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"Two Poems" by Evelyn A. Aguilar, Vista de Williams

"Two Poems" by Evelyn A. Aguilar, Vista de Williams

Poem #1 [Author's note: This one stems from my experience growing up in South Central L.A.]

A bit of my musing
We are the people del Pulgarcito de America
The Polluted Barrios of Los Angeles are our home
Developers Shamelessly Bulldoze our jardines
Their factories are drenched in our sangre, sudor and lagrimas

We are the people of La Matanza
Feds take the young ones
teach them to kill and send them abroad
They rip apart our familias


We are the people of la milpa
Black carbonated waters of imperialism
hormone pumped 99-cence-artery-clogging-slave-labour-produced
hamburgers
tax money for military planes equiped with latest human killing
technology but
not enough tax money for our neighborhood high school

We are the people of Cuscatlan
Conquistadores forced- coerced us to speak spanish, now english
capitalize yourself, break your back and soul for multinationals
try to break our spirits

We are the people of La Ciguanaba
Television, Radios, Magazines-to keep us all compliant
Quality, Mental Programming
Made for viewers just like you

We are the people of Tazumal
Forget the beans, corn, llerbas of your parents
Discard the ribbons and gaudy clothes
cease singing those indito folk songs and tales, that useless knowledge
of the
past

We are the people with unbreakable spirits which torture, suicide and
fear did
not, can not, and will not take away
We are a people con orgullo
Echémos para delante


Poem #2

¿POBRE?


Me dicen que soy pobre;
Que a mi comunidad le falta desarrollarse.
El maíz que nos alimenta lo cultivamos acá en la tierra de mi pueblo.
Bueno, ni se puede decir que la tierra es 100% nuestra. Durante la guerra una
persona de afuera se hizo dueña de toda la tierra acá.

Me dicen que soy pobre;
Que debo tener pisos de ladrillo.
¿Quien dice que es necesario tener pisos de ese material?
¿Corporaciones?
¿Te molesta que tenga mi piso de tierra y que almuerce y duerma sobre él?

Me dicen que soy pobre.
Pobre porque las calles y senderos antiguos de mi pueblo no están pavimentados.
No tenemos coches -caminamos, remamos en nuestros cayucos de conacaste, o
usamos
la bici para trasladarnos. No estamos sentados en un camión por cuatro o cinco
horas a diario.
Nuestro motor es nuestro corazón y el gas es la comida que viene de nuestras
milpas.

Me dicen que soy pobre.
Sienten lástima porque no uso pastillas ni inyecciones.
Cuando mi familia se enferma utilizo hierbas de mi jardín o de las montañas
ancianas que nos rodean.
A veces voy a la sobadora.
No hay por qué ir a la farmacia y dejar mi pisto con una transnacional cuando
yo
puedo elaborar medicina en mi propia casa

Así mi abuelita llegó a los 104 años:
Sin vacunas,
Durmiendo en su casa de adobe con pisos de tierra,
Caminando por las montañas ancianas de Santa Ana a diario,
Y comiendo maíz y frijoles negros que su familia y ella sembraban,

Me dicen que soy pobre……
Pero no entiendo por qué

"Running Away South of the Border" by Maria Chagollan, Chicano Caucus of Columbia University

"Running Away South of the Border" by Maria Chagollan, Chicano Caucus of Columbia University***

When I decided to spend my semester abroad in Chilangolandia, I did so on a last-minute, "do it before you change your mind" kind of whim. The daily grind- class, clubs, work, class, clubs, work- was bringing me down and the idea of having to do it all over again the following semester was painfully unbearable. I dreamt of getting away from it all in Mexico's Distrito Federal, and envisioned myself eating authentic Mexican, catching live-performances by near and dear to my heart artists, and rummaging through flea markets for limitless supplies of thriftscores.

