into harm or violence on one or more of a group of people. But like at least one of my interviewees, I feel that tension we are chasing is very often exacerbated or initiated by Arpaio types. By Brewer types. By Hayworth N McCain types. And that the focus ought to be on them, and the big border lovers who do NOT see us all as together here, and on those with far more power in the system who would ferret others out by their accent, or their otherliness. Or put the glare not on the poor housing and impoverished conditions they live in quite as much as on those who operate in this world and make so many rundown areas possible by their own massive and disproportionate siphoning of wealth.

I know at least one person at the conference felt that this focus was a weakness of Ethnic Media. Okay. I won’t argue that. I disagree entirely. But I have nothing to gain by arguing it if you don’t get that.

More importantly, the focus is better served being on positivity. A constant broadcast of fear, scarcity ideology, terror, and division resonates in the collective heart. The focus ought to be, sometimes if not almost always, on the ties that connect, on the common causes, on the strength and bridges built between commonly marginalized communities. On the love and power there that not even the most objective person could deny feeling, even as but a stranger invited into the bosom of another community’s presence.

________________________________

This was my rundown of all the cultural and social elements of the event and setting. Soon I’ll post again on the info and insight that I gained through sitting in the presentations and hearing the findings and teachings of scholars and journalists. Both these worlds coming together reveal more, I feel, than only one or the other.

]]> http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2010/05/10/miami-debriefing-the-intersections-of-race-class-journalism-activism-croissants-and-reality/feed/ 6 http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2010/03/23/indivisible-thoughts-on-the-immigration-rally-in-dc/ http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2010/03/23/indivisible-thoughts-on-the-immigration-rally-in-dc/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:31:49 +0000 nezua http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/?p=6989

DESPITE my many misgivings on how What-May-Become-CIR is shaping up, the energy at the rally on Sunday in DC was undeniably strong, fresh, vibrant, positive, and loud. More like a loving block party, concert and picnic than a “march,” the National Mall hosted hundreds of thousands of people supporting our fixing the broken immigration system. I’ll have a video for you (the next News With Nezua video) that I am going to use to convey some of that energy to you.

Because there are separate aspects of any “cause” or political issue. Which is what makes the whole thing so frustrating sometimes. We all forget, we all remember, are reminded, when we talk it over. We begin pushing for the very best we can, as we should. Ideals lead the way. Then some others get angry and say that the first group is being too purist, or non-pragmatic. Compromises must be made. Then your undocumented friend says those compromises are cruel and unneeded and unnecessary. And then another undocumented friend says, hey—I’m willing to make those concessions. Then another citizen friend says but I am not willing to have a biometric Social Security card, and we shouldn’t let that be ushered in using this issue. Then someone else passes a link about a protest or march action and then someone else says isnt there more to making change than protests, than making noise? And then you attend a massive gathering like this in the absence of any movement from the white house after all the beautiful speeches made to la comunidad and you remember that every gathering is not about making an immediate change. Or rather, more comes out of something like this event than just definitive legislative action.

Sometimes you need to be around people who feel as you do, who look a bit like you, or have a name like you—especially when those things are under attack by various groups and voices in our nation. Especially when you are out there working that activismagic-whatever you do, making your heart visible and evident in the world, trying to chip away at wrongness because that gives you a lust for life, that makes you feel you have done more than take from the world. And that good things can happen, and that you are not alone, and that you stand with hundreds of thousands of other people. And that even though the people who would stab the very balloons out of the hands of mimes may be given too loud a voice at times, on the other hand, the people who know that justice is a right all humans have can gift each other with a very powerful weapon to place in the arsenal. And the event had a lot of that energy. It was very comforting to know that with so many Latinos around, even if we were dissimilar in many ways, we were standing together at the moment for things that go so often unchampioned or unmentioned by the most powerful voices in media, if not altogether slurred and derided. We were, for a handful of hours, a city of solidarity and flava and positivity.

And at the same time, all those aforementioned currents that can sometimes complement and sometimes contradict, were in play.

I saw a number of people who work this scene, the regulars, the activists (undocumented and citizens), some org people, some new media people…you get to know each other after a while! We always see each other at these events. Our feelings on what is right and what is possible overlap in places. And not in others. And always varying at different times, perhaps, depending on how the issue is playing out in Congress or on TV or in the White House. And to see that weave of multiplicity on the issue just in that group of people gives you a peek into how tough it has to be to move legislation with so many people in government, many whom are not just sometimes at variance with, but directly opposed to each other’s value systems and desires and ideologies, and many who don’t even deal in good faith, who are simply making decisions on cynical and power-based motives. It’s a wonder anything gets done. And it explains why so many of us on the Left are beaming sunshine out of our blogholes because the White House just passed insurance reform that still leaves us with a health care system that should hide in shame compared to that of many “less powerful” nations—not to make light of the very big deal that is this bill being passed, nonetheless….

One of these activist type friends I know—he is involved with one of the current orgs that speaks for/stands for/benefits from the Latino&Immigration type issues—was a bit bitter about the event. It was “cynical,” he said. “Why aren’t they telling people” that this is a big hoo-rah event when in reality, Schumer and others are lining up a nasty little deal before they even consider trying to sell it; a deal that involves National biometric ID cards/SS cards, and passing an English test (who says you have to speak English in the USA, we still don’t have any “official language,” after all!), admitting shame and criminality in being here at all (I’m still waiting to hear the US govt explain the reneging on NAFTA as well as many other actions that contribute to global inequality and spur immigration in the first place!) and blowing more money on a militarized and harmful border mentality and weaponry/wall, as well as funding (in part) Felipe Calderón’s drug war that has claimed over 17,000 lives by now. And I understand what he is saying. These things are not acceptable, in reality. At least not to me as a citizen. And I do live here, and have to live here for now. And so I feel I have a right—while not speaking for anyone else—to take part in pushing, shoving, nudging the world closer to where I feel it should be. Beginning here.

At the same time I could have said “Okay. Fair enough. But if that is cynical…then why don’t you tell that truth through the org you are attached to?” Because he does not, either. Nor do they. They stand for good things, too. But not the whole truth. Does anyone? Does anyone think the whole truth stands a chance in this nation? And yet you can’t really aim any lower and have too much self-respect. Because you know invariably that ideal will fall short, being channeled through an imperfect vessel—be it your own humanity, or Congress.

So it’s never cut and dry. We all have our interests, we all have to make a living, we all have to make compromise, we all have our hands stained from rowing in the Empire Ship, and even in those moments we truly want to do only good, only the right thing, that still doesn’t mean we’ll agree on what exact shape that Thing will be. We come from different places. We stand in different places. We’ve had different beginnings. I’m still personally trying to learn how to be true to my own vision, and at the same time make room for yours. In a way, I guess at heart, that is what the USA is supposed to be about. (At least judging by the mantras children are pressured to speak to the flag in school.) Lately I feel we are not being too successful at making that vision happen. But maybe as a nation born squalling and bloody and steeped in lust and reverence for property, as well as violence and exploitation of the Other, we just take smaller steps than those that satisfy me right away.

What is there to do but to keep putting energy toward such an idea, and toward fighting the good fight?

Which is why I thank Reform Immigration for America very much for making my trip possible. I appreciate the help in getting there, and the no-strings freedom to report the way I report. Speaking of which, I have to get back to editing the video. Meanwhile, here’s a slideshow of the fotos I took. Maybe they will give you an idea, for now, of what I’m talking about….

I’VE TOUCHED ON THE SUBJECT in a couple small ways lately. I don’t have much more than that to say now…except to remember out loud that when I lived in Miami Beach for a few years—a place that brought me great happiness as an adolescent aged boy—Haitian gente were as common as Cubanos, just part of the everyday. No doubt, the island of Quisqueya (Hispaniola) cannot be further from Florida than where I happen to live now.

And then I think of how much I miss Florida….

How will Haiti and Haitians come out of this? Will the big players in the First World take their revenge and remove any vestiges of independence from the only nation to rise from a successful revolution of slaves? Shock Doctrine in hyperdrive? I don’t know. But we can learn a lot about our world just by watching—and truly seeing—Haiti, I think.

