Luis J. Rodriguez

Arizona Considers Bill that would Ban Ethnic Studies and Ethnic-based student organizations

2008-05-03T17:27:00.001-07:00

The state of Arizona is facing an insidious bill that would outlaw "dissent" and anything that purportedly criticizes "American Values" or "Western Civilization." As part of the state's Homeland Security bill, Arizona Senate Bill 708, State Senator Russell Pierce added language that in his view would end "race-based" curricula and organizations. Organizations such as MeCha (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) or Black Engineers Students would be forced out of Arizona's schools. Pierce in particular targeted "Raza Studies" (which deals with accomplishments, culture and history of Chicanos and other Latinos). Ethnic-based groups and studies like these would be forced to disband -- anything that Pierce says takes tax dollars.

Since Friday, May 2, Latino USA program of the National Public Radio has had interviews and opinions pieces available on line at http://www.latinousa.org/program/index.html. Included is a report on Arizona's Senate Bill 708, an interview with Chicano Studies professor & historian Rudy Acuna, and a radio commentary by your humble servant. Sunday evening, May 4, Latino USA will air these on various NPR outlets around the country. In the LA area this will be at 10 PM on KPCC / 89.3 FM. Please tune in.

Empowered & Educated Youth ARE the solution to gangs and other street violence

2008-05-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Youth Struggling for Survival began in 1994 with some 200 young people and adults, including in rival gangs, in the city of Chicago – the second largest “gang” city in the US after LA. With very little money, it grew to incorporate youth from a least 12 communities (Northside, Southside and Westside) and suburban cities like Aurora, which for more than a decade had the greatest rise in gang violence in Illinois. YSS has been a youth empowerment group that utilizes rites of passage, the arts, theater, Hip Hop, dance, intense dialogue, organizational training, and more. It also includes a spiritual component without being religious. Mostly this has come from the Native American and Native Mexican traditions. Over the years the group has been largely Mexican, but it has also included Puerto Ricans, Africans Americans, European Americans, and a large number of Filipino American youth.

The native indigenous traditions—such as the sweat lodge, vision quest, medicine ceremonies, the Sun Dance, Aztec Danza, and more—have been part of this work for some time, guided by elders/teachers such as Tekpaltzin and Xochimeh (the Mama and Papa of YSS for many years). The Filipino Americans, for example, who traveled with YSS to the Pine Ridge and other US reservations to learn and partake in ceremonies, also learned more about their Filipino indigenous roots and customs.

I was one of the YSS founders and until I moved to LA with my family in the year 2000 I was active with mostly Mexican and Puerto Rican gang youth from the barrios of Pilsen and Humboldt Park. We helped create the Increase the Peace Network, among other collaborations, and helped raise $180,000 for the Humboldt Park Teen Reach, a collaborative youth prevention/intervention project that is still in existence. In 1997, YSS was part of the “Making Peace” series for PBS-TV. They are also key to the lessons and strategies outlined in my 2001 book “Hearts & Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times” (Seven Stories Press, NYC).

Chicago, however, is still in the throes of intense gang and other violence. This year so far some 40 young people have been killed, including a dozen in front of schools. YSS continues to do the vital healing work it was created to do. Now they are part of the new Little Village Lawndale High School. The communities of Little Village, mostly Mexican, and Lawndale, mostly African American, have been two of the most gang ridden communities in Chicago. Recent tensions between “black and brown” have made this school a target of extra policing and so-called “take the community back” marches (usually organized with police). However, YSS, without fanfare or adequate media attention, continues to bring young people together across gang lines as well as racial divides.

Below is an email message from YSS leader Sandra Sosa, whose brother Rudy was recently shot while working as a gang intervention worker in Little Village (Rudy survived and is recovering). Here are her words:

A few days ago, students broke out in fights, fueled by that all-to-familiar historic "racial divide" hidden behind the "gang agenda." Yesterday, as we took our groups to march downtown [for immigrant rights on May Day], other students came into the school, guns discovered, and down the street another group of students were stopped by a car of older guys loaded with bats and were threatened. Our Little Village Lawndale High School has been targeted as a "hot spot" under the Mayor's eyes and it seems like everyone is just waiting for things to crumble. Anyway, YSS is very alive and present in that school and doing what we can while we can...whether or not the school administration believes in us, or not. So, I wrote this piece below [to] share with the administration the beauty of our work...

