I write about wealth, because soon after college, I realized that wealth is simply another form of power, whether we like it or not.  I think the most obvious example of how I realized that our movement was at a disadvantage without it is how many, including myself, had no other responsible option except to leave the movement in order to support our families.

The simple fact is that few are sufficiently wealthy, as an individual, to focus many hours per week on rebuilding our people, especially those with a family.  Further, we have not organized wealth in a collective fashion in order to cover a salary for those who would like to work for our people.  Black churches have done so in their communities, and while I would venture to guess that our we have a stronger strain of entrepreneurialism in our community, almost nothing has been done to organize wealth in a collective fashion in order to better our community.  This, in part, answers the fashionable question as to why there is no national so-called Latino leader.  There is no black church organizing the wealth in our community to pay the leader.  MLK had many black churches behind him.  Malcolm had the Nation of Islam paying his expenses. 

Of course the radical solution to this is simply to neutralize and overturn the existing order, take over and then have a redistribution of wealth.  I agree, but it won’t happen anytime soon, so as we yell “Chicano Power” and “Power To The People,” we must remember that wealth is simply another form of power.  It is true that just as there are better ways to organize political power than what the current order offers, there are also better ways to organize the wealth than what the current order offers.

I understand, but don’t agree, with the argument that things like voting and wealth creation is simply a validation of the current occupation.  I found quickly that you can’t pay your rent with morals and ideas.  And that’s really all I mean by wealth creation, a way to cover our expenses, personal and organizationally, so that we can go about the business of Our Restoration.  I don’t mean big cars; I don’t mean flashy watches. 

I would guess that Corky Gonzales was so effective because he had created personal sources of wealth for himself that freed up his time.  He sold insurance and had a neighborhood bar.  A few local organizations today come to mind.  Centro Aztlan has a model which allows itself to cover its own bills, and America Para Todos does as well.

There exists today a whole cult/industry of wealth creation, which I had never paid attention to.  I’ve never read or heard much about it except the title.  Yesterday I was given a CD to listen to by Robert Kiwasaki (or however you spell it), author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.  He is one of the icons of the wealth creation cult.  A lot of what he said was sales BS so that you could join his multi-level marketing company.  I was surprised, however, how some of his ideas echoed some of what we already know.

He said that the schools intentionally underducate us so that the rich can keep us as good, hard workers for their companies.  He criticized the typical middle class buying patterns as having been suckered into thinking that luxury items equated with wealth.  He said essentially, that we are trained to be (debt) slaves from the time that we are born.

I fear that if we discount the power of organized wealth, in favor of only political power, we are ignoring an important part of the equation for liberation.  I realize that part of why we have ignored it is because wealth creation is not easy, fun or glamorous.  There is little immediate gratification in collectively creating wealth.  The gratification comes when you can fund your own projects without bowing your head to anyone.

Besides the lack of personal efficacy in such work, many worry about continuing to empower the very system, and sometimes the very same corporations, which have historically contributed to the theft of Mexican land, the invasion of Central American countries and slavery.  Historically speaking, corporate America has disempowered minorities through systematic discrimination, loan usury and deception.

Less dependence

Self employment may not be a permanent or final solution to our community’s problems, but it creates less dependence on the above-described system.  As wise men have taught for years, dependence is control.  Texts as varied as the ancient Bible to the very modern 48 Laws of Power describe how creating dependence is simply a form of control.  Self employment via small businesses and professional services, offers individuals a way to avoid having many aspects of their lives controlled by a system that many times acts contrary to their own and their community’s interests.  It also acts to create a pool of individuals who have the position to protest and to rebel without being overly concerned that their livelihoods will be destroyed.

Values

Further we are at a time in which our community is facing a crisis of values.  Those in the middle class quickly get caught up in the materialism revered by a middle class lifestyle, and children of working class too often follow the path taught to them by a hyped up prison culture, which is targeted to them.  Communal, neighborly all-for-one values have all but disappeared.  Small business, by nature, requires certain values, which I believe our community sorely needs more of.  Small business people, in these times, are required to make the best decisions with their money, as opposed to spending it to keep up appearances.  Additionally, small business people are required to be team builders, and we need teams of closely knit people in our barrios.  Finally, you will hardly find a successful small business person without a tremendous work ethic, which is required during this time of Our Restoration.  These values can be found in all places, but many are prerequisites to have a successful business, and I have met many self-employed visit who exhibit these values and who have developed them through their businesses.

