Turtle Island Monologues Part 1521

Turtle Island Monologues

1521

I was born of this red and blue macaw feathers. My fathers name was Rigoberto. My mothers name was Macaw Stone. She was the one that taught me to sing to the water. She was the one that told me the night was home and that the moon was the memory of all the grandmothers. My father came from the land of silver swords and cut tongues. I was birthed of open wounds, both my mothers and my fathers. But my mother taught me how to place red earth and herbs to become whole again. My father was lost on Turtle Island. He tried to burn our village but fell in love with the ghosts of my mothers lineage. He dreamed of the tears of La Llorona and wandered into the forest one day. Naked, covered in the blood of his cross. Covered in the blood of all the children and women of turtle island he helped make disappear. My mother cut his tongue into 7 jade songs, so he could learn to remember, so he could bleed out the curses stuck in his metal skin. She made him bury his cross near the river bed. She made him offer his hair to moon with an obsidian blade. He cried for 17 days straight after that. She let him back into the house that was built from the ashes of his people and his horses. He stayed behind when his sword people kept moving forward with their burning and their crosses. They forgot him because they thought he died in the fires. Rigoberto was born there,  in my mothers arms. I was born there, in the belly of their pain. I dont know how we keep moving forward. That our peoples memory will be gone when the wind blows the last of these ashes. There are those that say there are only ashes left of our books and our histories. There are those that say that those that came with the crosses, the swords and the pillaging helped us because now everything is burnt. Now everything is in the fire and no one can destroy the fire.

Turtle Island Monologues 1752

1752

We had to plant our seeds underneath the ashes. Underneath the temple songs. My grandmother said we had to run for 200 years to return to the land of our ancestors. She said we ran in circles at first, afraid and then we learned to run in spirals. Until we returned back home. She said we hid inside the bark of trees and underneath the sierra mountains. She says we had to learn how to turn into the hair of deers and the feathers of hummingbirds in order to survive. We had to learn to disappear underneath the fallen leaves. We learned how to become the silence of red dirt. She said we learned to be trampled by the hooves of angry horses and men made of silver metal . Trampled and not be unearthed. Trampled and not be hurt. Trampled and not be forgotten. Trampled and not forget that we were once two legged and we would return to be two legged again.

Turtle Island Monologues 2009

2009

Are you willing to look at your snake skin? Are you willing to look at the parts of you that are Mexican that pillaged through Apache and Tewa lands. Are you willing to shed the obsidian stone that cut your own Yoeme people. Are you willing to remember that your skin is made of macaw and chocolate. Are you willing to repair these wounds of your people. Your body is made of war and peace. Your body is stiched together with agave and cement. You are as stubborn as metal and silver swords and bullets. You are as golden as the sun that has birthed all your names and as sick as the gold you killed for. Are you willing to shed these curses. Are you wiling to put down all the swords, all the crosses, all the bullets you used on your Hopi brothers? All the parts that you tried to bury under claiming you were chicano indigenous body. You are the displaced memory of rape, pillage, temples on both sides of the border. You are cut of old and new mexico. Are you willing to take on the trail of tears caused by your ancestors? Are you willing to cut open the jade and obsidian stone song.  The war crimes are yours to bare. You killed your brother in your sister over and over until you were born again Chicano. You were indigenous before you were mexican. You were American before you were Chicano. You were burned alive and called a witch before you became a Spainard. You were baptized in the blood rivers of your ancestors before you remembered all the parts of you that were Turtle Island. You are birthed of the water and the womb of Quetzalcoatl. You became the bloodshed of your mestisaje and became the lust of gold y los hijos de la chingada madre. You will rattle with the red and black dust of your ancestors but do you know all your names? All the bibles etched with your lopez and hernandez, huicholes and cortez. Do you know all the names in your d.n.a. The stone snake skinned wings and the Tarumaras that ran passed your mexican ghosts? Do you know all the names of seeds and stones buried in your bones and ashes. Do you know all the war crimes birthed underneath your fingernails. Do you know all the faces in the stones of all your ancestors crying for you to remember. The concrete underneath your feet is as stubborn as your memory. Your soul lies underneath the rubble