Here is a video featuring the voice of Telesur and Narco News Authentic School of Journalism reporter Reed Lindsay that gives a small street level glimpse of Port-au-Prince, Haiti:

And here is some more reporting by Narco News vatos:

• Nobody is Coordinating the Aid
(Haití: “Nadie esta coordinado la ayuda”)

• Video Footage of Immediate Aftermath of Earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti

Hope you and your family are well. And warm.

THIS MAY HAVE BEEN the hardest news I’ve had to sit on for a full week, ever. I’m ecstatic to announce that after a written application that daunted any I’ve filled out yet, a phone interview and a bit of waiting, I’ve won a scholarship to the 2010 Narco News School of Authentic Journalism this coming Febrero, on the Yucatán peninsula.

From Narco News:

They work or hail from 24 countries across the five major continents. They investigate and write news reports, create documentary films and viral videos, and among them are up-and-coming pioneers of Internet journalism. Many of them do that through multiple forms of media. They hush the imposed silences from above and make the voices from below heard. They are aged 18 to 65, from diverse economic, social, political and demographic backgrounds. And each one’s experiences are compelling and unique.

…

Thankfully, none of these talents of conscience need me or anyone else to speak for them. They were chosen because they are already maestros at presenting themselves and the stories they report and care deeply about.

As you read a little about them here, please think about supporting them – as individuals and as a group – so that each can fully realize his and her scholarship and become even better, faster and more coherent than they already are at this work.
Everybody complains about the media, and for good reason. Here are the people who, together with the Narco News Team and our amazing roster of volunteer professors, are doing something about it.

Ladies and gentlemen: It is my distinct honor to present to you… The future.

Al Giordano
President School of Authentic Journalism

and en español:

Ellos y ellas trabajan o provienen de 24 países de América, África, Europa y Asia. Investigan y escriben reportes, crean documentales y videos viral, y entre todos son las promesas del periodismo en Internet. Muchos de ellos lo hacen a través de múltiples medios de comunicación. Desafían el silencio impuesto desde arriba y permiten que las voces de abajo sean escuchadas. Sus edades oscilan entre los 18 y 65 años de edad, y provienen de distintos orígenes económicos, sociales, políticos y demográficos. Y las experiencias de cada uno son absorbentes y únicas.

…

Afortunadamente, ninguno de estos talentos con conciencia me necesitan a mí o a ningún otro para hablar por ellos. Fueron escogidos porque ya son maestros al presentarse a sí mismos y a las historias que reportan y por las que se preocupan profundamente.

Al leer un poco acerca de ellos aquí, por favor considere en apoyarles—como individuos y como grupo—para que cada uno pueda cumplir plenamente su beca y pueda ser mejor, más rápido y más coherente de lo que ya son en su trabajo.

Todo el mundo se queja de los medios de comunicación, y por una buena razón. Aquí están las personas que, junto con el Equipo de Narco News y nuestra asombrosa lista de profesores voluntarios, están haciendo algo al respecto.

Damas y caballeros: Es para mí un claro honor el presentar a ustedes… El futuro.

Al Giordano
Presidente, Escuela de Periodismo Auténtico

Long time readers will, no doubt, understand much about my feelings on winning this without my having to speak too much of it. I guess I’ve competed for and won a few things here and there, been lucky enough to have a couple opportunities. This little trip and bit of education I’ll receive—direct and incidental—interests and excites me more than anything I can remember for a while.

One of the reminders of other lands and people to which I am related that I kept close to my heart when younger (aside from the food my abuela would prepare, and the language that some of my family used) were fotos of the Lacandón people (that my father took), and books he wrote after visiting the Southern reaches and jungles and indigenous peoples of México in his twenties. But that’s all so ethereal. This is air I need to breathe for a little while. Those are skies I need to be under. There is sand, soil, and stone I need to have under my feet. That said, I welcome wherever this path may lead and I don’t expect a lot aside from to see what México wants to show me for herself.

That’s the México part of it. That’s the history and identity and familia part of it. On the journalism angle, this is also wildly exciting. Narco News is one outlet I’ve long respected (and there isn’t a ton of them out there doing what they do) as they report news from México that feels real, and does not pass through the typical grimy lens that US MSM employs almost every time it reports on her. I am looking forward to being part of Narco News in even a minimal way. It is an honor and a challenge I hope to meet well.

You know, I got into this ‘New Media” movement incidentally. Never set out to do it, did not breeze in with some org or company or site looking to capitalize on NEW MEDIA or UNDERSTAND THE NEW TERRAIN OF JOURNALISM or any of that. It has all been extremely organic in my case. I just used the Internet to disseminate my art, once I saw the potential there in 1999 or so. Found LJ and then hopped off to a blog in 2003. And then did that for a while without a specific focus aside from my music. I had three blogs. One private, one political and public, one geared to my music.

And then in 2006 I focused. And that’s when I began writing The Unapologetic Mexican. Here I am now in the midst of this New Media movement, and honestly I also feel honored to find myself where I am. Able to take advantage of opportunities here, be part of this new essence of journalism, and I’ve reached the goal I had when I began: to push back on the racist messaging that was everywhere and to insert my own views on my people and people like me into the stream of media conversation. My purposes have grown since then, and are not entirely vested in my individual welfare or plight quite as much.

Today, I understand I have a responsibility to employ each and every power and privilege and talent and skill with every ounce of mobility and energy I possess in confronting, exposing, and righting the imbalances and injustices in our world. It sounds pretentious, I know. It probably is. Damn arrogant Mexicans. But something like this trip/curriculum makes me happy because as Al G said in his intro to the 31 winners, through the opportunity I can become even more efficient, coherent in my messaging, and more effective in my role. And that brings me a joy deep in my being, where that restlessness and agitation inflamed by the evils of our society and world lives.

It’s very possible I am simply humming like a tuning fork with the moment, as I am wont to do in my artist role. But I see this as a possible pivot point from where I can step up my goals, actions, and reach. Let’s see how it plays out. This trip threatens to be the most photographed and recorded and tweeted one ever, though. I know that!

Another thing I’m used to doing when I am fortunate enough to gain a scholarship or membership to some kind of selected group is looking around at the other winners to gauge what kind of crowd I’m in. And honestly, this is one crazy crowd of talent. I am also humbled to be part of the group…and it takes a lot to make me feel humble (again, as my readers already know . I will definitely be soaking up info and lore and craft from any one of these people I can. I can’t even imagine the levels of creative energy gonna be gathered in this one spot. Wow.

Finally, I’ll be posting the link to my individual scholarship fund now and then until February. I know we are all struggling out here, but if you are in the position to help fund my trip, I’d be grateful of course.

WHEN DEALING WITH LAW, always remember that police train in intimidating people and they lie as a matter of their everyday behavior. They not only know that ignorance of the law does not entitle you to break it, but they feel that your ignorance of the law paves the way for them to personally fool you about what the law is and then use state power to punish you for falling into their trap. When I was first told of police as a young boy (in school), I briefly made an erroneous link in my mind between “justice” in the sense of hired law vs actual Justice. At that age, too, my own family countered that message with other ones which were far more accurate and finally at 17 I was disabused of the notion completely by an intense experience that shunted me into the system.

Make no mistake: Police are state-employed gun and electric torture-device wielders who, in most cases (enough that it’s safest to assume it of all of them), believe that they have the moral and legal right to lie to you and treat you however they want, even tasering and consequently killing you if they feel like it. (While we are here, I will remind you if you are innocent (and obviously even if not) to never speak to police in any instance and to be smart about transporting your mota.) [Insert favorite disclaimer here about Police Also Save Lives, Rescue Kittens, etc.]

So as you can see, I have no bias. That said, a compa (Carlos Galindo) sent me this video of our friends over at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (whom I talk about in this video short on 287(g)) getting a bit uptight as they hassle Latino vendors at El Gran Mercado. And why wouldn’t they? In case it’s been lost in all the shuffle, it’s not only morally wrong to racially profile, it is against the law.

