Författare: xikano_2

– Pops, we got mail from Oso, didn’t know you had a fan of that sort.
– M’ijo, Oso is a fine, fine acquaintance of sorts. We were once to get together in San Diego, back in 2004 but I was on memory lane and far from the highwire communication lines. Little too late did I found out he wanted us to get together. So yeah, what does he say?
– Quién sabe pops, Geronimo opened the letter because it dispelled old memories. He fired his 30-30 carabina in the air not out of rage but of respect for his elders, or that is how I interpreted it anyways.
– A jí­jos! Pinche Geronimo, since when does he have permission to open letters aquí­ en las offices? I told you to get rid of him.

Geronimo sideglanced and placed his finger on the trigger.

– Geronimo, pops, you guys need to get a long. Besides, it was a sad reminder, maybe Geronimo lived something of it.
– Bueno pues, what was it about?
– It’s about when migras, rangers, used gases to cleanse mexicans as they crossed over to the US because mexicans not only looked dirty but smelled ugly too or so the gíüero thought back then.
– Oh yeah, no wonder Geronimo blew a casket. Sad episode. Gíüeros will talk about how race doesn’t matter but their actions are all about race. Get me that mezcal bottle m’ijo.
– I thought you only drank out of that bottle for special reasons.
– This is a special reason, am gonna drink it allwith Geronimo. His people have lost many soldiers due to chemicals. His ancestral land nuked and his people let to die in strange lands. For once am ready to join him in peace and quiet. All I wanna do is look far and deep into the horizon, just as he does, you know?
– Yeah, I know, I always wonder why he does that.
– He does it because he mourns son, he mourns.
– Pops, he’s dead.
– So what? Rest in Peace is a gíüero concoction. Did your abuelita ever rest at night when you went out to party? No m’ijo, one doesn’t stop worrying about ones own gente. Never.

I pray I find you in good spirits. The Jews and christians call you God, the bhuddists call you Bhudda and the Muslims refer to you as Allah.

So I address you.

I, on the other hand, am but a mere soul. Since childhood I have learnt the way of the loner. I am a lone sentient. I wish not to offend and seek only dialogue with thee.

I wrote the piece long ago, for my few english readers who insisted that I write something about environment and border cities. The few readers that then subscribed to the rss flow even offered me an advance payment in the smal sum of 3 dollars and 25 cents to encourage me. I gladly accepted the offer because in essence, it was my first paid piece ever and besides, I needed the dollars to start my pay pal account. I have now clipped and pasted the story for my spanish readers though I suspect many will just open and close the page as soon as they see english written all over their screen. I did it because the original buyer’s of the story never claimed any rights on it and besides, when is art ever really finished?

Though am not to mention the act without merit because that would be unchristian and least to say an offense to my english readers. I mention it because I am reminded of a cruel and dire reality.

As I was re-reading the piece I came across the very notion that most people in San Diego have very little idea how poverty stricken some of their neighbours are. People actually have to steal electricity in order for them to suvive. They do it by placing cables on the live wire. They are called diablitos, little devils.

Though the border is one were affluence is most seen as equitive, the truth is that people have to resort to stealing basic things as electricity to make it through the day. Now this is food for thought

Ok, two rather odd issues are coalescing today though with a very intriguing geographic location in common: Texas.

First things first.

I was reading some of Daily Texican’s posts today and I was reminded of a very old sting I suffered at his hands. If you read very carefully, DT’s blog has a warning text on top of his blog. It states the following:

Ojo: The ”Cholo Word Of The Day” is simply for fun. This is not an academic exercise, therefore I do not spend much time checking for espelling or grammatical errors. Most of the words are not only used by ”cholos,” but by many people in S. Texas – and their usage can vary. c/s

That was done for one person in mind, me. One day I got the very crazy idea to dip linguistics to a comment I left in some word he pondered upon and he just blew a casket all over the issue. Man was I stung. So everytime I go to his blog am reminded of the sting. Ouch!

Gonzales, hmmm, we here at the offices have lent kudos to the man because, yes, we admit it, he is of mexican descent. We thought, we rationalized, that past gíüero attornies have done worst behind the scenes and that it was pretty darn honest of a Texan to say uppfront what gíüero folk deny on the ramlight but do a escondiditas.

This kind of stuff kind of gives food for thought though and makes us question our thinking.

Am in the mood to spill a few vaulting ninny sentences. It has been snowing like there is no tomorrow for the past days here in the Swedish Highlands. Worst part of it is that I have to shovel the fluffly white stuff only to have it blown in my face, urgh. Its one of those days. My body aches and I really don’t want to shovel snow. urgh and argh mind you.