To my surprise, my family was less than thrilled with my decision, wondering why I hadn't decided on usual suspects Madrid or London, and worried about my safety in the 20 million plus megapolis that is Mexico City, the second largest urban area in the world after Tokyo. While unable to change my mind, my family did succeed in equating the city's green Volkswagen Bug taxis (or bochitos) with death and made me swear that I would never let on to a stranger that I was a gabacha from el otro lado. Thus, the first time I explored the streets of D.F. on my own, I pretty much had a heart attack and lasted only a couple of minutes before hailing a cab off the street. Inside the cab, and in my clumsy, self-conscious, and out of practice Spanish I asked the cab driver to take me to the closest thing resembling home, Starbucks (tsk, tsk, I know). "¿Que? ¿Que dijiste?," wondered the puzzled driver. "Si, Starbucks...tu sabes, ese lugar donde venden café y el logo es de una señora," I bumbled. "AAAAAH," he replied. "Te refieres a ESTAR-BUUUUUKKKS." Exactly.

Right then and there I realized that the ensuing five months would be all about adapting to my new home and that I would have to start routines and friendships from scratch. Especially in the beginning, I missed everything that was familiar, friends, and family. The greatest producer of discomfort was differences in the "little things", really forms and practices of doing things. Produce, for instance, not only had to be washed, but soaked in water mixed with sanitizing drops for a good 10 minutes before being consumed and tap water, on the other hand, had to be similarly sanitized. At my new school, La Universidad Iberoamericana, all classes began anywhere between a quarter to half an hour after the scheduled start-time and cigarette smoking was ubiquitous; depending on the professor, the notion of having a cigarette in class with the ‘profe’ was definitely a possibility.

Sooner than later though, 'culture shock' subsided and I began to embrace my new surroundings. I fell in love with my middle-class neighborhood, La Roma, and with el Centro Historico. The surrealness of every-day occurrences was dizzying. I would wonder if laying out on the beach in Acapulco, soaking up the heat and sipping on drinks during the middle of February was for real; if getting my hair braided by street kids in the middle of El Zocalo while next to me a friend got her eyebrow pierced was really happening. On a given Saturday I could be sitting in a packed Lucha Libre venue screaming “Cuuuulerrroooooo” and other lewd remarks at grown men in spandex or bopping up and down at a thrash/folk/gypsy punk show , in an abandoned building near once trendy Zona Rosa. Up until my last day in Mexico City (the day that friends and I serendipitously discovered a place where you could transcribe your dreams and fantasies, "El Archivo General de Sueños y Utopias"), just about every day in Mexico City was a confirmation of Andre Breton’s words, "Mexico tiende a ser el lugar surrealista por excelencia."

At the same time that Mexico City is fiercely progressive (its indie music scene is a hipster's delight and there are tons of venues, museums, galleries, and events chidos to hit up), it is still a city in development, with over half of its residents living in poverty. In Mexico City, the minimum wage is around 50 Mexican pesos or about $4.68 for an entire day of labor. At 60,074 pesos a semester, La Ibero was a monetarily inaccessible institution for a majority of the population.

At la Ibero, the sense of being privileged was thick and palpable. Brand name clothing (surprise, surprise) was practically the de facto dress code; a fresas outfit would not be complete without heels and a Prada/Coach/Tous/Louis Vouitton handbag. I wanted to vomit everytime I saw a fresa 'looking cute' in his or her Abercrombie and Hollister gear, and sometimes wondered if I was back in Gringolandia or stuck in an episode of Rebelde. Personal distaste aside, the conspicuous consumption within Ibero's walls and the extreme poverty outside was sickening.

Sometimes I would sit in class and mull over the facts above, and have an out of body experience of sorts. There I was, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, rubbing shoulders with Mexico City's elite. Though not exclusively, I’m talking here about the super wealthy- many a son and daughter of a powerful politician or family, kids who had never used the metro, much less a pesero in their life, drove around in fancy cars and or had chauffeurs, live-in maids, etc. I would sit there and try to imagine what my life would be like had my mom not immigrated to the United States. What would my life be like if instead of being born and raised in the US, I had grown up in Mexico? While I was certain that I wouldn’t be taking classes at la Ibero (not that I’d necessarily want to either), I was less certain of the prospects of being enrolled in any institution, public or private, of higher learning.