Note first how they speak quite authoritatively, telling Carlos what to do and what the law is. They lie. If he were to have believed them, it would have ended after the first question. But he knows his rights here (mostly, some he had to learn after or through the experience, which is always a great teacher!) and he refuses to give up his camera. Note the cop backs off.

Later it gets fun when the nasty bully strips away the veneer and makes it clear how he sees the world.

Here’s what Carlos wrote to me:

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office took my camera and deleted all the files even though I identified myself as a member of the media trying to record in a public place. They violated my first amendment rights. Dan Barr a Phoenix Constitutional rights attorney saw the video listed below and says my first amendment rights were violated. They also violated my 4th amendment right in failing to have probable cause for search and seizure, nor did they execute a sworn warrant to take my camera.

Unbeknownst to the lying bullies with badges, you can recover your data with software.

Also unbeknownst to the MCSO, a second camera was (not aimed at much but the ground) but was recording the aftermath. Note what sounds like small bursts of electricity from some device (Tazer gun?) as things unwind.

“Don’t argue with me about your civil rights.”
—Cop

You know what is more powerful than racist and renegade law? All of us. With our cameras. And knowing our rights.

Keep on. Carlos, you are doing a service to the community. You are part of the Real Media—one that works in service of the People. What a refreshing change.

HOME FROM PITTSBURGH, and another multi-day, exhausting, energy-packed, hotel and airport stuffed trip is over. I don’t know that I have a ton of time or energy at the moment to unpack it all. While I traveled to the event on an America’s Voice Immigration Scholarship, you know how these trips go. You come back in the hole and in the red and so I’ve got to get to work trying to level things out again.

Firstly, I do want to thank America’s Voice for the grant. Obviously it’s no small ticket from the West coast to the East, and for four days at a hotel, plus registration. The events are sort of a class barrier, and that’s why, I think, a large part of the blogosphere resents these conventions. They feel left out, they are left out, as I am for events like AMC—which, in truth, I’d attend over these ones but for the fact that the money doesn’t flow thru AMC, the big blogs aren’t there, the sponsors aren’t there, and so grants aren’t there as they are (and more and more) for events like this. And yet the philosophies of AMC are much more community based, and shaped around things that genuinely excite me. But I couldn’t attend that one. Yet, these big plasticky conventions are important for the fact that they are a commonly understood nexus of media makers and DC types and so you can have some meaty talks and networking moments, should fate provide.

Or see films like 9500 Liberty. (Short Clip above, Trailer below)

I met up with the makers of this film later on in the day, and we had a good talk. They are Annabel Park and Eric Byler, a woman and a man team (she of Korean descent, he of Chinese/mixed descent), who happen to be smart and friendly people. Eric and I spoke a bit about immigration, about filmmaking, and about bridging the Asian and Latino communities, and exchanged info for possible future purposes.

They also happened to be at the Si Se Puede 2.0 panel [clips below]. Eric appreciated my comments about a need to publicly draw out the connections between the criminal justice system/Prison Industrial complex and ICE’s growing influence and behavior. There’s a lot to say here, but I’ve got to run to the dentist soon, so I’ll have to wait to lay out what I feel are those ties. But I really do think these larger connections need to be made, and honestly it can be hard for “white” progressives to do so in some cases. I’ve noted some built-in blind spots that sometimes prevent them from seeing the way the prison system and police operate, which is for the most part racist. (If you dig stats, just check the stats on who gets locked up and shot more, and by whom/cops of what races.) Now, I don’t of course mean to imply that “white” progressives cannot draw these connections…they can and should. It’s just that often they seem to have more invested in not “going there.”

My comment is not in the clips below, as I rarely think of videotaping myself while I engage people at scenes like this.

But forget la feria. What I mostly appreciated from America’s Voice is how they approached me. We had a discussion on how to work together possibly, and while the details aren’t really important, I will say it was the first time I ever felt approached not as a “heel nipping blogger” or a “bomb-throwing fire starter” or with any sort of defensive, adversarial or condescending vibe by DC org people. But more as a partner in media and en la lucha. So I look forward to seeing how that relationship flourishes. I know we will still be coming from our different places, but the two people I spoke to at least seemed to understand for once where us fiery bloggers are coming from. I mean, in case it needs underlining: bloggers on a cause feel as deeply as any beltway employee about the things we speak on (arguably more in some cases). And we don’t even get a paycheck for it! Really. Think about that. Because that is saying a lot if you think about how much energy and words we put into this.

The image at top is me doing a hula hoop. Some excited people on the street had a scavenger hunt and when I walked by, they asked if I would hula hoop for their cameras. I like that. I jumped right in. To me, the more Fellini-esque a moment becomes, the happier I feel about life. After all, la vida es un carnavál, qué no? Yeah, it is. So baila!

More later.

FOR A SHORT, SUNNY, MOMENT when talk this year turned toward recession (and even while documenting signs of it in my own area, I hoped I might be insulated from the effects. At least to the extent that I could continue my way of living: writing and doing artwork for money and having enough time in all of that to stay sane. I thought to myself that my clientele is an upper-middle class, well-educated, tech-savvy group and that people always need art and website graphics for their business, even in a recession.

Even as business began to drop off, I reasoned that it was fine. My business is like that, I am always jumping from project to project. Nothing is guaranteed. From marketing to invoicing to organizing jobs, to the work itself, to “customer service” and correspondence, it’s a one-man show. That’s the nature of what I do. No health insurance, no promises, no long-term security. And that’s worth the trade to me.

The first signs of trouble in paradise were clients or potential clients gradually not wanting to pay what had previously been in the acceptable range. For a while, I resisted. But why should I make less than before? I thought. I am working as hard as I always do. My work looks as good as it does today as it did last year, why are people devaluing it now? But before long, I relaxed my prices. I basically had to, or thought I did. Tossing ballast overboard, seeing work thin out. It was drop prices or….

I was, obviously, not wholly happy with the move. Understand: I’ve always done pro-bono jobs, or dropped prices for good causes. Here’s only one example: for a well-known site that organizes and advocates for the Dream Act, I made print-sized graphics, a detailed logo, multiple styled badges for online use as well as letterhead (and four variations before they were happy with design)—all for less than I’d normally charge for just one logo job. I’m happy to do these types of things, and always will be. I’ve done them since I started getting work through XOLAGRAFIK, and I always will.

But then there are frustrations when giving breaks feels not so choice-y. A few weeks ago I created a large banner for a new online organization, it’s their primary art/banner. They have funds enough, apparently, to tour the nation and give away prizes left and right. They are “Latino”-centric. Before I knew they had this budget, I gave them a reduced price. Reduced as part of my overall price relaxation. Even so, they were not so happy about an additional charge I billed when asked to make a change to the work—after it had been completed as originally requested. Guess what? I am “Latino.” I have no funds to tour the nation. You represent us? And you are haggling with me over reasonable prices. Sorry, that just hurts me. That’s disappointing.

That is just one incident. I don’t want it to distract. And I am not looking to breed ill-will, or cause any fights. (Which is why I have left names and URLS out). It’s probably a footnote for another post, one about The Second Gold Rush (to which I often refer; the new, fertile ground of Marketing to Latinos.) And honestly, moments like that wouldn’t matter so much to me, did they not drop down into the middle of my own financial situation.

But do let me underline for any who need reminding: Art—when truly “art”— is freedom for the soul, but it is not free to make! My computer, not free. My time, valuable. My skills: developed over decades. My expertise the result of tens of thousands of dollars invested in hardware, software, tuition, and experience. Yet there is a weird attitude—and I totally blame it on the US’ treatment of art/artists as some frivolous entertainment faction—that when it comes to the art/design part of the budget you can skimp us. If you are talking about your MAJOR ICON for a NATIONWIDE organization….I could have charged TEN times what I did. Really! I could. It’s reasonable. [Updated, sunday, august 9: Dude got in touch with me and told me he had to keep costs low because he paid out of pocket...even though they have mad sponsors...whom they cannot disclose yet. So I don't exactly know what's going on and I'll be trying to find out more, because as I told one of the involved bloggers when I asked more questions today about where the money is coming from, we have to keep our eyes open these days on any new Latino Group that seeks to leverage our blogger rep, cred, and skills and hangs back on disclosure.)