I finally turned in a 5 point essay for a 5 credit course. I have been struggling with the language. Academia is the worst place one can turn in a paper. Not only is ones language scrutinized for all possible sign of defects, the audience that reads your paper is next to nil. So one is in essence forced to write a piece of paper that meets academia criteria which one of its main goals is that the language therein ought to be readable for others. What others? It is a 5 point essay, it won’t even get shelved in a library, most likely it will suffer the fate of being stacked. If luck would have it, so long as it takes at the top of the stack of some poor soulless academician’s office who grumbles all day that his genius is being passed over for correcting my essay.

People in academia have egos. But that’s not my rant today. I still wanna rant about the stupid paper I just turned in. I think one of the main objectives of any paper that academia wants is to secretly inculcate humility, that loathsome and veiled Christian moral that all God abiding christian cherish as a good value to force feed one in a veiled fashion.

not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive

God forbid that a paper would make your ego inflatable.

Oh, and let’s not forget about the language. Monolinguals never realize how sensitive to language bilinguals can be. You can’t tell us our language is wrong because we start running to the bedroom to cry our souls out while we sob the blankets soaking wet.

So after receiving my essay back, with countless of errors and ’suggestions’, the first time around, this is my second time, I can’t wait to get it back because I know it will come back like a boomerang. My essays tend to do that.

In the end one does learn a few things or two but it amounts to ridicule when one thinks of the kind of institution I decided to do this with. I am a teacher so the teaching institute that is training teachers doesn’t even know how to handle its own students. Those academics really need to be nicer. I mean really nicer.

I must confess that when I think of this blog its death is my wish. I want to do away with it yet somehow, it remains. This is due because all my ideas are channeled throught the spanish blog and by the time I near this blog I have emptied my soul unto God’s language. Or so said Carlos V that when he spoke to his horse he spoke in german and when he spoke to God he spoke spanish.

Am waiting. At this particular point and time am wasted, outdone and sin ganas to do anything with the english language. I have no inspiration and the sad realization that I am not going to win the Nobel in litterature has set a dark horizon looming like a bad black cloud downpouring on me its constant water.

So I want to kill my blog, pull the plug and just concentrate on spanish.

But will I? I sincerely doubt it.

I realize that reading Octavio Paz was a bad taste of Castor Oil. I remember clearly refusing to read anything of him after I read El Laberinto de la Soledad. I was extremely offended by the chapter : Pachucos y otros extremos.

For some reason I thought it reflected the general attitude most mexicans have of us Xicanos. And it still does. In hindsight it has given loads of food for thought.

Oso does the chicano ensemble.

Many self called latinos are rather amused when they are made to look at themselves as they are.

Little do they realize that they are in the process of becoming, continuosly.

People who call themselves latino and proudly carry the star spangled banner in their veins, and ass if they could, will shed their latino roots immediately if questioned about their brown origins, as if being american meant not being latino or brown.

It is a state of continuos confusion both for the latino that sees not his or her latino roots as well as the one who dares open the can of worms that represents asking someone their true identity.

Am an American.

And not many americans dare question this oppressive state of being. This is so because America is always at war and hence ones americanness is always questioned. The number one lesson is to never be perceived as unamerican. And one will defend this idea of americanness to the end. It goes beyond citizenship.

To be American is to denounce all that is not american. Even if you are american the idea that you might have another language, another way of being is not only loathsome but immediately sets you apart from America.

So it is only natural to denounce ones origin. One is never at ease with ones americanness if one happens to be brown, or that a knowledge of another language is lingering at the back of ones head or burning flour tortillas in the oven.

It even gets worse when society sends conflicting messages that one ought to embrace ones cultural background. So we allow ourselves a certain tad of permissiveness by admiting our past but never our present. Yes, we were once that but we are not that now.

That is why so many hispanics allow themselves to be humiliated at the registration offices of many government buildings when one pronounces ones first and last name. They twist, chew up and spit out a concoction gíüero and their assimilees invent on the spot by spelling our names wrong and step on the goddamn form with so many foreign characters if one asks for a correction of ones name. One wonders indeed why such a name like Schwarzenegger sounds better and provokes more patience for spelling than Bustamante or Navarrette. Though hispanics are not the only ones to undergo this process of americanness. All people of color go through it.

Explicate it.

Oh no you didn’t.

Boy do I have bones to pick here.

I shall be dishing out more than I bargained for but one can’t overstate the deliciousness of the subject. Right now I am about to do serious deconstructing over at Wikipedia and give them a verbal whipping or two.