Turtle Island Monologues 2024

Turtle Island Monologues

2024

They want us all to forget that we were here first. That we were here second. That we are here now. That we will be here last. They want us to forget that this song is in our dna. That we are the ones that seed prayers with stones and homes. That we build fires and cried to the rivers. That we are the ones that came here to stay here . That we are willing to pray together. That we do not see a difference between their prayer and our prayer. But they are afraid of our songs. They are afraid of our melodies. They are afraid that we will come back to haunt them. When the four directions has no home. When the songs of the deer are everyones. When the kneeling belongs to no one. We were born of the breath of this land. We were born to live long lives on this land. We were born to give the names of our childrens childrens childrens on this land. We were born to become another part of this earths crust. Here. there is no way around it. We are the broken melody screeching. We are the dream of our ancestors on this land. We are the ones becoming the sand again here. We are the ones that have carved red dirt and placed it on our face to remind us of home. We are the ones the winds sing to . The songs here are ours. They were placed here thousands of years ago. This is the same song in the river. This is the same song in the heart of the sky. The heart beat brings all our truths together. We are this melody in the deer skin. In buffalo dreams. We roam with the shadow of the sun. We are the ones that are built with bone marrow. We are the ones that came to find the home inside of ourselves. We are the ones that will always return to this land. No matter how many times they try to kill us. We will return to this land. Call it home over and over. We will come back as dust. We will still sing the songs of the deer. The songs are stuck in our memory of stone . The songs are stuck in our memory of fire. We will always bring back the medicine of the earth. Its not synthetic. It cannot be synthesized. We are the memory of our grandmothers. Its underneath our fingernails. Its in our hair. Its in the rain in our eyes. Its in the jade under our tongues. Our spil tongues bring us back to this moment. Every time. We are the ones that remember. We will never forget. All the layers of pain and truth and harmony and lies. We will never forget. We are the forging stone. We are the melody. All the mirrors know our names. All the obsidian mirrors.

X

somos las olvidadas. las que nadie quiere entender. las que nadie quiere aprender. las que nadie quiere olvidar. pero se te olvida que aqui estamos. que no nos pueden entrerar. somos la vida y la muerte. la mujer indigena es la memoria antigua de la tierra. somos los fuerza y lo que nunca se va murir. atra vez de los anios. a tra vez de la violacion. a tra vez de todo. somos las que siempre vamos estar aqui. listas para defender la famila. la cultura la dignidad. afuera de toda la violencia que amos sufrido. afuera de todo lo que amos vivido.

tomorrow

tomorrow never came for me. i was facebook living my death. my surrender. my options my corridors. my beginning and they all just collapsed on themselves. all my dreams . all my sorrows. everything i ever wanted to be just collapsed on me. for the sake of itself. i could tell you that im still american. but im wondering about all that now. all the places that ive seen. all the places that ive watched collapse on themselves because they weren’t american and white washed america came through to sweep them away. do we become this disgusting void. this senseless inclusion. we are the american. dream. we are the american saga. despite our abuelos death. despite our own death inside of this. we are the american dream. no matter what anybody says. despite what nobody wants to admit. we are the memory of our ancestors. buried in these moments coming through. in all directions. we are the permission given to us by them. but we have to remember them. remember ourselves. put together these broken pieces. that are crying out of our beings. crying out of our bodies. all the dna screaming and screeching through. we are the song for them. they are the song for us. we will remembering them today. we will remember them always despite what has been handed to us. despite what has been taken away. we will remember them. always and forever. in the synchronicity. of buried dreams. of copal smoke. of all the things that surround us. of all the things that want to come through. i do not want to forget them. and they don’t want me to forget them. we are this american dream. inside of their steps. so on this dia de los muertos. we sing their songs. we sing their chorus. for all to be heard. for all to be remembered. they are the memory inside of us. inside of ourselves. all the bones rattling. all the bones shaking. with their tears. with their laughter. with all the things we have to offer them. will all the things they have to offer us. in the memory of the moment. in the memory of ourselves. we are singing their names. singing their praise. for all the ground to hear. for all the memory to hear. to rattle in us. all the bones of us. all the bones of them. all the permission to become something more. outside ourselves. outside this moment. we sing their names. we honor their death. we become the moment we had been wanting to become.