Eh. Now that one story seems too large in relation to this post. Aaaaand I sound bitter. I'm not...It's just that economic hardship brings out these things, eh? See, I've always had this complaint about art and the way its seen. Now it seems less abstract. That's how recessions work, I guess. The cracks in the system entire become pronounced and more of a direct threat.

Anyway, intellectualizing it all is a seductive notion, but it's clear that I've been in denial. I'm typing this on a text document that I'll soon transfer to my iPhone and then copy and paste into an app that allows me to post to UMX. Because my cable was shut off last night. And my phone bill is any day—I've been dodging them for weeks. And so on. Eating food I'm not sure is good, but out of necessity. Dealing with tooth pain that makes you want to crack your own head open like a walnut because you're broke. It's all adding up and getting to me. I can't keep pretending this is viable, so I'll need to get a job-job. Any job. Doesn't matter, and life has prepared me. I spent from 14 to about 27 working labor and junk jobs. I'll be fine on that end, and I am sure I can come back to doing what I love to do in time.

But for the moment I'm stressing. Offline, I can't even make money doing more work. Not to mention I am going to Netroots Nation (on a full scholarship) in a few days. I had two jobs I thought were lined up in time to give me deposits enough to handle that trip's additional everyday type expenses as well as my bills, but I guess it is not working out that way. And I sure do hate stressing over money. It's probably my least favorite thing to lose peace of mind over. And while I will do my best to live my day to day life free from an overriding sense of anxiety, that won't turn my cable back on or my phone.

So I'm asking for your help, should you have a few bucks extra. I don't have quarterly or annual fundraisers where I try to get 10,000 bucks to "keep going for another year." And of course I don't spend all the time I do on words and art here at UMX for any kind of return. I do it for various reasons: to explore, to be a part of the social dialogue, to share, to instigate, and just to vent, too. But I do hope, as so many of you return here over and over, that it is worth something to you and that you might feel good from time to time, in helping out when needed.

If so, please click on the Regalito (little gift) link at the top of the page, or the Tamale picture on the lower area of the page (or send to dolares[@]xolagrafik[D]com directly from your Paypal acct) to support UMX in this time of thin tacos. Alternately, now is a great time to hire me! Been thinking on a new logo/graphic/banner/etc? Hit that Contact Nezua graphic at bottom of page. I still have email! (For now).

If I could upload graphics, I’d make a little “Save Ferris” cup with a strikeout over “Ferris” and “Nezua” scribbled in, just to let you know I’m not despairing (and to shout out to John Hughes!) But since I can’t, I’ll just end by saying good morning, and please help get Nezua back online and out of Stressville!

(a glimpse of a larger piece of art soon to be unveiled)

THERE IS A REACTIONARY NATURE inherent to the Internet dialogues, to the symbiotic nature between the many different kinds of writing. This reactionary process is necessary, and “good” as well as “bad,” as I see it. But at all times, it tends to have a current that moves you along rapidly.

Everyone once in a while I slow down and sit with myself to ask questions about the shape and function of the “us” that comes together out here.

Who are we out here? What are we doing? What way forward?

I’ve been asking myself questions along these lines since I began participating in the amazing new organism of collective conversation that the Internet makes possible.  Do they do any good? That is not, I’m sure, the point. The point is feeling out the fringes of a path forward, the point is simply to keep moving. And sometimes in moving forward, wander.

These posts do not promise any hard conclusions, just questions. Chances, are, too that it will be too long for a quick read. So please feel free to take a break at any spot to chew things over, and come back later when you’ve time. Maybe you’ll have some thoughts to share in the comments, then. Be open. Bring a cup of coffee, yerba mate, or tea.

CONTAINERS AND STICKERS AND A FRAGRANT FIRE AISLE

Lately there arises a tension between “Journalists” and “bloggers” having to do with traffic, mostly motivated by sinking revenues on the part of news organizations. It also has to do with who are “real” journalists, sometimes.

But what is the real core of the conflict? How real is this tension and how manufactured? Moreover, how important the conflict? How distracting? How that people so rather similarly vested become pitted against one another? Are we similarly vested? If so, what is the overlap?

I suppose there is a tiny bit of journalism in my own history. Or let me just say I at least got a taste through the stint I had with MTV News (Street Team 08). Hm. I at least own a copy of the AP style guide, although I rarely consult it. I write a weekly column for an independent news outfit. But “journalist” is never really how I see myself.

Whatever the label, I do think of myself as one of many today who makes it a regular business and practice to join in the effort to find truth between us, and in our society and in using words that address current happenings. I do take that seriously enough to take great effort with my words to be truthful and/or shaped in ways I feel may bring about, or help bring about, that end. Maybe I’m more of a general writer, or an “artist,” or a thinker (Bullshit Artist), commentator, I don’t know. The one thing I do know is that getting hung up over labels/titles seems a senseless use of time. Right?

Two different groups of people thinking and writing and talking with great energy about the challenges facing us all. Searching for a way out, a way through it. Trying our damndest to distill truth out of it all. But we cleave our numbers in two with words and then fight over whose survival matters more.

For me there aren’t little cubbyholes with all the different identities – intellectual, racial, sexual. It’s more like a fine membrane – sort of like a river, an identity is sort of like a river. It’s one and it’s flowing and it’s a process. By giving different names to different parts of a single mountain range or different parts of the river, we are doing that entity a disservice.

—Gloria E. Anzaldúa

A label for this kind of writing, thinking—I didn’t need one when I began doing it. And since (at least) the age of 14 when I sat in math class surreptitiously penning empassioned narratives on current events—papers not required by school but written purely from a personal need (I remember one day being so blown away that the Shuttle crew had exploded and we were all sitting in class and not talking about what it meant when it had instantly hurled me into an existential abyss of awe and hurt)—I’ve been doing this.

It is a joy to connect with the society manifested through the computer and the Internet, and find that there are many of us out here doing this new thing; this sifting through the gems and the trash and the bones and the rocks that teem at the foundations of our shared dwelling and along the shores of our freshwater springs.

I first met you all in 2001, in May of 2001 when I joined the online dialogues, though not in this blog. I was living in NYC, and when September dropped out of the sky later in the year, it was this global community I began talking to. I launched into high alarm and was ready to make war and was not considering soliciting outside opinions.

As time went on, through reading you, and talking with you about it (and sometimes fighting over it), I learned to absorb and integrate the many different points of view. Ones not necessarily Made in the USA, or at least not as loudly trumpeted. You attached roots to my thinking that span the world and feed on many waters and my vision has expanded as a result.

But my feet are here. My hands are here. I remain invested and interested in probing the cracks that wind through these cornerstones, the chasms rippling through the charcoaled stacks of our culture’s weakened concrete, reaching my fingers into hidden grottos to rinse under rivulets of errant rain and touch up on smooth shoots of greenery, seeking a better way. Inhaling the sunsoaked rays and sweet air that blows up out of new passages—pushing forward there. And finding new soil. And planting. And living in harmony with nature and what she brings.

YOU ARE JUST A PART OF ME

The standing system perpetuates its most corrosive elements quite easily and seemingly without our help—although we give it much. Even in interested  and continual observation lies the danger of getting caught up in the stream of symptomology and the surety of a joined reality.

Do you ever feel we are not even having the right conversations? Or that words don’t mean at all to some of us what they mean to others? As if a person comes running in a house screaming “The house is on fire, grow some mint!” And then another person in the room replies “No, we need to grow some Alfalfa!” And then a fight breaks out over alfalfa or mint. And then a third person says “This is unwise!!! Let’s do the radical thing and grow onions!!!”

The accepted modes of thought reinforce themselves and the standing order. What, then?