Black and Brown Hold it Down at Little Village Lawndale High School:

Youth. Violence. Non-violence. Peace. Peaceful Protests. Marches. Agendas. Politicians. "Security." Homeland Security. For your security. Police officials. Administrators. School. School Shootings. "Gangs." "Gang bangers." Stop. Stop the “this.” Stop the “that.” Etc, etc, etc.

These words are used today like the new slang, like the "hip" slang of committees and coalitions. These words are used everyday and heard everyday by everybody that wants to say something or at least sound like they are saying something...meaningful, that is. But in the shuffle of all these good ideas and handshakes, we are losing our youth to handcuffs and heartache. We nod our heads in disappointment and disapproval and turn around and go back to our 9-5's and go home to relive the day through the bombardment of reality shows and media misfits misfeeding our intellect and damaging our spirits with image after image of our flesh and blood sacrificed on the streets all over the world. Only the few that have survived these times stay the course and tread on through the mess of their everyday lives.

Little Village Lawndale High School was 'born out of struggle" so that the students would not have to struggle to get their education. So that the students would not have to worry about walking out of their house to school. And now we are witnessing the dire cry of our youth who have learned not to work together, to carry this society's hatred and prejudices onto each other at the risk of losing their very own livelihood, if not their own lives.

But today, LVLHS students have responded and have awakened. Where months ago, some of these most influential young minds and hearts would have been the first to incite, encourage, and react to such incidents like yesterday's, these young individuals have come through a powerful process of rediscovering themselves and digging deep into their souls to challenge their very worst enemy: themselves. Today, Black & Brown held it down as we eliminated barriers and barrios by coming together in the most sacred way that our ancestors from around the world have taught us: by talking and listening with the heart. Today, we laid our weapons down (harsh words and prejudices) and embraced our universal struggle here, alive and present, in our communities.

On this beautiful day, under the warmth of the Sun, our warriors (male and female) came together in spirit and have begun the healing process in this rite of passage through life. Hearts were opened enough to let each other in to lean on, to rest on, to share with, to call out, and to breath in. It was simply powerful. Where adults may have had second thoughts, these young men and women did not hesitate to allow themselves to begin this much needed process.

At the end of the circle, we left understanding one another a little bit more than yesterday and ready to support each other a lot more on tomorrow. We walked away feeling human knowing that we are all struggling to survive; after all, WE ARE ALL RELATED.

A-ho Mitakuye Oyasin
(all my relations)

Ometeotl
(live in balance)

Ce Yolotl
(one heart)

Sandra Sosa
Cuicaollintzin
YSS-Urban Roots

Tia Chucha Press -- One of this country's much admired poetry press

2008-04-25T12:27:00.001-07:00

It's been my honor for close to 20 years to publish some of the best poetry among people of color (Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Natives, but also including European Americans -- their skin has color, too). Tia Chucha Press is small, but we put quality work, blood, sweat, tears, and lots of love into each book. We began in Chicago in 1989 with the publication of my first book, "Poems across the Pavement." Since then I've only published other poets. In 1991, we were part of the Guild Complex, a literary arts institution I helped create. In 2005, we moved Tia Chucha Press to the San Fernando Valley as part of our non-profit Tia Chucha's Bookstore & Centro Cultural.

Our funds are limited (we have received grants, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, and help from donors, but mostly this comes from my own pocket, but this is changing). In fact, I've been chastised a couple of times for not putting money into other literary non-profits or projects. I try, mainly by donating time. The fact is any extra money goes to sustain Tia Chucha Press, Tia Chucha's Bookstore & Cultural Center, our Celebrating Words literacy & art festival, and such. I wish I can do more but these are invaluable investments for arts, music, writing, theater, dance, film, and more (this also includes our Young Warriors youth empowerment project). They need to thrive.

This month--designated as National Poetry Month--we published the wonderful work of Susan D. Anderson. The book is "Nostalgia for a Trumpet: Poems of Memory & History." It was beautifully designed by Jane Brunette, who has designed all but one of our almost 50 books and a CD in these 20 years. Jane is a core part of what makes Tia Chucha Press so acclaimed and well respected in the poetry community.

