I am Joaquín:
An Epic Poem, 1967
By Rudolfo "Corky" Gonzales
My Translation/Interpertation of "I am Joaquin"
I am Joaquín
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 lose 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,
Unwilling 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 of within
the
circle
of life…
MY
OWN PEOPLE
I am Cuauhtémoc,
Proud and Noble
Leader
of men,
King of an empire,
civilized
beyond dreams
of
the Gachupín Cortez.
Who is also the blood,
the
image of myself.
I am the Maya Prince.
I am Nezahualcóyotl,
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 crow of
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
Spainard,
Mestizo
Were all God’s children
And
from these few 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
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
Guachupines y que viva
la
Virgen de Guadalupe….”
I sentenced him
who was me.
I excommunicated him in 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 come this way,
I placed on that fortress wall
to wait for
independence,
Morelos!
Guerrero!
All Compañeros
in the act,
STOOD AGAIN THAT WALL OF
INFAMY
to
feel the hot gouge of lead
which my hand 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.
The crown was gone
but 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 Juárez
Gaurdian of the Constitution.
I was him
on dusty roads
on barren land
as
he protected his archives
as
Moses did his sacraments.
He held his
in his hand
on
the most desolate
and remote ground
which was his country,
And this Giant
Little Zapotec
gave
not
one’s palm’s breath
of
his country to
Kings or Monarchs or Presidents
of
foreign powers.
I am Joaquín.
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 earthy
people
I am Emiliano
Zapata.
“This Land
This
Earth
Is
OURS”
The Villages
The Mountains
The
Streams
Belong to the Zapatistas
Our
Life
Or yours
is the only trade for soft brown earth
and maize
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.
I ride with Revolutionists
against myself.
I am Rural
Coarse
and brutal,
I am the mountain Indian,
superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my
horses.
The chattering of machines gun
is death to all of me:
Yaqui
Taramura
Chamula
Zapotec
Mestizo
Español
I have been the Bloody Revolution,
The Victor,
The Vanquished,
I have killed.
I
am the despots Díaz
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 Virgin de Guadalupe
Tonantzin, Aztec Goddess too.
I rode as far
East and North
as the
and
all
men feared the guns of
Joaquín
Murrieta.
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 full.
I was the Espinosa brothers
of the Valle de San Luis
All
were
added to the number of heads
that
in
the name of civilization
were
place on the wall of independence.
Heads of brave men
who died for cause
and principle.
Good or Bad.
Murrieta!
Espinoza!
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
am the campesino
I
am the fat political coyote
I,
of
the same name,
Joaquín.
In a country that has wiped out
all
my history,
stifled all my pride.
In a country that has placed a
different
weight of indignity upon
my
age
old
burdened back.
Inferitority
is
the new load…
The Indian has endured and still
emerged
the winner,
The Mestizo
must yet overcome,
And
the Gauchupín we’ll 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 Joaquín,
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 towers of
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
To strangers… in their land.
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 over the ice
caked
hills
of the Alaskan Isles,
on
the corpse strewn
the
foreign
And
now
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
and
is but another treacherous promise.
My land is lost
and stolen,
My culture has been raped,
I
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 live
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 Joaquín.
The
art of our great señores
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 barbed wire
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
a shroud of mediocrity
never
to look back to remember me.
I am Joaquín.
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 hell 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 dejections,
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
Trampering feet
Clamouring voices
Mariachi
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 Joaquín
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!