Författare: xikano_2

Vemos en el pasado algo que necesita manifestarse en el presente porque necesitamos creer en un futuro. El 2010 para mí­ representa revolución no ya extrinsicus pero sí­ intrénsico. Por lo menos eso aguarda bastante para mí­ el 2010. Será un año bastante aburrido y emocionante a la misma vez. Este tipo de predicciones las suelo soltar al azar para ver si en verdad terminan como las anuncio pero creo que si no terminarán mis predicciones como las anuncio espero por lo menos verlas tañidas aunque sea con el pétalo de un pelo de la brocha que pronostica tales augurios. Y creo que esta vez mis temores tienen un dejo de posibilidad que antes no tení­an.

Lo digo por mi situación existencial. Estoy soltero de nuevo; mis relaciones con mis hijas cuelgan del estado de animo de mi x; puedo largarme a Tijuana en cuanto se me pegue la gana, puedo, en otras palabras, muy al estilo que conozco como la palma de mi mano, mandarlo todo mucho a la chingada; mi carrera profesional ha recibido un prestigioso bono anual que no es fácil de ignorar y mejor ahí­ le paro para no abusar de las buenas conductas de ortografí­a. Así­ miro el 2010 y es por eso que creo que algo esta en puerta. Y eso es solo como dirí­a la vieja canción de los Clash: Should I stay or should I go. Es cuestión de poder y esas cuestiones nunca me han gustado par aser franco aunque me vea afectado por las gravitas de tales manifestaciones existenciales. Lo bueno es que cualesquier decisión por muy difusa y vaga que sea siempre terminan a mi favor.

¿Qué sigue ahora?

Y es justo ese paso que marca las horas del futuro. No es que no este emocionado por el potencial que el 2010 presenta sino que las oportunidades traen consigo perdidas a la misma vez y es cuestión de lanzar los dados correctamente. No es que la suerte este echada y ni mucho menos quiero ser el supersticioso que me gana como carrera de galgos a creer en el pesimismo pero tampoco he labrado el campo para una fértil cosecha. Soy un idiota y ni quién lo dude pero tampoco soy un ser que se le hayan botado las canicas. Habrá que tomar pasos como caminar en papel de arroz: delicadamente. He cambiado ya, no soy el mismo de antes y eso ni qué decir. Y quiero cambiar aún más. Pero también me quiero zafar del pasado y tener el futuro abierto ¿y el presente? Quién tiene tiempo para el presente.

Así­ que la Revolución del 2010 será personal, será el Yo, nos brincaremos del usted y pasaremos al tú para pensar totalmente en el narcismo, pensaremos colectivamente en nosotros como deberí­amos de hacerlo: en primera persona, eso no llevará, o por lo menos a mí­, al fondo del mar que resiste retroceder aventando olas que insisten en regresar a su origen sino al mar que anhela renovar la lí­nea que dí­a con dí­a gana en justas medidades más que nada. Ese es mi forte esa gran idea del cambio porque como dijo el recien finado William Safire: cuando acabes de cambiar ya te acabaste para siempre.

In A Scotch Paisano in Old Los Angeles¹ a seldom researched area is taken to task, namely, that of assimilation of Anglos in what is a predominantly Spanish-Mexican dominated territory era. Anglos converted to Catholicism and abade by Hispanic customs. So is the case also in Jovita’s book². There is a lot of intermarriage with Anglos or Americans. Despite the rhetoric of the text that pits Anglos and Mexicans there is acceptance of Anglos in the community. I suppose that a lot has to do with this idea within mexicans that one must improve the race, or as is known in Spanish, mejorar la raza. A little unknown and zealously kept and guarded dirty secret we bear upon us.

Yet one has to wonder if this tactic of intermarriage wasn’t orchestrated or is a little forgotten blip in our history. Who knows. Research certainly is needed to shed light here.

I somehow can’t accept coincidence in California and Texas.

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¹ Dakin, Susanna Bryant, A Scotch Paisano in Old Los Angeles, Berkeley, 1978.

² González, Jovita. Dew on the Thorn. Ed. José Limón. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997.

Carmen Fought has done a remarkable job by giving us a structured form of ChE. I haven’t read Chicano English in Context through and through though but I have stopped in certain passages where my eyes have noticed the value in the observations or the examples. One such example that has drawn my attention is on page 104 within the title of the paragraph Part II: Semantic/lexical features of Chicano English and under the subtitle General lexical items. In example 6 we have American, meaning ’European-American or white’. So up tp this day we still regard ourselves as not American.

I have argued throughout this blog how deeply important it is that we feel American. I have argued for an americanness of our own.

We have for far too long relegated America to the gringo, the blue-eyed even when we ourselves and our kin may have blue-eyes. It’s enough. We are Americans, regardless of nations and regardless of political divisions. It’s time to reclaim what’s ours. As Don Juan Preston in Jovita Gonzale’s Dew on the Thorn we must reclaim our heritage, our position in society.

We Xicanos need to put an end to the centennial bickering Mexicans and Americans have had since inception days. We the children can no longer take sides we are Mexican and we are American no matter what ye old blood feud says. Let Mexicans fear the Gringo; we Xicanos cannot do that. Let Gringos fear the Mexican; we Xicanos cannot do that.

We need to tire of taking sides to move forward, backwards for to remain ackward is no longer an option.

Forest Service warns Coloradans: Beware of camping Latinos
By John Tomasic 8/28/09 6:41 PM

In a presentation on recent discoveries of major marijuana-cultivation operations in Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service said it suspected an international cartel was behind the state’s hidden weed farms. Officials issued a warning that asked forest visitors to look for signs of drug trafficking. The telltale signs according to the officials? Tortilla, Spam and tuna packaging, Tecate beer cans, Latino music and people speaking Spanish.