Susan D. Anderson is a long-time poet, scholar, speaker, organizer, and critic. All our books are distributed by Illinois University Press and can be obtained on amazon.com and major bookstores. Don't forget our other recent publications: "American Jesus" by Richard Vargas; "What Yellow Sounds Like" by Linda Susan Jackson; "Frozen Accident" by Alfred Arteaga; "Femme du Monde" by Patricia Spears Jones; and "My Sweet Unconditional" by ariel robello.

Northwestern University Press/Chicago Distribution Center can be reached at 1-800-621-2736 or http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu.

Also go to www.tiachucha.com to see announcements of other great poetry books and about Tia Chucha Press. I will also be at this weekend's LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA. On Sunday, April 27, at noon I'll be on a panel and at 4 PM I'll read poetry -- please check the schedule for where these will be held. I'll have a few copies of Tia Chucha Press books with me as well.

Stevie Wonder -- A Musical Treasure

2008-04-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today I was privileged to be on Stevie Wonder’s radio show on his Los Angeles station, KJLH 102.3 FM. Stevie is an icon of 60s and 70s soul/R&B/funk music – my single favorite music category contending with great jazz, 70s salsa, jumping cumbias, Hip Hop, creative rock, and more. Of course, his music has traversed more than those years through five decades. What an honor to meet one of this country’s most important musical treasures. He was down to earth, funny, and gracious.

I was invited to sit in on Stevie’s show after my guest hosting duties for KJLH’s Front Page talk show with Dominique Di Prima. This morning our guest was Anita L. DeFrantz, a former bronze Olympic medalist who is presently the only African American on the US Olympic Committee’s Board of Directors. She is also President and board member of LA84 Foundation and various others sports organizations. She is a strong advocate of neighborhood sports, seeing sports and healthy competition as part of a cohesive and whole community. Anita DeFrantz also took part in Stevie’s show. She’s a truly self-sacrificing community leader. You can get more information about LA84 Foundation at www.LA84foundation.org.

One thing Stevie and I talked about was the need to sit down with gang youth, and all youth for that matter, and begin to work out strategies and plans for peace. Of course, I contend this must be united with jobs, training, education, arts, sports, treatment, and other resources. But a good start would be sitting on the floor, as Stevie said, and begin talking.

I’ll be back tomorrow morning, Friday, April 25, 2008, to do my last guest hosting show this week on Front Page (remember it’s from 4:30 AM to 6 AM). I’ll address the 2012 Mayan Calendar phenomena – what it is, what it means, and why it’s important for us today. Please listen in if you’re in the LA area.

Also this weekend I’ll be on a panel and do a poetry reading during the annual LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA campus. It’s a great book fair that I’ve been privileged to take part in for many years.

The panel is called “Poetry and Fiction: Writing in Two Genres” and will be held at noon on Sunday, April 27. And I’ll be reading from my book “My Nature is Hunger” and new poems at 4 PM the same day. Book signings will follow. Please check schedules for exact locations.

c/s

Ruben Salazar Honored with New US Stamp

2008-04-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

Today the US Postal Service introduced a new stamp honoring Chicano journalist and activist Ruben Salazar. Salazar was the sole voice in mainstream media for Chicanos in the 1960s. He was a reporter for the LA Times and later worked for Spanish-language KMEX-TV. On August 29, 1970, while covering the Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War in East LA – the largest anti-war demonstration in a community of color at the time – Salazar was killed while seated in the Silver Dollar Bar on Whittier Boulevard. Reportedly sheriff's deputies had fired a tear gas canister into the curtained entrance and struck Salazar in the head.

The 30,000-person demonstration turned into a riot that lasted several days when sheriff's deputies attacked the largely peaceful crowd at Laguna Park (now called Salazar Park). Hundreds were arrested, hundreds injured, and a handful of people were killed, including Ruben Salazar (community reports that more were killed never made the main media outlets).

I'm pleased this stamp has been issued in honor of this courageous leader and writer. I was in the Hall of Justice Jail's "murderer's row" (next to a cell with Charles Manson) when we received news of Salazar's death on the radio. A lightweight riot ensued on our tier, mostly a couple of burned mattresses & rattling of bars with metal objects, which ended when the smoke got too thick for us to do anything else. I was there because I had been arrested early on in the Chicano Moratorium. Deputies separated the cholo gangsters, and a few of us were threatened with murder linked to those the deputies had killed (thus our stint on murderer's row). Of course, in the end they couldn't charge us with any of this.