Socialization

Perhaps most importantly, is the public role that so-called Latino entrepreneurs play.  Small business people can wield a great deal of influence in the socialization process.  I have said over and over, that the path of success for our people does not lie in assimilation.  The most commercially successful immigrant group to the Americas has been the American Anglo.  He has been in these lands for almost four hundred years, and he has still refused to learn the Native language!  Not despite this, but rather because of this and other factors, he has been able to commercially dominate all others.  On a subconscious level, the work environment plays a great role in how our people think, behave and even if we value our own culture.  We spend more time at work than we do with our own family.  Work environments can either be a vehicle of assimilation or a vehicle in which we learn to respect and admire the idea of investing in our own community by valuing and practicing our own culture.

By no means do I intend to glorify all small business owners.  There are many small business owners, consumed with greed and their own success, who have ripped many people off.  Some small business owners fail to pay their workers adequately or at all.  The point that I am making is that our community has the oportunity to devise an intelligent way to use self employment for our communal improvement and for individual success.  It is one of the rare ways in which we may both improve our own individual standing and help to improve our community, when too often these interests are competitive.

Martinez, however, is only one of the recent Latinos involved in such a case. The one immediately prior to Martinez involved Carlos Almante, of Dominican heritage. He was arrested in the summer, after he boarded a plane headed to Somalia. According to officials, he was headed to join a group called al-Shabab, a group which the US government considers to be a terrorist group. Besides these two cases, three other cases like these have occurred since 9/11, with some cases making international headlines.

In a report to NPR, Juan Zarate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies tells us the following: “It is not like folks are worried about vast communities or sub-communities of Latinos joining al-Qaida…It’s both the nature of these individuals but also their case studies, the substantive dimensions of their work, and who they are in contact with, and what they represent that I think is why Latino converts have garnered some attention from counterterrorism analysts and the community.”

Generally, it is the profile of the converts that is being studied. Most of these converts are middle class and native born, according to reports. There is also great activity of conversion occurring in prison. Most social scientists analyze reasons for social activities through endogenous (internal) and exogenous (external) forces.

Internal Factors
Inside our community right now, there is a great deal of change for many, many families. Millions of families have gone through the process of migration, completely adapting to a new lifestyle , and country. At the same time, many of the forces that kept the community going at home have not travelled with them. Our people, far from home, have failed to adapt new social activities that fully cement their children to the new community. So the second and third generations often feel rootless, “lost.”

At the same time, a few of our sub-communities have been called to reflect, or to be “found.” Middle class youth, generally, have more time and encouragement for such reflection, and prisoners find themselves in circumstances in which a lack of reflection is a prescription for perdition. At this point in time, there are more US middle class Latino youth than at any time in modern history. There are also more prisoners as a percentage of the Latino population than at any time in modern history. This has created two sub-communities of our people who have the time, motivation and desire to reflect. So what do their reflections teach?

External Factors
If anyone takes the time to reflect on our current position in society, they will quickly find that the United States simply does not want us here, despite us being the original caretakers of this part of the world. Now that they have done as they will with our labor, and now that the economic boom is over, our cries for human rights and dignity are extremely inconvenient for some portions of white America. This analysis is supported by the current immigration policy. The government’s lack of will to give us comprehensive immigration reform only reflects society’s desire to kick us out. The longer that we go without reform, the more our families are deported, and the less they have to deal with our communities.

The other external factor is that our leaders have failed to provide a practical alternative framework in which to funnel this cultural angst and reflection. Migrants, by upbringing, have a health and justifiable distrust of existing authorities of all kinds. Their children have learned to have the same distrust of existing parties, religious figures and other mainstays of social life. These institutions have totally failed our people in this country as well, and they continue to fail with more frequency. Our leaders have failed to fashion any pragmatic force which truly questions existing political, religious or social orthodoxy. They have only provided more of the same.

