Författare: xikano_2

Some crazy ass shit, white man’s preoccupations and the plight Africa underwent.

So here at the university of Stockholm English Institute one of their favorite texts is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The idea is to dissect the text and look at it through the prism of many researchers eye and even to shed some light into what others think about it, now please, bear in mind that I am Mexican, worse yet, am a Xicano, so whatever argument dished these guys up and the interpretations they make out of it is like watching two kids fight it out in the street for the mere pleasure of standing there and see the fight, in other words, as Tina Turner would say it succinctly, what’s love got to do with it? Even more I believe they give this text out for the sole purpose of entertaining the swedes as the swedes are central to this text’s narrative.

The text in itself is really about some old geezers sunbathing in the Thames one late evening in August and really there is nothing more than the comparison of two empires at play here, one, the Roman Empire and the other the British Empire.

However, there is a sense, a dimension at play here that is akin to an apology, a justification of sorts, a catholic/anglican church mea culpa, a Pontious Pilatos washing of the hands.

This text has a bad rap and I can see how the Africans are enraged by the narrative of this text, regardless of the value of the tale, its sole purpose is to whitewash the sins of the fathers. In other words, this text is merely apologizing for crimes committed against the people of Africa, (Judge Garzon, where are you when you are really needed) worse, making the British people have a heart of sorts, furthermore, and most disturbing, and whence the governments claims innocence of the acts of their subjects, is that they can claim innocence and distraction of their duties and play the good cop routine.

A perpetuation of the empire by benign means is at play, in others words, while crimes were committed in the name of the crown, the crown can always and always has the option of disclaiming itself from those crimes by alluding that its good intentions were hijacked by bad elements, and this is the case with this text, Joseph Conrad is apologizing for the acts of his people to the African folk, atonement, in English manners.

Curiously enough most of the critics in this book we are made to read are and have germanic last names, whether they are white, or black I have no idea, but it doesn’t stop me, a Xicano from finding this aspect as curious. Even more interesting, there seems to be a belief amongst critics that so long as one has a valid criticism about the text it is valid in all its aspect regardless of race, never mind that those races happen to be, for the most part, of the caucasian persuation.

It has occurred to me that Xicanos are a new sort of mestizo, a raza in itself.

While our ancestors are for the most part mestizo in as far as they are of two races, one combining aspects of the more European traits and another one and perhaps the raison de etre for the most of us, an indigenous and powerful trait. However, we Xicanos have attained a mestizaje of a new sorts, we have blended in two cultures, two languages, two religions at the very least. Let us not forget that many a Xicano are not necessarily mestizo, in fact they may be people whose people have resisted mestizaje and therefore warriors who remained to themselves and kept their culture intact, traditions alive and customs enforced, so that while they may speak Spanish their real mother tongue is an indigenous one. Hence they may be already bilingual by the time they assimilate to the Xicano culture which in its most mainstream self is bilingual and bicultural, so as not to exclude that vital link between our brothers and sisters we must keep in mind that Xicanos can have many cultures already in themselves.

This is the new sort of mestizaje I speak of, the intrinsic blending of these cultural traits. So just exactly what is this new sort of spiritual mestizaje anyways, and why is it so important? Perhaps if we seek help from our past can we clear the confusion surrounding this issue now. For many years our existence was denied, our world was repressed, our incarceration bears no tangible, nor physical proof. Throughout the inception of Aztlá we have been denied in the most bastards of ways, curiously enough through this Catholic of acts, the forced relationship of the US and México gave birth to an unwanted child, one that remained in the side shadows of the two nations history up until recently.

We were a bastard child, so generations of Xicanos lived in denial, punished at every institutional level, for how they looked, and how they spoke, and what they spoke. This caused many mutations of spirituality in various forms. We were rejected by both our parents for what we were not. This has caused much pain to many indeed. Because our parents are more than ready to turn away from us, leaving us at the mercy of each other. The US has rejected us because of the color of our skin and México because of the sounds that come out of our mouth and our lifestyles.