This event and others like it in the 1960s and 1970s helped politicize a number of us into community study groups, organizing, and, in my case, life-long revolutionary work.

The stamp, however, is appearing in a particularly hard time with many actions against Mexicans – covered up as “anti-illegal immigrant” activities — around the country. For example, many cities have instituted ordinances against manufacturers and landlords who hire or rent to undocumented people. A US east coast city has even barred Latinos who speak Spanish from using their beach. A Florida city, Avon Park, with the motto of “The City of Charm,” two years ago instituted the “Illegal Immigration Relief Act,” with one business owner saying, “[undocumented immigrants] have been working here for practically nothing and taking away the white jobs. If they don't want to speak English and play by the rules then they shouldn't be here.”

Statements like this underscore the racist nature of many of these laws targeting “illegal immigrants” (a non-official term that is also racist, although widely used in the media). Let's call this what it is. For example, a Colorado legislator on April 21 was ordered to leave the podium of the state's assembly because he called Mexicans “illiterate peasants.” I'm glad some people in the Colorado legislative body can spot this for what it is. In North Carolina there are reports of increased robberies striking at Spanish-speaking communities.

Even murders and physical attacks against alleged undocumented Mexicans have been on the rise. Here are some recent examples: In Ohio, an entire Mexican family was murdered after racist arsonists set fire to their apartment in September of 2004. In the same state last December four Mexican workers were found stabbed to death in a sparse apartment (police say robbery was not the motive since $1,300 was not taken, money believed saved by the workers to send to Mexico). And in February of 2004, a Mexican mother and her 19-year-old daughter were bludgeoned to death early one morning that witnesses say was done by a “white” male in his early 20s who ran into a car with at least three men in it and sped off. Many other murders and attacks against Mexican immigrants (some of whom had documents) continue to be reported.

As much as the “anti-illegal immigrant” movement claims it's not racist, you don't see attacks like these against Canadians or Europeans who are in this country without papers (yes, there are some). The US government is in league with this, unfortunately. Besides a rise in immigration raids, they continue working on a 700-mile border wall at a cost of billions of dollars, even though this may break about 35 environmental laws (who's the lawless now?).

Ruben Salazar deserves more attention and respect. We have a long way to go for equitable and just treatment of the poor, the dark skinned, the immigrant. Salazar was part of this struggle. We must continue to make this country truly free and truly fair. The “anti-illegal immigrant” movement is largely a throwback to Jim Crow and the Black Codes.

And remember: I'm on KJLH-FM, 102.3 "Front Page" talk show this week with Dominique Di Prima from 4:30 AM to 6 AM. Tune in if you can.

c/s

Returning to KJLH 102.3 FM-- with Dominique Di Prima

2008-04-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'm back on KJLH 102.3 FM this week (April 21-25). It's always a pleasure. I'll be honorary co-host with Dominique Di Prima on the station's Front Page live talk show. Please listen in if you're in the LA area. It's early—4:30 AM to 6 AM. But the topics are timely and the callers lively.

Today on the air we had an old friend, Marie Deary from Shore Books & Art Gallery in Long Beach. She is also an expert on personal and business finances. Today she talked about credit reports, how they work and how to obtain a higher credit rating. This rating is how you can save money on interest rates when financing a home, car, or obtaining a loan. Marie says that in the long run keeping track of your credit report on an annual basis, and making sure you have a personal handle on what appears there, is how you can save money and get rid of a few headaches. She also has workshops on the topic on a regular basis. Go to www.shorebookslb.com to find out more.

We also talked by phone with Latricia Majors, mother of 16-year-old Pleajhai Mervin who a year ago reportedly had her wrist broken by a security guard at Pete Knight High School in Palmdale, CA. The security guard's actions were videtaped (apparently available on youtube.com). However, he has only been moved from his job. Pleajhai, on the hand, is facing criminal charges in juvenile court, although she's been a good student, never been in trouble with the law, and clearly the victim. Ms. Majors called on listeners to pray for her daughter so that she is not punished for doing nothing wrong. Justice can only happen when the community is galvanized, organized, and active.

