Odessans, have you heard of the poem "I Am Joaquin" by Rodolfo 'Corky" Gonzales........read on.......this is the way it use to be.......can you relate?

I AM JOAQUIN
I am Joaquin, ,
Lost in a world of confusion, Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society, Confused by the rules, Scorned by attitudes, Suppressed by manipulations, And destroyed by modern society.

My fathers have lost the economic battle and won
the struggle of cultural survival.

And now! I must choose Between the paradox of
Victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger
Or
to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, sterilization of the soul
and a full stomach.

Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere, Unwillingly dragged by that
monstrous, technical industrial giant called Progress
and Anglo success…
I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow.
I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the
Circle of life . . .
MY OWN PEOPLE

I am Cuauhtemoc, Proud and Noble Leader of men, King of an empire, civilized beyond the dreams of the Gachupin Cortez, Who also is the blood, the image of myself. I am the Maya Prince. I am Netzahualcoyotl, Great leader of the Chichimecas. I am the sword and flame of Cortez the despot. And I am the Eagle and Serpent of the Aztec civilization.

I owned the land as far as the eye could see under the crown of Spain,
and I toiled on my earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood
for the Spanish master, Who ruled with tyranny over man and beast and all that he could trample But . . . THE GROUND WAS MINE. I was both tyrant and slave.

As Christian church took its place in God's good name, to take and use my Virgin strength and Trusting faith, The priests both good and bad, took But gave a lasting truth that Spaniard, Indian, Mestizo

Were all God's children And from these words grew men who prayed and fought
for their own worth as human beings, for that GOLDEN MOMENT Of FREEDOM.

I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest

Hidalgo in the year eighteen hundred and ten who rang the bell of independence
and gave out that lasting cry: "El Grito de Dolores, Que mueran los Gachupines y que viva la Virgin de Guadalupe"

I sentenced him who was me. I excommunicated him my blood. I drove him from the Pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me I killed him.

His head, which is mine and all of those who have conic this way,

I placed on that fortress wall to wall for Independence. Morelos!, Matamoros! Guerrero! All Compañeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made.

I died with them . . . I lived with them I lived to see our country free. Free from Spanish rule in eighteen -hundred- twenty-one.

Mexico was Free The crown was gone but all his parasites remained
and ruled and taught with gun and flame and mystic power.

I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed and waited silently for life to again commence.

I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez Guardian of the Constitution.

I was him on clusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives as Moses did his sacraments.

He held his Mexico in his hand on the most desolate and remote ground
which was his country And this Giant Little Zapotec gave not one palm's breadth of his country's land to Kings or Monarchs or Presidents of foreign powers.

I am Joaquin. I rode with Pancho Villa, crude and warm. A tornado at full strength, nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earth, people. I am Emillano Zapata.

"This Land, This Earth Is OURS", The Villages, The Mountains, The Streams belong to Zapatistas.

Our life Or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maiz. All of which is our reward, A creed that formed a constitution for all who dare live free! "This land is ours . . . Father, I give it back to you.

Mexico must be free . . .' I ride with Revolutionists against myself. I am Rural, Course and brutal, I am the mountain Indian, superior over all. The thundering hoof beats are my horses.

The chattering of machine guns' are death to all of me:
Yaqui, Tarahumara, Chamula, Zapotec, Mestizo, Español

I have been the Bloody Revolution, The Victor, The Vanquished, I have killed and been killed.

I am despots Diaz and Huerta and the apostle of democracy Francisco Madero.

I am the black shawled faithful women who die with me or live depending on the time and place. I am faithful, humble, Juan Diego, the Virgen de Guadalupe, Tonatzin, Aztec Goddess too.

I rode the mountains of San Joaquin. I rode as far East and North as the Rocky Mountains and all men feared the guns of Joaquin Murrietta.
I killed those men who dared to steal my mine, who raped and Killed my Love my Wife

Then I Killed to stay alive. I was Alfego. Baca, living my nine lives fully.
I was the Espinoza brothers of the Valle de San Luis. All were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization were placed on the wall of independence.
Heads of brave men who died for cause or principle.
Good or Bad.