Before I began to fully understood how much growing up in the United States had impacted my life and who I am today, a guy in Mexico asked me if I considered myself a "Mexicana" or a "Gringa." I had difficulty answering his question, and failed in clearly explaining the situation, that I was neither, and instead both. In the U.S. at least, my usual response to all 'what are you' queries (masked beneath the innocent 'where are you from' line) had always come in the form of a blunt, "I'm Mexican." For some reason, I had this weird notion that by using a term like Mexican-American I would be trying to downplay my Mexican heritage, and identify myself with something that I wasn't entirely. Living in “la madre patria”, if you will, was a transformative experience, completely changing my perception of self. It was only after I returned to the U.S., that I began to make peace with the term Mexican-American and to embrace the dualities inherent in the term Chicana.

In part because it is where my roots lie, and in part because it is a dream come true for travel, play, and growth, Mexico City will forever be a place I am drawn to. When it came time to go, I said my adioses with a heavy heart, but determined to return.

***Note: This piece is a revised and extended version of an article originally written for Mi Apogeo, Inc.

Org. Report: Vista de Williams by Kevin Delucio

Org. Report: Vista de Williams by Kevin Delucio

This semester Vista has been hard at work planning our annual Latino Heritage Month for November. Most of our time has been devoted to that, but we also have many new intiatives that will be worked on in more detail after November. These initiatives include more involvement with the Berkshre Immigrnat Center, An Alumni Mentorship Program, helping out at local elementary schools with ESL programs, among others. Overall, this year looks to be very porductive in terms of community involvement and making the Latino community more present in the area.

Org. Report: M.E.Ch.A. de Yale by Edgar Diaz-Machado

Org. Report: M.E.Ch.A. de Yale by Edgar Diaz-Machado

El Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán (MEChA) de Yale sought to bring together the Chicano Movement’s past, present, and future with its East Coast Chican@ Student Forum conference “Past, Present, and Future: The Chican@ Narrative” during the weekend of February 16-18, 2007.

MEChA de Yale had the honor of hosting ECCSF’s winter 2007 conference. For their conference’s theme, MEChA de Yale chose to revisit the past, evaluate the present and define the future of the Chicano Movement from which MEChA de Yale sprung in 1969 as the first Chican@ group to organize in the Ivy League.

The Past of the Chican@ Narrative was presented with a panel of three distinguished Chican@s. In the late 1960s, high school student Paula Crisostomo saw the virulent injustices surrounding her in the schools of East Los Angeles. Tired of the deplorable quality of education her and her fellow Chican@s were being subjected to and disgusted by the low expectation their teachers and administrators had of them, Paula decided to take action. In March 1968, Paula, under the mentorship of legendary educator and activist Sal Castro, organized and led what came to be the largest organized protest of students in American history. The Chicano Blowouts of 1968 were the initial explosion of student involvement in the Chicano Movement. Crisostomo was joined on the panel by American Studies PhD students Mike Amezcua and Monica Martínez, Amezcua laid out the background of Mexican and Mexican-American identity that led up to the Chicano Movement and Martínez helped tie together the beginnings of the identity awareness and its manifestation in the Chicano Blowouts. Speaking of her activism, Crisostomo told how her involvement in the Chicano Movement and the Blowouts were “where [she] found [her] power [her] voice” in a system built to institutionally keep her down.

The Chicano Narrative’s Present was discussed in three panels on immigrant rights, alternative media and organizing methods, and LGBTQ Chican@s.