However, we are no longer dependent upon the approval of our parents, parents who, like any other child would, still love. We have grown independent from them and are beginning to form our own identity. I can not truthfully say that I am Xicano if I deny one of my parents, as much as my hate still boils in me, they gave me existence, therefore, I am that which was given, a part of an act, Xicanos where born out of two at times out of three intrinsic and complicated cultures that we had to digest even if the taste was acrid and acrimonious.

Yet this Castor oil proved to be a healthy one indeed, seen from a historical perspective of the world where nations have been known to exterminate their offspring. We, while maltreated, grew up and have assimilated our cultures pro’s and con’s. We indulge well in tamales and Hot Dogs; We drink Tequila as well as Bourbon; We fluently speak two languages in one, our greatest source of pride is our own lingo; We love Mariachis as much as we love the Sex Pistols.

Lastly, this new mestizaje has barely shown its multifaceted potential. Our greatest assets is the recognition and acceptance of our many manifestations, we are Xicanos, Chicanos, Pochos, Mexican-American, Mexicanos, and a host of other selves in one way or another, we can the one minute be Xicanos, another Michoacanos, zacatecanos, Californianos, Tejanos, from Chicago this internal diversity is an asset if we are to take into account that this trait is American in as much as Apple pie is. We must rejoice at our selves, and content ourselves that finally, our multifaceted self being is no longer rejected as much by our progenitors.

I for the one consider this flexibility of being an asset of inmense value, I believe that I wouldn’t have had so easy a time to learn another culture, another language as easily as I have and all thanks to my Xicano history.

Good follow up reading:

From the book, Oppositional Consciouness: The Subjective Roots of Social Protests. A tasty essay by Marc Simon Rodriguez titled: Cristaleo Cosnciousness: Mexican American Activism between Crystal City, Texas and Wisconsin 1963-80 that delves into more or less the subject am touching here and points out the consciouness and trasnformation of the U.S Mexicano population and birth of the Chicano Movement.

It seems as though Pochismo is hailing a revival unprecedented in the history of our young culture. Just as chicano was once a denigrating term and later spoused as a badge of honor so is pochismo doing that as well and with what a bang!

Curiously enough, pochismo is embracing that which many chicanos are leaving behind them or has not taken into account.

They embrace the mexican culture with glee and commercialize it in very creative ways that do not insult our traditions, in a way they enhance it and promote it. Frankly, it pleases me to see all of this taking place now. In fact, much of the internet entertaintment by way of Chicano culture, for my part anyways, is coming from those aspects of our culture that is/has been ostracized, the pocho culture.

Let’s see, were do I stand in this continuum of our very undefined culture?

As I recall I too fell prey to this moniker but quickly shrugged it off, I must’ve been 9 or so just when I returned from my childhood stay of two years in CA, my friends that I had left behind in Tijuana saw the change, and quickly began the dismantling and I off course abided by it quite naturally. In fact, I turned myself against this form of change, I also called people pochos and pochas although I fear that the degree of despectiveness has something to do with how much acculturation one has intrinsically. That is, it depends how mexican you are or how much you feel offended by the turncoat itself. (in essence the offense lies in the denial of cultural traits by the pocho which the mexican assumes the pocho has even though the pocho denies that and of course which causes a serious offence in the more mexicanized fellow or so thereby)

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the revival of mexican attributes by pochos has taken a different turn though, its seems to me that pochos are bringing in home, curiously enough, since pochos are somewhat banned from the community, the more mestizo aspects of the mexican culture. This is indeed something worthy of observence since Chicanos are more of an indigenous oriented type, the symbol of the Chicano has more to do with the aztec, maya, toltec and so on while the pocho is incorporating the more mestizo aspects of the mexican culture into his identity. That is why you see more things of that nature in pocho semiotics like mexican hero wrestlers, loterí­symbols and tipical mexican games, and things that are widely shared by the mestizo population of Mexico.

Even Richard Rodriguez has jumped on the bandwagon too, his latest book, Brown, is in essence an act of conciliation, read it and tell me that his take on the mexican aspects of his book are not about that, indeed, RR has come into the fold, whatever that is, but is adding something, at last, a partial recognition of his identity to the rich and varied culture that is composed of the USA and Mexico.