When grass is squashed under a board in the yard, it blanches, but it strikes out wildly toward light. it grows itself in new shapes. and it will find the day again. We need, sometimes, to think obstinately and passionately in a parallel non-symmetry, to be come  backward or sideways, or in someway find a new Way.

Are we helping things with all of this? What is being protected? Maintained? Are these areas in which I invest my energy worth the cost? Who is looking out for the return while we are busy worrying about food? Or finding it? Or while we are busy with an angry moment? Who is planning for the Winter? What will the Winter look like? Are we in Winter now? If so, how to prepare for Spring?

Watching the hulking machinery of government and the machinations of the global managers acting in these times, and the conversation that bellows and bounces about the airwaves and online as of late has me convinced we are spending too much time giving our energy to entities that would drain us until we die. And all the while, lie. And stuck to our IV tap, we stare, hypnotized.

Nor is it enough to keep our eyes on the national prize. It seems to me that the equations are egregiously incomplete without an eye cast over the world, entire. It’s only when you add up US actions domestically with US actions internationally with other nations’ concurrent actions and reactions and the history that ties all of us together that a bigger picture begins to emerge. I’ve been motivated to do this by the learning I did in late 2001.

Also, a broader view has been a natural outgrowth of exploring my lineage. In finding out who I am, and what has led me here. Wanting to understand the people in my history and in my bloodline who had to find a way to live, free from long knives and shattered crystal, free from fallow fields, times of war and barbed wire. And who found their way here, who struck out to come here. People who traveled across oceans and fields and war theaters to reach the U.S. of A.

Because the future depends on the breaking down of paradigms, it depends on straddling of two or more cultures.

—Gloria E. Anzaldúa

And if only it were so simple as following dreams.

Here, today, in the land of opportunity and dreams and yet in front of us reveal themselves some unreliable or hostile actors. The White House is ultimately steered by bankers unconcerned with ‘constituents’ or ‘ethics’ or ‘humanity.’ The legislation that comes out of the White House is accordingly written. ”No taxation without representation” was a quote quite pertinent to the American Revolution. But do we really have representation now? No. “We” do not. Forget about domestic matters, Big Business calls even the international shots. It is clear that our massive media structures would in large part see many of us sicken and die. They simply don’t care about us. This is tyranny, perhaps of a subtler kind than proposed in our nation’s oldest documents, but nonetheless it is. Under layers of illusion.

I don’t intend to say that all is hopeless, nor that effort is futile. If I felt that way, I wouldn’t even bother writing here. Nor do I think outright revolt is needed. At least not by the typically understood definition of the word. I do think many tiny revolts are needed. From thought, mostly. Revolt from thought that binds and blinds and dumbly comforts and maintains.

When the People begin to learn the politics of the globe, the truth beyond their nationalized propaganda, their own government deems them increasingly Radicalized; a growing threat. Alberto Gonzales and Michael Chertoff have both confessed that they fear the Internet’s “radicalizing” nature, but that’s false. What is feared by the oligarchs is our gaining unfiltered information from other nations. They fear us talking to the Iranians in the street, or the Mexicans behind the “border,” or the Chinese, or the Venezualans, or Iraqis because they worry that we may—and by “we” I mean the people of many nations, the governed—may realize that we have more in common than not, that our strength is inexorable once organized, and that a very small elite is yoking us like beasts so that they can kick back and put they feet up on some plushy, leather seats.

Well, that’s how it is. That is the way of the world.

It’s been so as long as I’ve been alive. But just look them all now. Look at the lack of restraint. Look at how clear the lines. Artifice is nearly completely discarded because we all—us as well as them, if life could ever be so clearly dichotomized as I pretend with such a statement—are laboring under the illusion that things are, in fact, hopeless. That there is nothing to be done about it all.

But honestly, I don’t think that is true. I have a sudden and unreasonable hope that we can institute behavior that is incompatible with the larger and more destructive behaviors of our culture as well as cast off the illusion that makes so many give up before they might have a chance to start.

What behaviors do I maintain, in thought and action, that keep me rooted in one place? Or moving too slow or in the wrong direction? What tiny revolt is needed in my own life?

To be honest, there are very real challenges to our making real progress. One is that our own government worries more about putting punitive and deadly measures into place than it does in taking care of the People’s needs. Need a better example than the current pushback against a universal and humane health care plan?

Our own government fears peace as well as People Power. Containment areas. Protest permits. Arrests for showing up en masse, or just rubber bullets and tear gas on a crowd. Tasers, Tasers, Tasers, portable torture and terrorism. (Are you terrified to speak your mind to a cop now? You should be.) Borderwalls come in more sizes than 50 ft, or Virtual. They come in a conceptual flavor too. They attempt many walls around our thoughts, many fences cramming in the potential for possibility so that we never even consider what we can change. They give us TV shows into which we can fall and dream of freedom, drag it with us through a day, sweet scents in our minds, our hands on the levers and we keep working them.

The Eco-Terrorism charge is is a growing trend, I’d bet you. I see some of this up close where I live. DHS and the USA, too, fears those who care about the earth because that conflicts with the monied interests who care more about exploiting the earth’s resources than they do the Earth or her people. They put laws into effect that determine you are a “Ecoterrorist” if you do this, and they make those laws so that they can lock you up for the rest of your life. This is all in the name of businesses that would be hurt if their vampiric practices were halted across the board. I’ve reported on Ian Van Ornum, and the story took a while to unravel, but I should do a follow-up video. I learned that the reason the law came down so heavy on this kid was because DHS was in the area concerned with “EcoTerrorism.” There is a history here of activists

What are the well-monied elite factions prepared for? For increased war. For our suffering. They have no plans on changing their actions. But they are ready for us to react. They will put us down if we do, or we do too passionately. They will NOT, however, ease up on all the policies and actions around the world that engender more and more resistance. They simply prepare to find, control, contain, or kill the resistance to policies that do more for them than the greater WE.

Power never takes a back step – only in the face of more power.

—Malcolm X.

I see this in the US when our government invests more and more money and technology in crowd control weapons and surveillance of its own people and enacts more laws that controls our information gathering as well as our right to affect the government by use of civil disobedience, etc; I see it in Mexico, who under Felipe Calderón (and with the US’s great delight and help) is bringing violence to bear on social ills, and with the result of scores of horrendous human rights violations and over 12,000 dead in three years and no sign of a solution except a tired, wrongheaded, bloody Drug War model that continues to be shoved at fluctuating social symptoms. As the US does on the other side of the “fence.” The US’s border culture—which now riffs and zags across the entire country in the form of ICE—persecutes those belonging to the global South as it uses them for labor, as it drains their economic power and self-sustainability through treaties, and the answer proposed is a wall. “To keep us safe.” National Security.

This vampiric shape of dominance and hegemony is naught but pain, fence, concrete barricade, and bombs. We have to assume that the global managers are not stupid nor silly. The choices to keep hoarding wealth, to continue with State-sanctioned violence, and to refuse the treat the greater masses of people kindly are just that: Choices. Reasoned choices.

The insurance companies, themselves, are not the ultimate problem. Nor is Wall Street, the Corrections Corporation of America, the Pentagon, or Congress. Yet, all these things at their weakest, share an ailment.

There remains, eternally running rampant in the petri dish of the human soul, a virus of greed and powerlust and blindness that has bloomed brightly in the minds and hearts of the most powerful, and in a practical sense, makes them the enemy of the People’s better interests. This is most likely the nature of their pursuits, timeless, and I don’t see a cure for them. Especially when you look up, and around. At the past, at other nations, at the general work that is wrought by those we give our money, trust, and time to. At the age-old and unwavering patterns. At the monolithic and entrenched structures that feed and feed on our society. The agriculture business. The banking business. The criminal justice/corrections business. The media/entertainment business.

We cannot rely on these structures. Nor should we. As is said over and over, in the thick of all that is pressing—moral, economic, spiritual, social crises—our media is wrapped up primarily in incestuous, banal nonsense. The entire print/web/news industry seems for the most part more worried about bloggers stealing from their paychecks than they are in saving anything valuable in our culture or our world.