Hidalgo! Zapata! Murrietta! Espinozas! are but a few. They dared to face The force of tyranny of men who rule

By farce and hypocrisy I stand here looking back, and now I see the present and still
I arn the campesino I am the fat political coyote I, of the same name, Joaquin.

In a country that has wiped out ALL my history, stiffled all my pride. In a country that has placed a different weight of indignity upon my age old burdened back.

Inferiority is the new load . . . The Indian has endured and still
emerged the winner, The Mestizo must yet overcome, And the Gachupin will just ignore. I look at myself and see part of me who rejects my father and my mother and dissolves into the melting pot to disappear in shame. I sometimes sell my brother out and reclaim him for my own when society, gives me token leadership in society's own name.

I am Joaquin, who bleeds in many ways. The altars of Moctezuma I stained a bloody red. My back of Indian Slavery was stripped crimson from the whips of masters who would lose their blood so pure when Revolution made them pay Standing against the walls of Retribution,

Blood . . . Has flowed from me on every battlefield between Campesino, Hacendado Slave and Master and Revolution. I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec into the sea of fame;

My country's flag my burial shroud; With Los Niños, whose pride and courage could not surrender with indignity their country's flag . . . in their land.

To strangers, Now, I bleed in some smelly cell from club. or gun. or tyranny. I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger cut my face and eyes, as I fight my way from stinking Barrios to the glamour of the Ring and lights of fame or mutilated sorrow.
My blood runs pure on the ice caked hills of the Alaskan Isles, on the corpse strewn beach of Normandy, the foreign land of Korea and now

Viet Nam.
Here I stand before the Court of justice Guilty for all the glory of my Raza to be sentenced to despair. Here I stand Poor in money Arrogant with pride Bold with Machismo Rich in courage and Wealthy in spirit and faith

My knees are caked with mud. My hands calloused from the hoe.
I have made the Anglo rich yet

Equality is but a word, the Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken and is but another treacherous promise. My land is lost and stolen, My culture has been raped, lengthen the line at the welfare door and fill the jails with crime.

These then are the rewards this society has For sons of Chiefs and Kings and bloody Revolutionists. Who gave a foreign people all their skills and ingenuity to pave the way with Brains and Blood for those hordes of Gold starved

Strangers Who changed our language and plagiarized our deeds as feats of valor of their own. They frowned upon our way of life and took what they could use.

Our Art Our Literature Our music, they ignored so they left the real things of value and grabbed at their own destruction by their Greed and Avarice

They overlooked that cleansing fountain of nature and brotherhood

Which is Joaquin.
The art of our great señors Diego, Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco is but another act of revolution for the Salvation of mankind. Mariachi music, the heart and soul of the people of the earth, the life of child, and the happiness of love The Corridos tell the tales of life and death, of tradition, Legends old and new, of Joy of passion and sorrow of the people: who I am.

I am in the eyes of woman, sheltered beneath her shawl of black, deep and sorrowful eyes, That bear the pain of sons long buried or dying,

Dead

on the battlefield or on the barbwire of social strife. Her rosary she prays and fingers
endlessly like the family working down a row of beets to turn around and work and work There is no end. Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth and all the love for me, And I am her And she is me. We face life together in sorrow. anger, joy faith and wishful thoughts.

I shed tears of anguish as I see my children disappear behind the shroud of mediocrity never to look back to remember me. I am Joaquin.

I must fight And win this struggle for my sons, and they must know from me Who I am. Part of the blood that runs deep in me Could not be vanquished by the Moors I defeated them after five hundred years, and I endured. The part of blood that is mine has labored endlessly five-hundred years under the heel of lustful Europeans

I am still here!

I have endured in the rugged mountains of our country I have survived the toils and slavery, of the fields. I have existed in the barrios of the city, in the suburbs of bigotry,
in the mines of social snobbery, in the prisons of dejection, in the muck of exploitation
and in the fierce heat of racial hatred.

And now the trumpet sounds, The music of the people stirs the Revolution, Like a sleeping giant it slowly rears its head to the sound of Tramping feet Clamouring voices Marlachi strains Fiery tequila explosions The smell of chile verde and Soft brown eyes of expectation for a better life

And in all the fertile farm lands, the barren plains, the mountain villages,
smoke smeared cities

We start to MOVE. La Raza! Mejicano! Español! Latino! Hispano! Chicano! or whatever I call myself, I look the same I feel the same I cry and Sing the same

I am the masses of my people and I refuse to be absorbed. I am Joaquin
The odds are great but my spirit is strong My faith unbreakable My blood is pure
I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ

I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!