Brown Delirious

im your angry brown man. difficult as it may all be. i become this irregardles of rights and wrongs i become this song for you. this song for me. i become the violence through the spewing of my words. Despite the critique im offering. despite the truth i might be offering. i will be just. your angry brown man. in this box. i can go left or right. or just stay right there. i can actually go in any drection. but it feels like way to often that this is the place. where im supposed to belong. despite any wrong. any write. i have to land right here. expecting to be expected. to rise in the rage. to fall in the pity. to be the brown rage. brown hate. brown expectation to hate white. to hate white skin. to hate white men. to hate white women. to oppose anything that is white. to be bitter. to be toxic. to offer nothing but toxicity. despite the fact that im standing here. asking you to clarify. you will never say this to my face. you will never say it in a room im in. you will wait to be behind closed doors. knowing the damage that your words create. knowing that you become the reason why i don’t get that call back. that i don’t get that offer. that i don’t get that opportunity. that i dont’ get that grant. but you’re going to say it any way. because it irks you. because it serves you. because whatever i said . triggers you and bothers you and you know the power in your words. the power in the people you have in the room . to say angry brown man. to put me in this place. to put me in this box. over and over. to say he doesnt collaborate. he’s difficult to work with. right there is where you want me to stand. right there is where you want me to be. inside this lack of hybridity. inside this position inside of you. inside of me. this place. where my imaginary anger defines me.

 

sites

i have walked too many miles in my own shoes to care anymore about what this american paradigm is trying to lie to me. i was born in this america as a mexican on the weekends or weekdays. depending on how american my environment is . was or could be. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve lost the sense of my own mexicanness inside of america. and yet the border crosses me out. because in mexico and latin america i get lost in how american i am. just another gringo. despite the the fact that i will never be a gringo or white american or american as mexican apple pie. we die here. over and over. mexican americans die here and get lost here. in this america that holds to many keys for its own kingdom and doesn’t want to share them . without this america. we are as american as an america that loses to itself. this america has to many racial credit card debts. this american has too many people that it tried to sweep under its quilt. under its carpet. under its sensibility. this america that loses its own name and its own identity when it tries to convince itself that its not native america(n). this american that tries to claim that its not muslim, chinese, mexican, central american. that tries to claim that it was never lost in this ocean. i was born in this america. waiting for the seventh sun. not knowing that it had already been reborn and died 13 times before i realized i was a part of the eight ninth tenth generation. we are american as the tamales and beans that built this nation. we like black america. burned and hung on trees. limbs breaking. limbs broken. and we remember. all the parts that america wants to forget . sweep under its console and pretend its a sea of another pacific. another drowned song. another set of songs. this america that wants  too play too many tunes for its own good. i was born in this america. waiting for an american paradigm that wasn’t a paradigm. that wasn’t an ism i was born of this america. born again inside of uc berkeley. beaten by a brown police officer while protesting 187 and the devasation of Colin Powel trying to do away with affirmative action. i born of this america. as protestors on top of the campanelie were locked up fighting for a different berkeley. a different california. a different set of instructions on how we say and admit that this america is racist. this america is classists. this america is trying its hardest to kill its own contradictions. before they have had the chances to become full out lies. too many seeds sown onto this american earth. inside a black america. inside a native america. inside a situational unconditional never forgiving america. that tries to lock itself up. place the keys in its mouth and swallow freedom. for the sake of proving its own false argument. america are you waiting for another sign that you need to stop and look passed all these obsidian mirrors. all the layers of tescatlipocatl that landed on your lap. set fire to all your old flames. and cradled your america land. an undocumented america without enough papers to cover up the ashes of burnt treaties . i am of this america. waiting for another america. waiting for another set of american treatments. of this america still waiting for itself. still trying to criminalize itself for the sake of making profit off of bailing itself. this america i was born into.

i remember walking towards downtown. walking down cesar chavez deep into the tunnel after the bridge. the one that towers over the prisons i didn’t know where prisions. i just knew that at the end of that tunnel was olvera street. some wierd sentimental mexico that i couldn’t afford but walked down there. from cesar chavez and pennsylvania. bussed sometimes for soto st to passed the placita. to a bookstore hidden in some part of downtown not to famous . not too crowded but still too expensive for my own belonging. sitting there with piles of fresh smell of penguin publishing . sci ficitoin books. and all the layers of english words i couldn’t afford. but i would walk in there over and over. before broadway. before downtown becomes downtown. inbetween olvera’s nonsensical white washed mexicanada and the busy towers of a mexican american downtown trying to sell you the most inexpensive plastic rolex you could ever imagine. all the colors flairing bright along the dark pissed concrete of broadway and 7th street. trying to hustle me for my moms dollars. all these places have no price tag inside empty mexican and mexican american pockets. they just stay busy . despereately waiting for under the table no benefit jale dollars to emerge as plastic gold. wood silver. sometimes pennies turn to diamonds here and turn your wrist green with that bracelet you just bought. this bustle is my america. wandering in the hidden and open and sullen pieces of this mexican american paradise.