I wouldn’t be surprised that our culture, which is and should be about the blending of our two cultures, the Mexican and the gabacha, chrysalises out of Pochismo! Who would of thought that they be the torch carriers of our culture ….

Pocho sites:

Pocharte
Pocho.com

Yesterday I was such the decade ago, I swear to god, I was deep in a contorted repressed laughter and in awe at the things I did. So what did I ever do that threw me back not only a decade but nearly a decade and a half back? Well for the first I peeled off a Rancid poster off a wall in the very trendy street called Gotgatan by the Metro station slussen in Stockholm, so yeah, I did that, burrrrr, shaking in disbelief. The other thing is even more dismally shrieking, I bought, get a load of this, I bought, now remember that am a poor student with very little resources as ways go for monies, and hold tight now, and don’t hold your breath,I bought a Compaq Presario with windows 95 on it! with two whole gigabytes in it ….jejejeje, it was only a 100 bucks or a 1000 Swedish crowns but hey! I can now, watch this, I can now write documents in my dorm, which by the way won’t be happening anytime soon since I still have to add working hours in that antique piece I bought, yeah … you got it right, I’m erasing everything in that thing and setting it up with all the modern goodies of this year, anyhow, you’d think I bought a 1956 DeSoto or something.

So yeah, those are yester antics, today, less see what happens …

Going even further more in time I am writing a C level essay on Hemingway, so am reading, as of now, The Sun also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea, I will be concentrating on the issue of Machismo. I chose Hemingway because he is such the American icon, plus, and get a load of this, plus, he incorporated rather well the Hispanic sentienty of the Latin world. So am looking forward to interpret these works of his. So expect comments about those two books in the coming weeks ahead as I will be dealing with that …now let’s see if I can distinguish sober writings from unsober ones ….

Ok, now this is really something that makes you definitely scratch your head, I mean, this is amazing stuff in that if you thought of talking pointlessly in very fashionable manner then Husserlian thinking is the answer for you.

Who is Husserl anyways? just click away but don’t blame me later if you just shake your head in utter confusion.

It’s rather hilarious actually, so far I have read only 12 pages of Inlet to Husserlian Phenomenology by H. W. Fawkner and already I had a few cracks at it. This is what I so far have come to in this 50 page document that was sent to me via email in conjunction with my D level course at the English institution:

1.- There are a lot of hyphenated compounds to explain single variable concepts or meaning carrying units, in essence, as far as I can visualize this theory, what the meaning of these compounds give, to use an example, is best represented by the very hyphen that seems to unite this tripartite item.

2.- I haven’t figured out yet how to apply this course of events that Husserlian theory intends to describe so I won’t bother you with interpretations that might be false but in essence much goes out to discuss a certain middle ground between two acts, such as the utterance the tree.

you, the interlocutor says the tree ———> the hearer hears you, the tree but Husserlian theory is not concerned about the interpretation of tree in the hearer nor the utterer, it is concerned with the ’——->’.

Yeap …I haven’t either even figured out if I got it right but my hunch says that it is going along those lines

Let me put it another way, the document uses the analogy of offside from sports. If you are a sports fan you might understand that technical term which I have at least heard in some soccer games although I have been at a loss as to its significance until now. Ok, I confess am no sports buff, but hey! am still ok right? Anyways, since you are into sports then you know the object is to win, if you loose, well then a series of events unfold that carry dire consequences at times, and here is where I can find a suitable explanation and real comparison to what Husserl is trying to say, and again, I confess that I might be wrong, but you know that expression ‘it’s not important to win, what matters is how you play the game’? Well, it is my belief that Husserlian thinking goes along those lines ….jejejeje but seriously folks, I mean it.

I lived in England once in 1998, Bournemouth, in Dorset, and while that coast town brought nice memories, far more than Paris ever did, believe me, the biggest impression left on me wasn’t the quaint seaside lifestyles nor the fact that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is buried there but rather England’s immigration and customs services.