There is one movement, however, which questions all of the above. It is provided, not coincidentally, by another group being kicked around by the political and tea-party classes: Muslims. Muslims have not failed to provide a framework for such questioning. I wholeheartedly feel that neither radical nor terroristic nor trasitional Islam is the solution for our people, even though I have a great respect for the religion. I hope to provide here an understanding as to why some of our people have found this to be a solution.

We need a movement of our own which addresses the social, political and religious questions that our people have, a movement not based in terrorism, but based in Our Restoration as a people. If we do not provide a practical vehicle for such a movement, others will. As for me, I am fully confident that we will soon begin our march toward Our Restoration.

Struggle

Because our people have been seeking barely to survive for so long, we have developed a defense mechanism in which our first solution is to go around problems.  Rather than confront problems head on, rather than being willing to sacrifice even a little bit, our people have been trained to go around barriers, rather than to smash them.  This tendency is also due, in part, to our tendencies to see problems and challenges as our own.  Rather than looking at a barrier and asking, “How can WE smash this barrier,” our people have tended to look at the problem and ask, “How can I go around this challenge, so that there is the least stress and problem on ME?”  Our people will never come out of the intellectual darkness in which we find ourselves, as long as we are unwilling to sacrifice, even in small part, some of our comfort and time.  As long as our goal is leisure and materialism, we will never see our destiny.  It is through common struggle, sacrifice and commitment on the part of our people that we will begin our journey to a better place.  What have you given up for the betterment of your people?

History/Culture

If we are to become a people who exemplify world-class civilization, we must begin to recover our true history and our true culture.  Every civilization who serves as a beacon of hope to other people in the world, place a great emphasis on their own history and culture.  The society is willing to sacrifice time, resources and energy to educate their children in their people’s history.  Often, due to our daily toil to provide the basics for our family, we forget the importance of our own people’s history.  We don’t put forth the effort required to teach our children this important part of who we are.  Many times we do not know ourselves, but it is imperative that we make the effort to find out.  At the same time that we don’t explore our own history and culture, we are provided the history and culture of another people.  Our reality is replaced by that of another, and we quickly assume the place in society of those people who do bother to teach us their history.  We must learn our own history so that we me be ready to assume the proper place in our own history.   

Collective Strategies

            When we begin to adopt some of the other values, we will begin to realize, that besides learning we must take action.  This is when our strategies as a community will become most important.  We can no longer think as our problems with poor education, poor immigration systems, and poor health care as merely a personal problem.  It is important to deal with these issues on an individual level, but we must also look at mutual solutions, because these problems are of a mutual nature!  The problems that you might have with the school are the same problems that your neighbors have.  If we continue to deal with these challenges in our own respective corners, we are limiting our power and our potential.  We must also pay great attention to how we use the power that we do have.  It has been estimated that the purchasing power of the so-called Latino will reach one billion dollars soon.  If we use that money at businesses that support our community, and withhold that money from businesses that do not, we will be better off for it.

Identity

Finally, few other people in the world are as confused about their identity as we are.  We are neither less nor more “mestizo” than many other people in the world.  However, we have been brainwashed into believing that Spain, somehow, is our mother culture or that we are proud to be “mestizo.”  This was popularly evident during the world cup, when most people from Mexico and Central America rooted for Spain, because they were under the illusion that Spain was their mother culture.  Spain was never our mother.  Spain was an invading force.  Spain committed unspeakable crimes to our ancestors and to our culture, the effects of which we suffer from today.  African Americans have a significant portion of white blood, but they recognized that their ancestors were raped by Europeans.  Even Spaniards, have a high degree of African blood, because Spain was occupied by the Moors for seven centuries.  Intelligently, neither group promotes a mixed-blood identity.  They recognized their mixture as a historical relic of oppression.  We must do the same.

As we become to adopt these, and many other important values, we will begin a long march toward our promised destiny.

At times, our activities have been very effective, and at times they have not been.

In the past few years, I have wondered why we must organize in a perpetual defensive struggle if we want to make change for our community. I have wondered why we must tackle one issue after another, when it is obvious to me that all of the problems stem from the same general conditions in our community. I have wondered why most people who become involved in the struggle seem to have a maximum participation limit of six months to two years.