TAKE A SECOND.

I think the reactionary nature of what we do out here is good in the sense that it can help facilitate a few things: correct the deadthought that is blasted from the nationalized bullhorn; find ways to help those being harmed; organize around what is going on now. Be present so that if a timely move is needed, a timely move can be made.

But I think weaknesses are inherent to the shape and pace, too, in that reaction to faulty thought often presupposes a validity of the initial thought in/by/with its response. And in many ways today we need a new way, a new thought, a new reaction. Sometimes space and time is needed from a Thing in order to understand all the effects of that Thing upon your mind and being, and thus what the relation is, and then thus, what the desired relation is. And sometimes, again, one does not even wish to share the reality offered.

A counterstance locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat like the cop and the criminal, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence.

—Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Common denominator of violence, as well as shared focus.

Can we use the reactionary nature of the medium and social shape in a better way that we do? Can we substitute new reactions?

IS DREAMING OF/MAKING REAL CHANGE ONLY FOR THE YOUNG?

It may be expected to some degree, that I would underline certain things—Imperialism, Government control and abuse, surveillance, people power. After all, I am a child of a radical era in the US, having been born in 1969 and to a household of subversive types! However, I also see that that household assimilated itself pretty well into the culture, given a few decades. This may be, in part, because I am speaking of the “white” half of my family, and once the age barrier fell and they found income and cooled down a bit, they integrated comfortably with the overall cultural and social setup. I don’t know, and certain presumptions about others can be unfair to rest upon. Maybe I, too, will have less complaints with the system when I feel it is kinder to me, as well. And yet, I look out upon my fellow human beings and have a hard time stepping away from their suffering as it is tied to so much injustice and wrongness. And that causes distress within me, to see these things.

Either way, these people who (in part) raised me are not so subversive anymore (though I am sure they are hardly common types). They are as comfortable as you might imagine middle class people with integrity can get. The shape of thier dissatisfaction and conversations and actions produced nothing in and of itself (unless you count any effects upon me…and yes, I’d say that has to count). So I do not automatically prescribe similar forms of protest nor resistance, nor necessarily either of those things in the currently held definitions of the words.

Yet we do have to do something, don’t we?

Is there a window of time for radical movement and drastic action and then a window of time for growing things? A window of time for rest? One for teaching?

Which ways of making change are most important today?

I have friends in other nations who urge me to leave. Leave the US. And maybe that is the answer for me. But what about the US? What about the response that the global population should have to the very often maleficent deeds of the global managers?

What do we do to register our own truth?

Do we organize to bring all the homeless tent shelters springing up (and this will happen more and more) to rich residential neighborhoods? Do we stop buying supermarket food and band together for community gardens? Do we remove our money from the banks? Do we paste up signs all over the front of the Stock Market, little bloody dollar bills stuck to every glass window with red paint and crazy-glue? All of these?

All is not hopeless. We have far too many bodies and hearts and energy that we can access for us ever to think that.

But voting won’t do it. Letters to the editor won’t do it. Blogging won’t do it. All these things can be a part of the new way. I’m not saying it’s an either/or situation.

At the same time, is it really about what each person, what one person, can do? We often (and I’ve definitely been guilty of this) reduce these issues to ones of individual consumption or non-consumption or change. This feels a noble and right response. And it is, when it remains in the ideological and more abstracted range. Do what is right, live the right way. You remove your own contributions to harm, and you act toward good. And if we all did this, the problem would be solved. But will we all do this? Ever? Have you ever seen everyone do any one thing together?

Even were I to make my life as non-harmful as possible, or walk around Visualizing Peace every moment of the day, my doing so will not also equal my neighbor doing the same. As Derrick Jensen pointed out recently, (and linked above), “Shorter showers” won’t bring about Al Gore’s utopia.

On the other hand, enough wires braided to a thickness of one inch in diameter is still much stronger than a single wire of one inch diameter. And while one helium balloon in your hand won’t lift you off the earth, enough will.

IT IS NOT ABOUT GETTING THERE. YET. OR IS IT?

We will die before we see the world the way it should be. That is a fact.

In the meantime, we can aim. We can begin to move in the right directions, if we can’t get there. Aiming, in fact, is being there.

I wrote of actions incompatible with the sustenance of harmful structures and processes. I keep coming back to one of the biggest changes in my life, when I think about this. One of the few that remains unchanged. It is my putting cigarettes down over six years ago, probably a few more than that by now. I don’t count the years so much anymore.

I won’t take you through the entire cigarette tale. I started messing with them at 9 or 10, but didn’t begin really getting into them until 14. By my 30s, smoking had begun to become incompatible with life. I started to smoke my after-meal cigarette before I was even done eating. Not that I’m any Pavarotti, but I couldn’t sing as well anymore, my lung capacity as well as tonal quality was suffering. I would run out of breath during, ah, intimate physical endeavors.

It was the singing and that last mentioned fact that really did it for me. I wrapped the non-cigarette desire around a Dream I’d Always Had, and joined the local dojang (Tae Kwon Do school) on the first day I had zero cigarettes.

The increased exercise, joy, self-esteem of training passionately in martial arts was wholly incompatible with my smoking lifestyle. I did not “fight” smoking. I veered into a new direction totally.

I wrote of a virus of greed and blindness above. We need a new virus. We need not to jam needle after needle into our arm testing new virus-killers. You cannot kill a virus. We need a virus of positivity and kindness and fierce love reserved for the Real. We need to set it free, cheeks flushed red, hands glowing gold. We need to build, evoke, create actions and thoughts and structures that perpetuate themselves and reward people with results, with positivity, and with a joy that is incompatible to feeding the current structures and shapes.

I want to find what those are. I want to engage in those actions. I want to find new ways to see and be. I don’t want to get too comfortable in a bed of radioactive velvet. While I don’t want to bring violence to fight the greater violences (except if I walk across a human abusing another human, perhaps), I want to bring violence to the thought structures in my mind (and yours) that empower stasis or blindness.

While I have no answers, I am and have been thinking on it. I’m asking you to begin thinking too.

What can we do to undermine destructive practices in the world? To break our minds out of a dull and comfortable pattern of reaction that moves us very little if at all? What should we grow now to prepare for tomorrow? What should we teach our children, assuming we wanted them to see the world as it is, not as it should be? What should we pull the plug on?

It would be so easy to kick back and get in a rut of apathy, or even one of concern but well-lined with justified anger. Anger is not a low-temp fuel, a kerosene for a constantly-burning space heater. You’ll poison the air with soot that way. Anger is a a high-octane fuel that should be ignited when a swift or large movement is needed. And that is needed.

But so is careful thought, and actions taken up with no hesitancy, and much love.

NAGUALITY

When I found the brown blogosphere in 2006, 2007, I was all about learning and reinforcing Xicanismo. The old-tyme readers will remember those questions. And it was all about mi cultura. Much of what I missed out on in my youth. I read books on Mexican history, and sociological ones on Chicanos and the culture of Mexican Americans, the history of los Pachucos and studied Frida and Diego and Porfirio Díaz and so on. And so on. I still am. And I love knowing about, learning about all this. Getting in touch with the history of my people as well as indigenous philosophies/lifestyles and even later finding how much was projected gloss or glitz, and seeing how the important parts carry through today, and then—letting that settle…It is very important. It goes on. This, I think is something people need to do on their own. We become very dangerous when we think we belong only to ourselves and to a current moment, which is by necessity tied to a self-justifying upward climb. Such a detached existence knows nothing of another, of obligation, of interconnectedness, of what to fight or what to feed. Such an eye turns back upon itself with dissonance.

If you know your history
then you know where you’re coming from
Then, you don’t have to ask me
who the hell do I think I am
- Robert Nesta Marley

But like a vine will do, this understanding and study brought me to new areas. And so I embarked on the business and practice (still employed) of attacking, questioning, dismantling, confronting, replacing—whatever it takes—various types of thinking in my mind. I do it with efficiency and dispatch, leaning on other trainings to add force and vision (such as my study/education/experience with CBT—Cognitive Behavioral Training—in field of psychology). This is something we can do that is incompatible with much messaging out there which harms. In fact, I’d say this is seminal work. First work. But it, too, should not be named and dissected. This has been going on all of my life.