 

overlooking the towers. big prisons. big monuments. i stare and glance. and watch grow bigger in my teen years. but don’t know what this america is. i don’t know what is caged behind these buildings.

Election Day Red White and Blues #1

we’re trying to find a fix for what just happened. we elected a man. who many question what his purpose. whats his reasoning. but now the real question is . what was the point of trying to make him in charge. him has been in charge for longer than 500 years. as one friend put it. he’s the 44th not the first. and this is just the beginning. i think. well we want to imagine something more. you know. something different. but i kinda think this is what our ancestors were warning us about in 2012. but  i think they wanted to give us a 4 year head start in preparation. just an opportunity for awakening.  but now what. he’s about to be in office and the question is what. what are you going to do. what are we going to do . what is he going to do. its all right there. but its all been right there. we have just been ignoring it all. we want to imagine that he’s in charge or that he’s going to do something for or against. and now it seems everybody is afraid. but we’ve been dealing with this sort of stuff for a long time. and we’ve been screaming about it. writing about it. documenting it. singing about it. whispering about it. getting silenced about it. and people were just ignoring this the whole time. and it was okay to ignore us. ignore them. and now what . we’ve been ignoring and ignoring. and believing he was going to get in office. and ignorning and clicking and posting about how he was wrong for this country. and posting and sitting and just thinking. this would never happen. and now he’s here . right in front of us. and the quesiton is . whats next. but its not for me. because we’ve been living this. breathign this. praying about this for a looong time. and now we’re just waiting to see what you guys are finally going to do about it. because we’ve been doing. we’ve been doing and we are going to continue doing.

 

 

x plus y

this is what i become in the outcome

of what i say . whats mis heard. what gets decided

to be heard. and all the inbetweeen rumble.

that becomes the angst. of become chicano

in a town full of hispanity. the sound of spanish

over the rubble of being hispanic. of spanish decent

and not having to be necessarily tied to anything hispanic

just the rubbling. that leaves you wondering. what exaclty

about hispanicity. do i claim. where am i hispanic. where am i american.

where am i dead chicano. tongueless chicano. and where am i native.

and what exactly do i lay claim to .

and then in the contiued white washing of the adobe walls

they will say.. well you know. i’m just human. thats what i am

i don’t want to claim race. because i’m not goign to be hear and say

that i’m one thing over the other. we’re all just human. i mean.

yeah we might all come from africa at some point. we might be

native at some other point. but we are here right now. thats what

really matters.

we are the sound of the races. racing together. we are thing.

taht we sometimes want to negate. that we don’t have anything t

to do with any of it. that we are just human. thats what we all are.

in the process of white washing the adobe walls. of the already. white washed

notion of tric cultural idenity. we want to dismiss it a little bit more.

to take away any possiblity that there is osmethign more to offer. them

or us. or the inbewteenes. the ones that are mixed blood. that want to lay some

type of foundation. to say. whait a minute. i’m not just native. i’m not just mexican.

im not just spanish. but some mixed. white. mixed black. mixed in between. and

those different pieces. have nuances. have reference. tonuges. languages. culturas

que pues. are a part of the cellular level. of my memory. some dna. instruction

in there. that ight matter. somewhere along this

raod. black. red. yellow. white. and every spectrum in between.

wihtout just. white washing all the adobe walls.

full of hispanic heritage.

somewehre along these notions. i am mexican american.

chicano by revolutionary minded default.

because i choose to take some polictical stances

now if you want ot claim an x.. in your chicano

identity. i think thats where it gets tricky in some circles

but i would want to argue that you might have to do something for that a x..

something that bends . breaks. the borders. of helping the poeple

some would argue that you would have to continue to stand there

in the chicano firerange. in order for it to continue to have value

all that is up for negotiation for some

up for non negotiation for others

irrelevante to otherse.

inside these notions of what it means to be hispanic

chicano. white black. lets just say the only thing that

concerns in a place like santa fe … new mexico..

is the white washing of herstory

the white washing of history

the white washing of the blood off the blood less conquest

in order for a more perfect

tourist union..