Today Ms. Di Prima also asked me about LA City's Special Order 40, which prohibits police officers from asking immigrants if they have authorization to be in this country—unless (and this is what confuses people) they're suspected of committing a crime. SO40 was meant to stop the practice of doing the federal government's job. In local communities, many undocumented immigrants don't report crimes or become active in crime abatement due to fears of deportation. They thus become prey to criminals and gangs, which have robbed and attacked immigrants for years. SO40 allows immigrants to step up and help in real criminal offenses that if not addressed could hurt others.

I think it's a good law and should not be removed or amended (unless to make it fairer or stronger).

Again, police, if they have cause, can ask for these documents anytime. When someone is arrested and fails to show legal papers, police can report them. This is different than stopping people solely to turn them over to US immigration authorities.

The issue flared up recently when a suspected undocumented gang member was arrested for the shooting murder of 17-year-old African American Jamiel Stewart, Jr, a high school football player. This tragedy strikes at all our communities; it hurts us all, regardless of whether the shooter was undocumented or not. I understand many Latinos took part in Jamiel's memorial. This is still a tragedy that we must not forget.

However, should this now mean we need to rescind or amend Special Order 40? Not in my view. Laws already exist to report and eventually deport anyone convicted of crimes in the US. In fact, since 1996, when immigration law was changed to address undocumented criminals, some 700,000 people have been deported—most of them to Mexico, with significant numbers to Central America, Cambodia, Belize and other countries.

One problem is that a large number of these deportees were raised in the US, often only speaking English or very bad Spanish, and sent to countries without jobs, housing or educational options. Some of these had joined LA-based gangs, even learning sophisticated criminal activities in California's prisons. Now countries like El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras have become violent gang-ridden countries. When you send 700,000 convicted people outside the country, you're bound to contribute major problems, including changing whole cultures.

Yes, the intensifying issues between African American and Latinos need to be dealt with seriously. But I implore all of us to remember history (when Blacks & Browns united), our common social/political/economic interests, and even what our adversaries are doing (they continue to contribute to and benefit from African Americans and Latinos going at each other's throats).

Yes I'm also aware there is much tension in the streets between Black and Brown gangs. But much of this is predicated on a race-based prison system that pervades our communities. Remember we have 175,000 state prisoners; they will most likely become a negative influence unless we provide adequate rehabilitation, training, and treatment to prisoners, as well as re-entry programs to re-integrate them into our communities. This is simply not happening, hurting all poor communities. I contend most of the race-based prison/street incidents are linked to the system's long-time “divide and conquer” strategies.

For example, Mexican prisoners in California are currently locked down after two Mexicans about a month ago allegedly stabbed four guards in Tehachapi State Prison (the prison system did this in case it was not a systemwide attack--similar incidents in other prisons involving Mexicans were also reported). But how are all Mexicans involved? In many prisons, if a white guy gets into a beef in a yard, all the whites in that yard are locked down; same with Blacks. The prison system was also known to set up "gladiator schools" where they pitted one race against another. Yes, many prisoners buy into this, and this is a shame. But it's rooted in the system's race-based policies.

Blacks are being attacked (mostly by racist whites, not Latinos), but so are undocumented immigrants (again mostly by white racists and Minutemen-type organizations). That's not to say that now white people should be targeted. They are not a monolith and many whites are willing to work with the rest of us for social and equitable changes for everyone. We should not lose sight of the institutional racism that forces both Black and Brown into the worse schools, worse housing, and worse jobs.

I don't condone anyone, Latinos included, who would attack or kill someone simply because of their race. In the face of this, we need to remember our intertwined destinies and not let anything like this tear us apart. For justice, we've gone too far to stop now. I hope this conversation continues throughout the week – I'm willing to hear all sides on this issue.

c/s

Travel Updates from March

2008-04-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

I travel about a third of the year speaking, reading and conducting workshops in cities all over the US as well as other countries. I love to travel—it would be a shame if I didn’t. Those who sponsor my events pay me honoraria so the rest of the year I can write; do volunteer community work, including Tia Chucha’s (neither my wife or I get paid for this); healing practices (linked to my sobriety and community work); and spend time with family, which, of course, is primary.

It’s a great life, although I’ve surmised my family’s glad I’m not always around.

In the past few weeks I’ve been to the San Francisco Bay Area, Northern California, Central Florida, Chicago and other Illinois cities, Ohio, and Michigan. Over the past two or three years, I’ve also been to Japan, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela (three times), and Peru (twice). I spoke in prisons, juvenile lockups, public schools, universities, conferences, poetry events, and more.