Officials failed to acknowledge (1) that they were describing roughly a quarter of all campsites in the state and (2) that Spam, tortillas, tuna, Tecate, Latino music and people speaking Spanish are some of the best ingredients you can find when you’re looking to mix up a damn good camping experience.

Yet U.S. Forest Service officer Michael Skinner urged anyone encountering campers who fit the profile to “hike out quickly” and call police.

Polly Baca, co-chairwoman of the Colorado Latino Forum, told the Denver Channel that the Forest Service warning is racist and ill-conceived and threatening.

“It’s discriminatory and it puts Hispanic campers in danger.”

Marvink Correa, spokesman for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said that the next time he goes camping, he would “be sure to play nothing but Bruce Springsteen.”

So was the warning also issued in Spanish?

Source: http://coloradoindependent.com/36662/forest-service-warns-coloradans-beware-of-camping-latinos

By mistake I wrote Dew of the Thorn and once realizing my mistake I came upon a significance for the title of the book. I realized that dew is one of those things that is reminiscent of a new start. A new morrow if you will. Once I corrected my spelling error I proceeded to thank the gods of letters for my discovery, not. But yes, this is nice, this interpretation of mine. Dew on the Thorn allows us to see the new and allow us to realize the thorn in the eye before us. I always wondered why this string of words was a preferred choice for a title and I suppose I found my own interpretation for the book. So there.

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¹ González, Jovita. Dew on the Thorn. Ed. José Limón. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997.

I have fallen in love with page 150 of Dew on the Thorn by Jovita Gonzáles¹. It’s a chapter entitled The New Leader and it’s about the second Fernando of the Olivares family, born 1871. He is a half gringo and a half Mexican.

Fernando grew up, and realizing when very young that he had American blood, felt very different from the rest of the boys. He had a feeling of resentment against his heritage that made him feel he was an outcast among his friends. Doña Ramona’s teachings […] made him feel that he could never have anything in common with his American grandfather. (p. 150)

Gotta love the reverse mestizaje in play. The reverse crossborder where it is the gringo in us that yearns to crossover.

Beautiful.

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¹ González, Jovita. Dew on the Thorn. Ed. José Limón. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997.

The authority of Tí­o Esteban, the new mail carrier, in ”a forlorn-looking two wheeled vehicle” is an interesting passage. There is a palpable break. A sign that the Usted and tú borderlines of the Spanish language have ceased to permeate the everyday life of the community. It no longer applies as a rule. We must heed obidience to a new language code. As a mail carrier, a US postman, Tí­o Esteban has switched language masters’ (p.107)

In the backdrop of the early 1900’s in Dew on the Thorn by Jovita Gonzáles¹ technological advances are no threat to the lifestyles of the ranchers who are in no hurry to catch up with the ever changing landscape nor is it rejected either. two wheel vehicles and trains are viewed with the eye of distant curiosity as if seeing an odd object. This product of the mind is not rejected by racial lines, indeed, we are curious no matter whence it cometh from. As always, and as most history insists in telling to our deaf ears. Technology is accepted far more than the gringo is or ever will be. So reading Chapter IX The Cupid of the Brush Country is quite interesting. These two phenomena: the ranchers still trying to live a lifestyle of old, ever refusing to let go of their glorious past, and the imminent change and the mechanical knowhow of the Yankees advance, flow in opposite directions yet together posit a mystery.

All this is reminiscent of Don Quijote who insists in living a long lost time in a present that has surpassed him beyond recognition.

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¹ González, Jovita. Dew on the Thorn. Ed. José Limón. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997.

In Dew on the Thorn by Jovita Gonzáles¹ the color of races play a significant role, gringos have blue eyes and servants are dark. Yet more interesting is the fact that the Caste system plays a role in the late 1800’s as is evident that society revolves around the color of the skin. Add to this the fact within the narrative that these Mexicans of the late 1800’s in Lower Texas had never seen a negro in their midst and you got yourself a decent cocktail to churn out all kinds of speculations.

But what bothers me the most in Jovita’s narrative is that her main Mexican characters are not considered to be Americans. This binomial bothers me. They Americans and We, Mexicans. I don’t know, I just can’t seem to place myself in that narrative.

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¹ González, Jovita. Dew on the Thorn. Ed. José Limón. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997.

In Dew on the Thorn by Jovita Gonzáles¹, the Anglo plays a rather significant roll not because we are not familiar with the eternal binomial in Chicano narrative between gringos and Chicanos but because it is an early ground we have walked upon before. Jovita is a predecessor of Aztlán geography and topology. It is a common ingredient in Chicano narrative to see the gringo in the distant. Way before we begin to deal with the gringo we have began to see Them. Jovita does this well. It details the aproximation of the inevitable, that is, the gringo in our midst. Then we deal with it. We can see this same technique in Ana Castillo’s novel So Far from God: The Peacock raiser encroaches in the consciousness unannounced. We have only heard of them and then we see them to lastly seek them.

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¹ González, Jovita. Dew on the Thorn. Ed. José Limón. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997.

I have come to realize that Chicano narrative has fitted quite nicely into American folklore because it is a vision. Chicanos in general all share a vision of what it was and what it might become. That is why Aztlán although despised by most Anglo loving philes can accept the fact that we exist. Even though they use the most lethal and potent weapon against us, Ridicule, they recognize something familiar in Aztlán: it is a vision.