These problems have seemed historically inherent in the movement to educate and liberate our people. I believe that these problems found in our movement are all related to one fundamental flaw in our all of our movements, and that the problem can be found in movements from the Mexican Revolution to the Chicano Movement. The problem that all of our movements have faced is that we have put very little effort, if any, into reeducating, rehabilitating and improving our principles as a community.

Generally, the movements have channeled the people against the prevailing order by convincing the people that it was in their personal interest to participate. While this has been correct, there has been little emphasis placed on making a permanent change and rehabilitation of our people’s values and worldview.

This explains the phenomena of people once again becoming passive once the movement has achieved part of its goals. I believe, however, that if there were a permanent cultural shift if principles, goals and outlook, we would have a standing cadre of units ready to confront the short term political problems which we face, and an even bigger community of people working on long term permanent goals for our people. I call this process Our Restoration (O/R).

During Our Restoration, we must work toward improving our mentality in such a way that we will put the greatest talents to work toward a better future, and we must work to root out those values which have a destructive impact on our people.

Brother/Sisterhood

Over the years, it has been called carnalismo, compadrazgo and a few other things. At its core, carnalismo is the idea that we are much more than a collection of individuals. We are born into a community whose history and culture we love and identify with. We should consider other members of this community our brothers and sisters, and when we see them being abused by outsiders, we must defend them. It is easy to lose faith in this principle when we see so many in the professional and political classes, and even people in the streets, of our own kind taking advantage of the people, but we must not lose faith. Instead of throwing this principle away we must hold these people accountable to the best of our ability. I believe, as we were taught by the student group MEChA that “La Union Hace La Fuerza.”

Justice

As a people we must begin to concern ourselves with issues of justice. Even on a personal level, we have a tendency to demand less of what it right from the people with whom we do business. When we are made to wait for hours for some service, we wait with no complaint. If we find that we have been overcharged, we make little effort to collect. We rarely, if ever, take the time to complain to superiors. This comes from low self-esteem which has been given us over generations. In essence, we don’t believe that we are worth what is just; we don’t believe that we are entitled to speedy service or even honesty. This behavior and attitude is the same one that we apply to our community’s problems. We have almost no appetite for fighting for what is just. We must leave this behavior and complex in the past, and we must demand nothing less than the best from ourselves with respect to fighting for what is right. As we begin to have the confidence to stand up for ourselves individually, we will begin to make it part of our identity to fight for the community.

Analysis and Education

It is too easy for me to provide my analysis as to why our community is in the state that it is in. Unfortunately, it will be irrelevant until enough of us begin to care to find out the reason for themselves. We, as so-called Latinos, are not poor by accident. We are not trafficked by accident. We are not provided inadequate schools by accident. We are not repressed by the police by accident. We are not emasculated by this economy by accident. It is easy enough to look at what we have here and be satisfied, but this intellectual laziness is not sufficient for Our Restoration. Our migrant brothers and sisters are satisfied with what they have accumulated in the US as compared to what they might have in El Salvador, Mexico, and Guatemala. Our middle class professionals, like attorneys, bank managers and real estate brokers are quick to say that the system is working for them. It is only intellectual laziness, a lack of curiosity and a hidden self esteem issue which stops us from becoming infuriated over the political and economic conditions that caused the migration in the first place and the institutionalized racism that prevents attorneys from believing that they should be in-line for Attorney General of Our Nation. It is not the lack of knowledge which is destroying us today; it is the general lack of interest in such knowledge which we must first overcome. As we make it a part of our culture to find out why these conditions are heaped upon our people, we will be closer to achieving our full potential as a people.

Check back next issue for a continuation of this column.

A veces, nuestras actividades han sido muy eficaces, y en ocasiones no los han sido.

En los últimos años, me he preguntado a mi mismo “¿Por qué hay que organizar en una lucha defensiva perpetua si queremos lograr un cambio para nuestra comunidad? ¿Por qué tenemos que enfrentar a un tema tras otro, cuando es obvio para mí que todos los problemas se derivan de las mismas condiciones generales de nuestra comunidad? ¿Por qué la mayoría de las personas que se involucran en la lucha parece tener un límite de participación máxima de seis meses a dos años?”