You note a few quotes in this post by Gloria Anzaldúa, whom I found by way of knowing women of color activists like cripchick and bfp. Gloria Anzaldúa is one of many great thinkers and writers that help to liberate the mind. On feminism, on mestizaje, on power and change. This is one place you can find the term Nagualismo.

I’ve done a lot of thinking and some writing about shifting identities, changing identities. I call it “shapeshifting”, as in nagualismo – a type of Mexican indigenous shamanism where a person becomes an animal, becomes a different person.

—Gloria Anzaldúa

Another is here. If you read online in English-language pages (there are not many on the topic, of course), you will see some others focusing on various aspects of this type of Mexican shamanism. (This page, though hardly offering a coherent understanding overall, stresses the powers inherent in a Nagual to escape and elude enemies and oppressors.) Nagual is about magic, and fluidity, and identity…and a space where there is none. About the power of shapeshifting. This type of idea excites me, as it has long been a part of my mind, heart, body, experience. I’ve written of Tezcatlipoca, who is a protector of Nagualism.

Our natures are not static nor concrete. They never were. That is an illusion we are expected to maintain. It is a reaction to the terror of the void that spurs such early and insistent practice of this idea. But embracing the fluid and undefined nature of the human energy is a powerful form of resistance to many attacks and even social oppression. This part I can not or will not explain further. But I do encourage study and practice—not of the delineated and formal shapes of “Nagualismo” presented online, no. But of the overall idea. Try it out. Try it on. Take the energy you spend fitting into boxes and between lines and within expectations and set it free. See who it lets you be. You may find your strongest oppressor  takes the shape of containers you carry with you.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.
—Noam Chomsky

Let’s get there. Let’s dare. Let’s think the impossible. Let’s unthink the possible. I may just be grunting and crooning in here, but it feels right. Let’s make strange noises as we dig through the rubble that weighs upon this world and our fellow humans. Let’s undo ourselves and speak a new language, one that at first sounds drastic and alien but very soon becomes the music calling us home.

THAT SOUND YOU HEAR is the moan of the Newspaper industry as readers abandon the pulpy, stinking ship in droves. The newspaper industry is trying to rebrand, reshape, go “Web 2.0,” install pay-barriers, dress up advertisements as front page images….all kinds of fun stuff. Hasn’t quite occurred to them that newspapers had, somewhere along the line, come to be seen as a way for us to read provoking thought, to read the truth about our world, to inform us. Somewhere along the way, the corporate masters thought the People were too stupid to notice when the Paper was gutted  of essence, and instead offered either advertisements or word-collections that served as advertisements. For war, for government control, for wiretapping, for torture….

Well, this itself is old news, of course. That’s why the blogosphere has taken off and in part, why some bigmouth like myself can gain a platform that grows larger every day. That, too, is why groups like the Commonweal Institute are introducing new projects such as this one:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Commonweal Institute Announces Progressive Op-Ed Program

Summary: Commonweal Institute, a Northern California-based think tank, will produce and distribute weekly progressive op-ed columns, available for publication in print and online news outlets.

Menlo Park, California (June 16, 2009) – With the goal of providing an opportunity for local and national news outlets to publish opinion and commentary from a progressive political perspective, Commonweal Institute—a Northern California-based think tank—announced today it will produce and distribute weekly op-ed columns starting July 1, 2009.

Commonweal Institute Fellows, public intellectuals who have organically developed large audiences and authority in their field through their blogs, publications and academic work, will write the columns on a rotating basis. …

Commonweal Institute’s op-ed columns will be available for reprint free of copyright restrictions, with the only requirement that the authors be identified as Commonweal Institute Fellows.

Among the topics that will be covered in the op-ed columns: Sustainable Living (food, design, architecture and urban planning); Corporations and Society (civil justice, labor rights and transparency); Progressive Strategy (psychology, progressive political infrastructure, the conservative movement); Justice and Equal Rights (LGBT rights, gender equity, immigration and racial justice).

So I’ll link you when those come out, or just keep an eye on it.

Finally, a heartfelt thank you to the Commonweal Institute, and a big WASSSUP? to my fellow, er,Fellows.

BACK UP IN THE UMX HIZZY, I now pen this missive to thee.

Dear Blog: Thank you for your patience whilst I’ve been flying about the nation, and thank you for all the good blog we is about to do. And let me go no further without also thanking you, dear reader and friend of the UMX tribe, for you (and you know who you are) have been kind and generous in helping your dear narrator, Nezua, to sail through 30,000 foot heights and descend, both feet outstretched, to land happy and hungry in a delicious Mexican restaurant or perhaps sunshine poolside where I be fotographed by La Opinion and interviewed by brilliant journalists about Wut It Iz Nez Do, alone or With Tha Crew.

That is to say, thank you for the donations and the support in all the ways you bring it. Because this world can be lonely and hard, like concrete under ya heed when you prefer fluffed pillow, and sometimes just one sooty warm draft of love makes it all okay. And it’s true that I sealed up a new job or two right before I took off on the trip to Atlanta (including [but not exclusively, oh squiniddy-eyed wordsmith!] new supercool art to be shown soon that I did for Latino Pundit), but the donations that came in while I was on the road brought a huge amount of comfort, and especially on the last night, when there ended up being a lack.

And now the story. And mind you, new readers, this is the story of my trip, of the get up go fly, smile into bright light, come down and hold-on grip. Not the story of The Sanctuary, per se. That one is told on other days and if  you need to catch up on the backstory page, visit The Sanctuary at ProMigrant.Org to see what is at the heart of this award show journey.

So.

How to tell such a story? What is the important part? But there are so many! And so often not what you are thinking, never what you have thought. You fly without a why and even without trying you return with twice as much of what you never sought. OH! I need a beat. But in lieu of this, let me touch upon some moments that may bring the Nezlanta heat.

[BOOMING VOICE] It began….in Oregon.

Oh WHAT? You really expect me to tell the whole story from when I left? Naw…there’s no point in that. Because the story doesn’t even begin there. We are always on the Continued tip. Eh?

But let me just saw WOW it’s a long trip to Atlanta, Georgia from Eugene, Oregon. I got so frustrated with the direction, the wanderingness one must take to get to another place. I know that’s how it works, especially when you don’t live near a major city, but even from PDX to Atlanta, the whole trip takes such a zigzag estilo to get where you’re going it just feels a bit stupid when you’re doin’ it. I took cab to train station and then Amtrak 3 hours north and then a plane south and then a plane East, and so on. But you know how this goes. So I’ll skip all that. But it took me a full day traveling to get to Atlanta. Woke up at 3:30 am to catch a 4:10 cab and didn’t get into my hotel room in Georgia until about 11:30 that night.

Oh, what? You heard me speak in Atlanta on blogging and New Media? And now aren’t sure how to reconcile some of what I said with how I’m running this little copper-wired circus? Well, let me interruptus and say that while I did lay down some general guidelines on What Propels a Blog Forward, there are always exceptions. And a lot has to do with the way you set up your situation and “what line you come in on.” By now, my readers know by now not to expect any hard format, nor do I worry about the length of my posts, nor do I feel a need to write every day so COME ON and just let Nez be Nez!

I met a Xicano in the bar the first night who turned out to be my first useful networking contact (and this is what I wrote on the sticker I promptly stuck to his chest so none of us forgot our places in the story). He works for the US Census and asked me “not to Tweet him” which of course was just his male way of trying to dampen his natural response to my irresistible sexiness and I smiled to show how much I appreciated his self control. I told him I just might consider going door to door in Latin@ neighborhoods for a low price of $16/hr if he would only teach me how to maintain such a suave demeanor in the face of glory. And so perhaps at some point we shall pick up that angle of the story. But for the moment, Nez said lata and took his swirly stomach full of Mini-Chicken sandwiches and scotch and crashed out in his fluffy cotton bed like a moss-covered Oregon stone.