At the time I hadn’t become an EU citizen so I carried my Mexican Passport. Having being accustomed to travel unhindered in Europe it came as a natural surprise to me that I was stopped at Heathrow because of my nationality. I was offended, quite frankly, to be made to sign a waver of rights in order to be able to enter the country. In essence Mexicans seem to have a bad rap there and are in the habit of entering the country to ask for UK benefits. I guess I might be wrong but I didn’t quite get the logic behind the waver nor as to why Mexicans were singled out for this list of people who come in to the country to milk its welfare system.

In general, I think of Britons like most Americans think of them, snobs. Having gone through what I did that day my attitude hardened considerably more after that incident. However, let’s not confuse government employees and the beasts they become when ordered to enforce laws nobody understands with people of the everyday caliber. Most Brits I’ve met seem quite down to earth just as much as the next bloke around the globe. Yet immigration, a ghost that has chasen me all my life, is an issue I carry deep inside me so I react quite normally, in indignant tones, whenever I’m stopped by these services countries have in order to syphen out unwanted elements.

Nevertheless, I find those services in the UK ugly, the same goes for America and certainly from any other part of the world, It is hedious that governments around the world engage in this humiliating act of stopping people because of their nationality.

Yeah, I know, it’s 2003, the shadow of Terrorism covers every human soul nowadays and this is idyllic thinking and quite leftist humanitarian wishful reckoning but I can still dream and no terrorist organization nor stupid evil government like the USA has now can stop me from wishing for a better tomorrow today.

There is a discussion going on between those who share spanish as one of their tongues. Some say Hispanic should be the all representative word and other Latinas/os. I say that if you are to represent spanish speakers from America then it is Latinos, if they are from Iberia Hispanics. There isn’t a doubt that Spain is in our very bloods, we can never deny that but I as a Latino fear that my whole life experience with Iberians has been one of total rejection. Hispanics are arrogant according to me and hence make a clear distinction that they are a race apart from Latinos.

What kind of Latino am I then? I am a Xicano Latino.

The afternoon gave out a strange light for that particular hour of the day. It was August and around this time the harvest was due for picking yet the day was infuriatingly red. The clouds carried a strange blue hue and the winds had a distinct smell of protuding carcasses. The nearby factories exuded more than their usual output of smoke. Jane observed all of this while walking towards her house, a scant mile from the factories and as she looked on pensevily at the strange combination of natural and unnatural phenomena she suddenly could not breathe with ease, a slight cough cleared her throat but only temporarily, the fumes in the air became stronger and stronger as her eyes faintly made out some twirling blue lights and dust clouds behind them. She continued walking not making notice of her health and just an earshot away some siren sounds were heard. Her steps carried her homewards, and the small shack were she made her home was impregnated with a stench so familiar to her that it made no difference to her nostrils anymore.

She turned on the light, a bulb attached to a live wire from a nearby electrical post, like everyone else, she stole her electricity too which was meant for the factories. She undressed herself, having worked all day at the recycling center, she frecuently came home more dirty than she would want to and started the gas stove she had for a kitchen. Having boiled her water she took a shower the only way she could, placing the water in a plastic bucket the factories usually dumped nearby, she doused herself with a casserole and quickly shampood herself, her long black hair ran to her shoulders and as the water ran down her hair, she felt alive and clean again. The tattoo from her local barrio became particularly aglow with colors as the vanilla colored skin that constituted her body gave way to the colors of her Virgin Mary tattoo on her back, I sat there, watching her very wide shoulders become wet with the water as it let steam rise as soon as the water ran down her vertebra.

-How’d it go today honey?

No answer, the water kept running, splashing on the only piece of concrete of the house, down a funnel that made its way to the other side of the plywood wall and let out its contents on the dirt, were previous waters had made a course, as the small stream of water made its way down the hill were greenish like algue formed its way along colorful oily bubbles the never seemed to pop. I stared at her breasts, awashed with steaming vapors, hard, nipples aroused, walking towards me, to grab a towel, her long brown legs were shinig the bulbs light, and every step brought her closer to me.

-Dry my back, she said to me as she threw the towel on my face.