Estos problemas han parecido históricamente inherentes a movimientos para educar y liberar a nuestro pueblo. Creo que estos problemas se encuentran en nuestro movimiento están todos relacionados con una falla fundamental en todos nuestros movimientos, y que el problema se puede encontrar en los movimientos de la Revolución Mexicana al Movimiento Chicano. El problema que todos nuestros movimientos se han enfrentado es que hemos puesto muy poco esfuerzo, a la reeducación, rehabilitación y mejora de nuestros principios como una comunidad.

En general, los movimientos han canalizado a la gente contra el orden imperante, convenciendo a la gente que estaba en su interés personal a participar. Si bien esto ha sido correcto, ha habido poco énfasis puesto en hacer un cambio permanente y la rehabilitación de los valores de nuestro pueblo y su visión del mundo.

Esto explica los fenómenos del pueblo que una vez más se convierte en pasivo una vez que el movimiento ha logrado parte de sus objetivos. Creo, sin embargo, que si había un cambio cultural permanente, si los principios, objetivos y perspectivas, tendríamos un grupo permanente de unidades listas para enfrentar los problemas de corto plazo, y una comunidad aún mayor de personas que trabajan a largo plazo los objetivos permanentes de nuestro pueblo. Le digo a este proceso Nuestra Restauración (N / R).

Durante Nuestra Restauración, debemos trabajar para mejorar nuestra mentalidad, de tal manera que vamos a poner los mayores talentos a trabajar hacia un futuro mejor, y debemos trabajar para erradicar esos valores que tienen un impacto destructivo sobre nuestro pueblo.

Fraternidad

Tras los años, se ha conocido como carnalísimo, compadrazgo, hermandad y algunas otras cosas. En su esencia, carnalísimo es la idea de que somos mucho más que una colección de individuos. Nacemos en una comunidad cuya historia y la cultura amamos y con las cuales nos identificamos. Debemos tener en cuenta los demás miembros de esta comunidad como nuestros hermanos y hermanas, y cuando los vemos siendo abusado por los extranjeros, tenemos que defenderlos. Es fácil perder la fe en este principio cuando vemos tantos de nuestra comunidad en las categorías profesional y política, e incluso la gente en las calles aprovechándose de la gente, pero no debemos perder la fe. En vez de rechazar este principio debemos mantener a estas personas responsables en la medida de nuestra capacidad. Creo que, como nos han enseñado por el grupo estudiantil MEChA, “La Unión Hace la Fuerza.”

Justicia

Como pueblo, debemos comenzar a preocuparnos por los problemas de la justicia. Incluso a nivel personal, tenemos una tendencia a exigir muy poco de las personas con quienes hacemos negocios. Cuando nos hacen esperar horas para algún servicio, esperamos sin queja. Si descubrimos que hemos sido cobrados de más, hacemos poco esfuerzo para recoger. Rara vez o nunca se toman el tiempo para quejarse a los superiores. Esto viene de una baja autoestima que se nos ha dado a través de generaciones. En esencia, no creemos que vale la pena la justicia, y no creemos que tenemos derecho a un servicio rápido o incluso a la honestidad. Este comportamiento y la actitud es la misma que aplicamos a los problemas de nuestra comunidad. Casi no tenemos ganas de luchar por lo que es justo. Debemos dejar este comportamiento y complejo en el pasado, y debemos exigir nada menos que lo mejor de nosotros mismos con respecto a luchar por lo que es correcto. A medida que empezamos a tener la confianza necesaria para luchar por nosotros mismos de forma individual, vamos a empezar a hacer parte de nuestra identidad luchar por la comunidad.