José Covarrubias and Kika Matos spoke to the conference attendees on immigrant rights and the current struggle. In May 2006, Covarrubias and a classmate helped popularize and organize the May Day walkouts in Orange County. They ingeniously used the website MySpace.com and before they knew it, they had 1,000 students demonstrating alongside them. For years Matos worked as executive director for New Haven’s JUNTA for Progressive Action. Matos recounted how New Haven’s immigrant population has grown and how there are efforts to protect those that are working towards getting American citizenship.

In terms of the present-day Chicano Narrative, Ricardo Dominguez, one of hactivism’s founding fathers, spoke about the work Zapatista rebels in Mexico have done and how modern-day activists can take part of the struggle. A proponent of electronic civil disobedience, Dominguez founded the Electronic Disturbance Theatre. Dominguez pointed out to those in attendance how the decades-old struggle can now be moved to cyberspace, as seen in electronic “sit-ins” on the Mexican government and the American Pentagon.

Finally, the Chicano Narrative’s present was seen through the eyes of LGBTQ Chican@s at Yale- senior Rosario Doriott, junior Juan Castillo, and sophomore Ben González. LGBTQ Chican@s find themselves balancing their own sexual identity with that of a movement which bases itself a largely heteronormative cultural mindset. However, National MEChA is actively promoting the acceptance of the LGBTQ community within the Movement. The panelists spoke about how their identities as LGBTQ and Chican@/Latin@ are actually, for the most part, complementary.

As seen through these three panels, the Chicano Movement has come a long way from the farm worker and student struggles of the 1960s, however, the work is not yet over.

Finally, the Chicano Narrative’s future was discussed in a panel on causes the Movement can take up. Camilo Romero spoke about the Killer Coke campaign, which works to expose the injustices the Coca Cola Company causes in countries where their workers are trying to unionize. Writer Oscar Torres, of the film Voces Inocentes, spoke on his experiences with child soldiers. Yale PhD student Melissa García presented on the problems of the maquiladoras and the femicides of Cuidad Juarez.

The East Coast Chican@ Student Forum’s winter 2007 conference was a huge success. Along with 150 students from 15 other East Coast schools, MEChA de Yale reflected on what the Chican@ Narrative has been, what it is, and what it can be. Originally a Thanksgiving reunion for the few Chican@s on the East Coast, ECCSF has grown into a tight-knit network of like-minded students working together for various causes. MEChA de Yale has played a huge roll unifying the Chican@s in diaspora across the East Coast and ECCSF is proof of that.

"Welcome to One More Year" by Mikey Velarde, M.E.Ch.A. de Vassar

"Welcome to One More Year" by Mikey Velarde, M.E.Ch.A. de Vassar

Hola a tod@s:
At this time last year El Sol del Este made its first appearance on the internet. The decision to depart from being a paper-based publication was made for several previously stated reasons.

Certainly, as climate change and other environmental issues become increasingly more urgent, we must begin to challenge ourselves to take up lifestyles and practices that radically diverge from our collective habits of prodigious waste. Though a blog is nowise a radical cure, it beats a mountain of papers that will likely be read once and end up in the trash.

Moreover, as I’ve already stated, the site’s utility comes in its fluidity and openness. Feel free to submit your work whenever you want. There has to be at least three issues, but there can of course be more. Perhaps we might also consult El Sol as an organizing resource. Post stuff to collaborate or get ideas. We, as members of a forum, should find communication pinnacle. In that regard, this publication should be exploited as our most basic and primary medium.

If we begin to consolidate our energies in this organization, we can become something powerful and dynamic. If we use El Sol as a way of doing so, then these words won’t be in vain. And at this time next year, whoever maintains it, might be saying something different.

Con cariño,

Mikey Velarde, M.E.Ch.A. de Vassar

ECCSF Executive Board for 2007-2008:
Rob Adelman, Williams College
Barbara Carrera, Cornell University
Alex Perez, Yale University
Mikey Velarde, Vassar College