I did, as I passed the towel to dry off the remaining water drops on her back. I got excited as I wiped the back of her body, and she knew I was turned on. Forget it was what I heard as my hand passed her wet buttocks. She was afraid. She had just lost her baby, prematurely and without a brain. Such things happen in this city, and the experience had left her numb, I could understand but to the local government these factories meant revenues and the people only a nuisance, so when she delivered her baby, it was only one more statistical number piling up until international pressure built up, only then would the municipal burocracy heed the environmentalist warnings, but until then, the factories kept spewing its toxic waste and we couldn’t do much about it.

I’ve noticed that my admiration of the natural elements such as the clouds, the air, the atmosphere, the day in itself, requires of me new forms of expression. I tire of the same old description quite easily. I hope though I come up with new forms of description since what my eyes see and what emotions are awakened by this peculiar phenomenon in nature, the swinging of the branches of the trees by the force of the winds never ceases to sooth me and being the egoistic observer I wan to capture said outward event in words. Yet my words are becoming readily trite. Not only do I want to change the way I jot down these events but I also perceive that my outer milieu demands this of me.

I am forced to come up with a more abstract thinking than I am perhaps unable to perform. Although I must admit to myself that this presents a tempting challenge of sorts. How am I to wrap up this life experience into words is more challenging than a navy’s knot master class. The medium at hand being easily transmitted by the eyes? canny ability to trap the essence of the spiritualness that lies in the observance of nature is not so easily entrapped in nicely packaged and ornamented words, no, indeed, and therein lies the challenge.

In my roundabouts of the blogsphere I have read here and there that words carry certain energy in them, this happening, of course, in the more mystic prone language of Spanish. In the event that this is true, and I hereby declare that I am not denying that it doesn’t exist, then words have a more potent effect on the human being than I am willing to grant them. I have watched and read with great care how the government of the USA goes to great pains in choosing its vocabulary to produce certain desired effects onto the end receiver. So if were to be a government employee then I would be careful about the words I choose in the expectations of a certain reaction from the end receiver. However, as am more interested in retransmitting an ocular/emotional event I am more concerned with pathos of a different kind. Or am I?

What exactly is it that which is wanted to be transmitted? The ocular or the emotional or a combination of the two thereby? The combination of the two would indeed be most optimal since what is wanted is a description that said trees as the wind swings produces on a human soul which in turn happens to be in a heightened emotional state nearing a certain peacefulness and lightness of air attached to it. One can very well also attach an interpretation to said movements, like the wish of a reunion with the elements or certain identification with them. Perhaps that can aid to a near description of the elements that one wants to describe.

Well, this has been a nice exercise in trying to understand my own writing, I managed to come up with two very important observations: interpretation and identification. Now All I need to do is explore these two concepts further when I find myself moved by the elements that surround me here in the Swedish Highlands.

In retrospective I seemed to neither stay the course nor fallen of it, at least I’ve managed to not run amok with war conspiratorial theories and spend less time writing on it if that. I do read it, but that is another story. The thing about writing fiction and short stories in a blog is that it consumes more space than am comfortable with. But all is not lost as I am constantly reminded that in reality I’ve only started my writing career with earnest, as a discipline and with gusto and within the course of a years’ writing I can see whether I am made to cut the muster or not, I’m giving myself that leeway, a breather room if you will since I’ve barely made the 6 month benchmark.

So far I’ve gotten tastes and reactions as to what my writing produces. It has also given me many restraints however, daily interaction with blogger and the comments that rise due to the posting thereby could just be a blog phenomenon and hence nothing to do with real writing which is my goal here. What kind of restraints you might ask? Well, it adds heat to the cooking pressure of the internal editor, that’s how, one has to adjust, and does adjust, to the readers imagined expectations, which curiously enough, one builds of said imaginary folk and the values we so imaginatively attach to them. Real writing, and just what is that Mr J? What I mean by real writing is the writing that I ceaselessly pursue, which is the creation of a novel or so thereby.

One goal that I imposed on myself is that of writing 6000 words ( a rumor has it that Vargas Llosa has that for discipline…) a day and I believe that that aspect is slowly but surely coming into fruition as I do write about 2000 words a day these days, although it’s in my three languages… the modest goal would then be 2000 words per language.