Coming soon, more Xicano rants than expected, stay tuned.

People don’t inmediately associate the word each with one. But it is, in essence, a synonym of One. Ain’t that crazy?

Am not a on demand writer.

I hate writing on demand. I just don’t have the gusto for it. Hey! did you know that the word gusto is also a Swedish word? I was amazed when I found about it. I was writing some rant or the other about teachers in Sweden when I wanted to use the word gusto and ¡jí­jole mano! it’s used in Sweden too! I’d be damned. But to retake the initial conversation about writing and demands, I seldom succeed in writing at the request of others.

I have tried several projects before, here and Living in Sweden/blog [out of the cyber world and only on cache from nowadays] can you see my lukewarm successes.

I like to write, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I don’t like to write sin ganas.

By nature I am antisocial. Don’t get me wrong. It is just that I do not know how to work with other people. I was raised not to trust myself. There wasn’t someone telling me how good I was; quite the contrary, there was always someone telling me how wrong I was.

So when people come and tell me, gee Julio, you’re just a swell fellow. I never knew you were such a fab pal, you rascal you. It tends to not just turn me off but also make me wary as a freaking porcupine just about to be run over on Texas highway road.

I don’t do well and am afraid as a motherfucker in Dante’s inferno to disappoint people. When I do consent to do works the pressure is on. I miserably end up being a failure of sorts because then I am pleasing others, a skill I am not skilled at.

I tend to do well when no one is looking, perhaps a habit I gained from writing dairies all my life until, voila! someone came up with the idea that a blog was just as good as a diary, and off course I bought the whole shebang with a sidedish of enchiladas along. So here I am.

Be that as it may I would like to thank the folks at Global Voices for linking me in their exile department seemingly at the indefatigable hands of David Sasaki. Its nice to get traffic from the far corners and reaches of the USA. Besides, its an opportunity to poison minds with my diabolical world domination plans, muahahaha …Hey! where’d that come from?

Wow. There is a Xicagoblogsphere. Gotta love that X. Bloggeros Xicagoenses. Gone are the days when our good friend, now proud mother of one, http://www.injust-spring.com/ was a loner on the Chicago blogsphere denoting herself as Xicana.

Now they are 12 of them. Hell, when a good writer like Sandra Cisneros comes out and writes her Americana lifestyle to the acclaim of the nation you know that something is brewing and sprawling.

There is something about Chicago that mexican americans there are not that repressed when it comes to their cultural identities. That is, they readily seem to embrace their mexicanness as opposed to Californios such as the writer at hand. Californian mexicanos have a ready made grab bag of repression stories. We were forbade to speak Spanish and that is one theme that includes corporal punishment. Mexican americans from Chicago don’t seem to have grown up deploring the one end of their cultural mestizaje. This could have an easy explanation such as the constant fientlighet atmosfí¤r som rí¥der i Kalifornien, je, couldn’t resist saying that in Swedish. What I just said that that could be partly due to the constant animosity that tends to pervade in California between the two cultures.

It’s as if its not dirty to be mexican or an able spanish speaker in Chicago though I could be very wrong.

I wrote this on my blogspot blog in 2003:

When it comes to languages it seems to me rather curious the stance some people take. I remember as a child how embarrassed I was to speak spanish. I recall how one day we came to my grandmother’s in TJ and how, inspite of being raised by her, and just only two years before all I spoke was spanish I claimed not to. English was my de facto lingua. Later, as I grew I did everything in my power to disguise my spanish accent to the point of only thinking, eating, walking and peeing in english.

However, we are products of our environment and the oppressive years in California, oppressive for me because I lived in such an environment, spanish was worst than the black plague, it gave you away as a foreigner, in your own country.

That’s why I get goose bumps whenever I come across blogs that blend in spanish and english as if that is the most natural thing in the world to do. Blogs like Fernando Graphicos who not only embrace spanish but you can see that it is an integral part of their lives.

I think it is natural for the development of the Xicano community to start embracing their cultural roots more and more. I think that Xenophobia is a bad thing for America and that it doesn’t allow for real democracy to bloom in America. English speakers will now have to give leeway for the other native tongues to start making inroads in the conscience of Americans. Spanish speakers have a long tradition in the legal framework of the nation that spells right out that Spanish is a language which is part of America. Spanish is american and it will not deteriorate English speaking America just as French didn’t ruin Canada either. English speakers really need to stop bullying bilinguals or native american speakers because in order for America to move forward it needs to start embracing not only other languages but its native population as as well.

And Xicanos are as native as you get.