Análisis y Educación

Es demasiado fácil para mí dar mi análisis de por qué nuestra comunidad está en el estado actual. Desafortunadamente, será irrelevante hasta el número suficiente de nosotros comienza a la atención para averiguar la razón por sí mismos. Nosotros, como mal-nombrados latinos, no somos pobres por accidente. No somos traficados por accidente. No tenemos escuelas inadecuadas por accidente. No son reprimidos por la policía por accidente. No estamos castrados económicamente por accidente. Es bastante fácil ver lo que tenemos aquí y estar satisfechos, pero la pereza intelectual no es suficiente para Nuestra Restauración. Nuestros hermanos y hermanas migrantes están satisfechos con lo que se han acumulado en los EE.UU. en comparación a lo que podría haber en El Salvador, México y Guatemala. Nuestros profesionales de clase media, como abogados, gerentes de bancos y corredores de bienes raíces se apresuran a decir que el sistema está trabajando para ellos. Es sólo la pereza intelectual, la falta de curiosidad y un autoestima baja que nos impide ser enfurecido por las condiciones políticas y económicas que provocó la migración en el primer lugar y el racismo institucionalizado que impide que los abogados de creer que deben estar en línea para el Procurador General de Nuestra Nación. No es la falta de conocimiento que nos está destruyendo hoy en día, es la falta general de interés en el conocimiento que primero tenemos que superar. En cuanto lo integramos como parte de nuestra cultura averiguar por qué estas condiciones se amontonan a nuestro pueblo, estaremos más cerca de alcanzar nuestro potencial como personas.

Busque a la próxima edición para ver la continuación de este editorial.

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama’s rejoinder by Fox’s Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. “It took a president to get it done.”

I think, essentially, in the mind of many, traditional white liberals, the politicking required to pass contentious bills requires white insiders, since they are the axis of all power.  They could be correct.  We can argue this point, but the point that I’m trying to make is that passing bills that stir up white resentment, requires ugly, ugly politics.  There are various examples where Johnson called the Civil Rights Bill “the nigger bill” in order to sell it to white racists:

Desegregation is a fine example. Johnson was a Southerner who could talk comfortably to other Southerners in the vernacular. “Sam, why don’t you-all let this nigger bill pass?” he asked Sam Rayburn during the congressional debate on the 1957 civil rights bill. Even as late as 1965, when, as President, he appointed the first black associate justice to the United States Supreme Court, he privately used the same pejorative term to describe his appointee. When a young Texas attorney joining his staff suggested a fine but obscure black federal judge for the position, Johnson said, “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the Court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.” The attorney never heard him speak about blacks that way again and believed that Johnson was playing a part and trying to create a kind of rapport between two “good old Southern boys” at their first meeting.

This posturing aside, Johnson, according to the White House aide Harry McPherson, was “your typical Southern liberal who would have done a lot more in the field of civil rights early in his career had it been possible; but the very naked reality was that if you did take a position … it was almost certain that you would be defeated … by a bigot.… But Johnson was one of those men early on who disbelieved in the Southern racial system and who thought that the salvation for the South lay through economic progress for everybody.”

He epitomized Malcolm’s caricature of the white liberal who grins in your face and has secret interests as soon as he turns his back.  So we can extrapolate as to what sort of language Clinton would have used to pass her agenda, considering that she painted herself as an heir to Johnson’s legacy. Anyway, back to the issue at hand.

It is doubtful that Dems will come around to CIR soon, but if they do, the language being used and the results might be something different than what many Democratic voters had hoped for. Politico.com writes about the get-tough strategy that many Dems are adopting:

Long pilloried for being soft on illegal immigration, top Democratic officials have concluded there’s only one way they can hope to pass a comprehensive immigration bill:

Talk more like Republicans….

The 12 million people who unlawfully reside the country? Call them “illegal immigrants,” not “undocumented workers,” the pollsters say.

Strip out the empathy, too. Democrats used to offer immigrants “an earned path to citizenship” so hardworking people trying to support their families could “come out of the shadows.” To voters, that sounded like a gift, the operatives concluded…

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), author of the Democratic immigration plan, scolds advocates who refer to illegal immigrants as “undocumented workers.”

The article doesn’t say what term Schumer prefers. I assume that it’s “illegals,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if the term “wetback” has slipped in here and there in private meetings.  I’m sure we’ll find out in ten or fifteen years about these “indiscretions,” when someone figures out that they can make millions off of a book deal.

So there are our white saviors in all their glory. They can save us, but they might have to jack us around and dehumanize us in the process. God Bless America.  Am I making too much semantics?  Perhaps, but more importantly than politico.com’s article: I see where this is headed.