Atlanta was hot.

My part of Atlanta was cramjammed full of smart, energized, accomplished people. It was very heady because of that, not to mention all the free wine and accolades heaped upon your for simply saying a few true things when it’s your turn in the light. These things mean a lot to me. The heat, the wine, the light. But don’t you ever think that Nezua doesn’t keep in mind the rest of the picture. Oh, you can forget it if you want, it’s not your job to narrate, it’s mine. But I’ll remind you. Part of the reason I play such a joker is because I know the joke’s on me when I don the King’s robe and finery. And I lean toward the Queen’s fur(s) and I cannot help but purr when the glint from her orbs paints reflections on my spurs—don’t be scurred!

But let me be mundane-grimey and a bit unrhymey for a moment and say that what I mostly got out of this trip was a) gratitude for having a home (perhaps a bit on this later, perhaps not, we’ll see) and an appreciation for the movements happening and people involved in “Ethnic Media.” We could say “Ethnic Media” but what I saw were lots of smart, dedicated, with-it, restless, happy activist-human types. Yeah, true, they gave off a different air than some of the bastions of progressisivsm® I’ve seen floating through the pie-crust blogostrata, but was this due to ethnicity? Well, perhaps indirectly. Meaning perhaps due to mindsets/convictions/agendas born from a marginalized experience in this culture. Perhaps not. I can’t rule on that. I know in some cases it surely couldn’t be that factor. But from all corners, I saw sparkling eyes and heart pouring forth. I felt it. I listened to an older woman talk to me about her filmmaking in the south, she lilted fire in a very gentle way, but there was steel in every syllable. She was ‘white’ and determined to expose the ICEcrimination going on in her state.

I met Kai Ma, who was another award winner who writes of the Korean American experience. Clearly a person bristling with electricity and joy and bound to keep shaking things up in the world. She spoke to me, too, after my panel on New Media about blogging. She and her compas will be busting out into blog world and it sounds like they are jazzed up enough and understand the blogosphere enough that they are gonna max it out. I’ll be looking for her work. Mostly because people with a certain energy in their eyes draw me in, and it has nothing to do with gender.

That look was in a lot of eyes there, energized by the possibilities—”winners” or not.

The two cats who create Debug Magazine (“Culture Without Borders”) had that same light in their eyes, and we’ll be hooking up, as they want to mix up blog with mag, and I told them I was down cuz I am! So….all of this. Energy, truth, lucha, media, self-empowered writers and truth-seekers and it had everything to do with feeling the change you want to see in the world is actually and literally within your reach. Hearts respond. And recognize one another. I know I’m gushing! Don’t harsh my joyful debriefing!

I’ll be watching Claudia Nuñez, whom I had never heard of but am now fully impressed by. Not just for her important and laudable work of uncovering a labor trafficking ring that ran from México to the US, but for her methods. She is the quintessential “intrepid” reporter, not taking no for an answer, not whining or slowing down when gaps open up in her plan, but leaping forward and tracking down anything she needs to to make that story happen. I love this…energy and determination and lean toward the DO in a person, regardless of where or how I see it. And I know from her award-winning story that she embodies this, but I did see a micro example of this in my personal meetings with her. So let me tell you about that.

After we all spoke at the banquet, (I’m told that) her boss at La Opinion told her that they “must” do a story on me and how I came to the Sanctuary situation, and having no idea of where to find me or anything, she shows up at midnight or so on the 70-something floor of a rotating bar in Atlanta where I was chilling with Roberto Lovato, Zach Taylor, Erin Polgreen, (the accomplished and dazzingly beautiful) @NeelanjanaB, y otros, and arranges an interview with me. (I have to admit, strong Chicanas who know what they want and move for it without excuses or appearances/pretenses of vaguery definitely disarm me, but that’s a side note.) So the next day, I don’t hear from her at the time we set and I thought that’s odd, but just went out on the Cigar Terrace and began reading and, well, Twittering! I was just killing time before my panel on New Media.

Claudia tracks me down, even though I never told her where I was staying or anything. I felt bad that I had not seen my voicemail notice and had put her out of her way. But again, was impressed by her P.I. work. And suddenly felt that anything she was looking for in the world would not be safe from her eyes; she is like an eagle! And that is to our benefit, all of ours. Not because she is writing stories on self-important Xicanos who embrace their heritage and try to make change for raza, but because she is uncovering dangers and exploitations in the world and clearly, very effectively. But yes, I sort of fell for her, as you can tell. It was the heart, again. She didn’t hesitate to ask me controntational things like “Don’t you worry people will think you are in a gang?” because of my ink and elements of my dress. But at the same time, she also wasn’t afraid to spill her heart in words about my blogtivity (en español for a torrential paragraph of sincere comment and I was lucky that my Spanish is “good” enough to be able to keep up with what she was saying) and let me see it in her eyes. That soul shining through again.

There was a lot of this energy in Atlanta (I even ended up laughing and hugging the bouncer at a club one night, this is a whole other story!) and I drank it up like it was sunlight. Claudia impressed me as she interviewed me because she didn’t just ask bullet-point questions or easy followups, but was connecting thoughts deeper and indirect and all content/agenda-related and then thinking forward and hitting me with a question that demanded honesty simply because I was unprepared for its orginality. By the time we reached the end of the interview, I knew I was in very competent hands and I was not being careful, but just engaging. It felt like being interviewed by a sculptor who was shaping a piece hands flying, smeared smock on, crazy vision dancing in the eyes. Beads and sky and blood and sand and US woven Mexicana pride.

I mention Roberto Lovato and he is another fount of soul-power that I refresh and recharge on. He wastes no time in appeasing ignorance or catering to fools, but all the while he is fueling his fuego, there is a smile playing on his lips. El gato is at home in his world, he is finding joy en la lucha. He dips calamari and spits historical on characters in his current book, on the “guevara prototype” and a wise person hears him out. He is one of the few men I know worth listening to at length. Hey, what can I say? I’m biased in a few ways. Anyway, we work together on the regular as it is, but connecting in that human way does so much and I’m convinced it doesn’t make sense to pronounce ANYONE a serious compa or even antagonist without first meeting and chewing on some Calamari. But then again, that’s my bias regarding virtual relationships, too. It’s just what I’ve learned and keep learning. For me.

I could go on. And on. I have a fistful of business cards and I’ve already written the list of them. I did not take home a card that I was not excited to hold, and I was excited about getting each one. From the director of La Noticia to Roshani Kothari of OneWorld to David Kobia of Ushahidi—these meetings are undoubtedly one of the most valuable resources that can come out of events like this. It’s like shopping for sweeteners and skimming directly to the mapled-down essence atop a tubful of sap. Oh, don’t take that the wrong way, my superfine sugary friends who weren’t at the Expo; the converse is most definitely not implied.

And now let me close out by saying muchisimas gracias and stank you one last time to New America Media for the honor and award, and the recognition bestowed on our little group The Sanctuary. It really is a fantastic accolade and we are all very proud of it.

And of course—when life sees fit to pump up your shoes with hot helium neon halo juice, mama nature will be sure to stroke your hair kindly and then kick you to the curb to keep you humbly.

Which is how the magnificent story ends of course. With me walking all night in a strange city with 45 pounds on my back, except for an hour I slept on the concrete. I won’t be one of those whiners, because of course, I knew from the first day I had no ride home from the return flight airport. There was really nothing I could do. It was, in the end, the most sensible ticket to buy. Watcha gonna do? It was part of the deal, and I used the night to reap gratitude, although as a friend reminded me, no: I really had no idea how it would end. But I’m ready for the flux and again, this is why awards and events like this—while so good for the soul in certain amounts—are only part of a recipe. Breathe deep en la cocina. Keep the nostrils open, keep the mind open. Good with the bad, big shot with the stinky midnight lowlife, glare of flash and click of shutters vs. 4 am reflux and muscular exhaustion and desire to weep you’re so tired.

And it’s good to be home. It’s good to have one. Peace! But not before Justice.