Letter to Joaquin in the Poem “I am Joaquin”,
Joaquin, this is Pepe, I have wanted to write you a letter for many years. I wanted to let you how things are in 2009. After more than 40 years since you wrote, our people still suffer within the gringo society that conditions and forces us to chose in a world of confusion as we go about trying to exist.
Today we live in a world of denial our home life, values, and culture is still scorned by programmed attitudes, we continue to be suppressed by the manipulations of a society that is in a constant state of change.
We have now lost both the battle of economic power and cultural survival. We have been sold out by the few of us who made it, at the expense of our children’s future. We live in a state of denial, where our competencies, values, and morals at whim are questioned when they themselves write the rules we attempt to live by.
We now turn on ourselves, as we deny that our once proud race now has the society’s highest pregnancies amongst our young beautiful princesses as they struggle to find themselves in world created by lack of Hispanic parent involvement that does not accept them for who they are. Our children face a complex battle of choosing the preparation of their parents in lieu of society’s indoctrination which chain us like slaves of the past. As we judge one another instead of helping each other like once did.
I too shed tears of sorrow while our Hispanic children suffer from the lack of education necessary to compete in the gringo world as today we have the highest drop-outs as not enough of us seem to care enough to stand for those of who can’t.
America is without doubt stronger today because of our past contributions but no one seems to care enough to include us still today in history books we educate. We can take a bullet for her but we are not good enough to obtain financing to make them for her. We are overlooked by most, but most important, our own, as they fight for recognition among themselves while protecting their more important image, as we struggle for the economic scraps left by the gringo society in which we live.
Our children no longer have the safety of their families or our people as we once did, our children play with the drug lords who now they inspire to be.
We have come farther to nowhere where a few of us have made it but the masses are still lost in the rhetoric of who is right or wrong. You know the politics of whose better while the children still suffer from the lack of our involvement.
We are no longer a proud nation as we have lost our identity as we find ourselves in a maze that we did not create. There is no doubt, however, it is our own fault because we still fear the patron who controls the work and monies necessary to survive that we don’t even vote. Even our empresarios fear the loss of what they do not own at expense of our children because they care not enough to be involved
The battles fought and won made no difference as far too many of us suffer so that a few can be celebrated and used by the gringos to champion their cause. Little do they realize of what value are riches when gotten at the expense of our children’s future, pride, and culture.
Long are forgotten all the positives we once shared. Unlike our black African brothers, we simply did not care enough to be involved not as gringos but as the Hispanics, Chicanos, or Mexicanos we are. We are still confused as we choose between the paradox of victory of spirit with our now more insistent hunger to just survive.
Those who have made it, found a way to claw themselves from the despair of the economy of the barrio forgot who they were, as they now rub with more gringo shoulders than they do ours. To proud to forget past confrontations among ourselves at the expense of our children’s future, they forgot to be Christian and fend for those who could not.
Our masses hurt even more today because, like the past, gringo promises of inclusion are still an illusion today which robs us and our children of hope. But, Joaquin, do not despair; we will continue the fight in spite of ourselves. In the scheme of things what does it matter that lives are at stake today in the tomorrow when I hear Hispanic leaders say “I made it, they can if they want too bad enough.” Little do they remember we all help them too?
Well I better let you go now as I hear children crying from loss of hope of the American dream because Hispanics do care not enough to simply be involved.
Pepe C.

Beautiful poem. I first heard this poem in the movie, "Walk Out", then I searched and found the original. (long version)

It can be said that our grandparents were "Joaquin"

"We start to MOVE. La Raza! Mejicano! Español! Latino! Hispano! Chicano! or whatever I call myself, I look the same I feel the same I cry and Sing the same.

I am the masses of my people and I refuse to be absorbed. I am Joaquin

The odds are great but my spirit is strong My faith unbreakable My blood is pure
I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ

I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!"

WOW. just beautiful.