The lesson that can be learned by this comparison, can be learned by asking where black America gone since desegregation.

Granted, it has created an upwardly mobile class of power brokers; bourgeois careerists and a class of bureaucrats. Oh yeah, and blacks can use the same toilets as whites.  It definitely quelled the mission of black nationalists to seek independent forms of development, investment and power structures steeped in revolutionary values.  Instead of developing the ghettos and developing the infrastructure for blacks to employ blacks, the Civil Rights Act provided an avenue for black white flight and corporatism.  Was this a step forward?  For some, but not for many.  I don’t think that’s what the masses were fighting for. I really, really don’t.

However, these sort of politics, of give and take, of backroom details, create the sort of policy that effectively quiets the movement leadership via tokenism. It does the very minimum to get the leadership out of the beast’s face by providing jobs and titles TO THE TOKENS.

Applying this to CIR: I have always maintained that CIR is not enough; it is only a starting point. My own instinct is to go the other direction: to seek independence, but I know that is not on the minds of the people. So I support CIR because I believe it can be a good first step to something greater. It’s what the people, the vast majority of the people, want right now. Perhaps, once drawn out of the shadows, the people will be more open to understanding the greater problems and greater solutions. I say this because more than one of our supporters has dropped out due to problems over immigration. I fully understand that you have a much smaller interest in learning about the historical impact of colonialism on ourselves today, when you are afraid you won’t be able to keep a roof over your family’s head.  As a father, and as a husband, I understand that position.

So was the Civil Rights Act worth it?  Is CIR worth this sort of dirty politics?  There are at least two classes of people working and writing about the issue. 

There are those who will go to the table kicking and screaming, claiming that what is on the table is not enough.  We do this, because we really believe that it is not enough.  It will never be enough.  But we also do this because we don’t want to participate in those backroom deals because of what it produces. 

Inadvertantly, we aid the other class of people involved in the struggle: the power brokers, the Andy Sterns, the establishment non-profits, etc., the people who just increase their usefulness to the corporate and political masters.  They wrestle the community into whatever will disturb the establishment the least, but only when the establishment is ready, when they attune their media machine and say”go.”  They set the parameters of the debate.  They give us the choice between X or Y,  and this class of participants sell whichever they think is better and call it “political realism.”

If political realism is slapping us in our face to save us, I’ll pass.  No Wetback Bill for me:  I’ll go to the grave talking shit and fighting, rather than to become a salesman for the system, and these sorts of politics.  I realize that I will normally lose the battle, but I hope to plant seeds for a project that might bloom in generations.  My great-great grandfather, Ignacio Balli Tijerina III, wrote extensively of the Anglo Incursion.  He writes sarcastically:

“I don’t dare risk the importance of of those miserable insolent people of superior race who have wrongly acquired these Mexican land grants. ”

He continues:

“They are lured by a magnet taking our properties.  So we won’t cry, they pay us a days work, like when someone takes a jewel of value from a young boy and gives him a toy made of clay.  This is what happens in Texas!  I repeat I don’t deceive myself…the injustice of these ill-bred octopi with lucrative power and ambition.”

Since the time he wrote this, my family has conceded many things, sometimes by force, sometimes by necessity, and sometimes just because we knew better.  We have conceded to this system land, taxes, our children to war etc.  But we have not conceded our dignity nor our principles. 

To clarify, I do want CIR, but I will not support anything less than what we deserve, and much less the product of something that makes us out to be aliens.  So don’t look for me to support a bill, a party or a president if they go off the deep end with enforcement and “touch backs” or whatever they have up their sleeves.

The day that I lay down my principles for political expediency, is the day that I stop being me.

The lack of wealth (assets) in our community is a great contributory factor to us being unable to be proactive (nation building) in our approach to Our Restoration (O/R).  Young “Latinas”: stop buying Coach purses before you own any assets.  Twenty-year-old “Latinos”: stop buying forty thousand dollar cars before you own a home (I think even Scarface said this on one of his albums, The Resurrection?).  Such purchases are foolishness revealed.

You might well “deserve” the luxury items that gringos flaunt, but that doesn’t mean it is the best thing for you.  Apparently, when gringos buy these items, generally they can afford it.

Our community will never rise as long as we are controlled by the wage-payers.  As long as we are controlled by gringo wage-payers we will be too scared to break the chains of colonization.

I break from the pure leftists here, who refuse to criticize our colonized behavior, in favor of blaming only the system.  It is true that the wealth gap is not only due to our poor spending habits.  There are huge social factors which contribute to it.  But we must begin to focus on our individual behaviors as well. Many luxury items that we are hooked on end up being worth nothing within the span of five years.

In the meantime, those items could have produced a lesser dependence on the system. This is an ethical battle between the materialism that we are taught is necessary in order to define our masculinity and femininity and what is best for ourselves, our family and our community.

Un discurso en español elaborado por Hector A. Chavana Jr.

Haz cliq para escuchar.

He asked me to include his contact information:
(323)830-7479
zemazatzin @ hotmail.com
www.aztekayolokalli.com

Happy New Year to all, in this European colonial calendar count. It is a new year because we are measuring it from exactly 365.25 days before…so it is definitely a new year cycle.

El Maestro

On march 12, 2010, when the Sun first appears on the horizon the new year on the Ancient Mexika Chronological System will begin, and it will travel in 20 day cycles, 18 of them, giving us 360 days, then a small period of 5 1/4 days will complete the Solar year. The ancient ones used the last 5 and 1/4 days in a special way, setting them aside to dedicate for Reflection, Balance and Adjustment in reviewing the previous year and planning the new one.

They developed this system by learning to respect everything and everybody that surrounded them, and learning by patient obeservation and careful study that they were at once a great duality as an individual and as Cosmos. They not only developed the most precise system ever invented to measure and record time and space but they also incorporated that knowledge into their lives and their daily living obeying this law of duality, not in a superstitious way but in a scientific sense.

In essence what our most ancient ancestors found was that time was the most common denominator and that each individual living being had a right to as much of it as he could adequately use and enjoy, particularly if it represented use and enjoyment for the whole. They treated every day (actually every piece of time) with respect, knowing that every day presented an attitude, a priviledge and a warning.

This kind of thinking probably sounds a little too strange or Utopia…like…too good to be true…but there is proof and evidence, traces, and more importantly it is still practiced today, and can be taught and relearned. But it is very important to know that this type of thinking and life ways are not “indian” ways…these are human life ways that existed here, and probably all over the earth, long before anybody decided to call all the original peoples of this western hemisphere “indians”. This is simply a human story and their relationship with nature at the rhythm of the Cosmos.

None of this story is found in history.

Today on the first day of school at CCSF in the History of Mexico class the first lecture stated the fact that is supposed to lay without rebuttal or challenge “…everybody thought that the maya were very peaceful people, but now we know they were bloody too, because we can read the maya glyphs..and everyone knows that the Azteks based their society on warefare and sacrifice”, etc…etc… casting thousands of years and lives dedicated to finding that balance and taking their responsibility serious into the black hole of his-story.

On this day, 11 Jaguar, Matlaktli ze Ozelotl, my son looked at me and we smiled, fortunately on the way to the class we were discussing the day and all the possibilities it presented for us…so, like a Jaguar we used those qualities of being audacious and did not let anything bother us, then we used those tenacious qualities of the Jaguar to make our move, and we stayed after the class and waited patiently to meet the teacher and begin our new relationship with him as an ally in this mission to regain that equilibrium.

In our personal experience with original peoples from Onondaga in “canada” to Machu Picchu in “peru” we have found that the thread of time and the respect thereof runs throughout uniting one people, one culture, one continent with a multitude of customs and traditions. All original peoples life ways were based on the most simple yet profound acknowledgement and respect of the elements that give life, and their personal relationship with nature. Very interesting also was the fact that the original names of the peoples all refer to humans… people.

In conclusion, I submit this thought; a great big part of our lack of identity and progress as a people (hue-mans) comes from continuing to use and demanding that other original peoples use the term “indian” to define ourselves and our millenial life stories. When this happens we have no inheritance to offer our children, in short denying them their birth right.

The big problem with americans is that they don’t behave like humans.

Que Viva La Revolucion