One important visit was to Orlando. In March I spoke at the University of Central Florida as well as Valencia Community College. A gang prevention/intervention conference at UCF included community activists, law enforcement, youth probation officers, school officials, and young people, a few in gangs. This conference addressed imaginative and redemptive strategies to deal with gangs rather than suppression and jails. Around the country people are considering new strategies and models since our jails, juvenile lockups and prisons are dangerously overcrowded (although gang & drug violence has not abated, and they’re now spread around the country).

In Valencia I dealt with a similar topic to a well-attended reading of my poetry, which often turn into town hall meetings. A large contingent of Central Americans came to my talk—they were in the US temporarily to study the gang phenomena here, which has now taken hold in countries like Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic (a couple of these people had heard me speak in Guatemala).

The most amazing aspect of my trip to Orlando, however, was visiting my 15-year-old grandson, Ricardo Rodriguez. The last time I saw him was when he was a year-and-a-half. I was excited and nervous; I understand he was too. We’ve stayed in communication over these years, mostly by email. We’ve also sent him birthday and Christmas presents. When I saw my grandson I could see the Raramuri (my mother’s indigenous ties from Mexico) and the Puerto Rican (from his mother’s side). He looked like his father, my son 32-year-old Ramiro (as most of you know, he’s currently incarcerated in the state of Illinois). Ramiro has never seen his son. Ricky, as we call him, also looked more like his uncles, my two youngest sons Ruben and Luis. Ricky is tall and handsome. He’s also smart, an A-student at a private Christian school.

With the help of his English teacher, I also got the opportunity to speak at Ricky’s school as well as a smaller writers’ group there. What an experience! Having my grandson in the audience during my talk was simply amazing. The students had tons of questions, especially about my former gang and drug life. But also how I overcame these—and about my work today helping youth and others re-imagine and recreate cohesive and imaginative communities.

At the writers’ group about a dozen students read their work, a few of which were written during the session. Others in the group offered encouragement and advice. I mostly listened, but a couple of times I offered my opinions. Ricky’s poem was short, but powerful and creative (he wrote it as we sat there).

Here’s an interesting fact: All four of my kids and four grandkids are great writers.

I had a wonderful time with Ricky and his family. Words can’t even describe.

After Florida, I flew into Chicago to take part in a Poetry Center reading at the School of the Art Institute downtown. Some 400 people showed up, mostly high school students, including a busload from Michigan. The reading went well and the questions were right on, especially from the youth.

From there I drove the next morning (I got up at 4:30 AM) to the Pontiac Prison facility to visit with Ramiro. We had five hours together and as always it was very respectful. My son and I have grown as father and son. It’s a shame this had to happen while he is behind bars. But there are fathers and sons who never breach their pains and distances. I’m honored I’ve been able to do this with Ramiro.

After this I drove further down to the middle of Illinois for a teacher’s reading conference in Springfield. I love talking to teachers—along with librarians they are some of my biggest supporters. They gave me a standing ovation and I met some great people in the schools who recognize the power of language and books for our communities.

After this I drove to Dekalb to stay with my Mexika Native friends, Frank and Lou Blazquez. They have a huge backyard where they built a sweat lodge, guided by their Lakota teacher, Ed Young-Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horses. It was good to see old friends, including the Blazquez kids, Tanee and Frankie (now young adults). They are also leaders in Youth Struggling for Survival. That night we did a Wachuma medicine all-night ceremony with Frank and three young YSS leaders. It was intense and deeply moving.

The next day after I had my time to rest and reflect, I drove another hour or so to Sterling, IL. I visited my 12-year-old granddaughter Amanda Mae Rodriguez. The next day I spoke at Sterling High School’s auditorium to Amanda and her fellow middle school students (their school is across the street). Again, it was so good to know that among the hundreds of students there, so was Amanda.

Amanda is also a fantastic student—the teachers had nothing but praise for her.

I also spoke to the Sterling HS student body—another amazing group of kids. And for two days I did two writing workshops with students and a few teachers in the library. One evening, I also spoke at the Latin American Social Club to about 200 people. Amanda stood next to me holding my books (I said she could sit down, but she wanted to stand there with me). I was so proud to have her there at my side.

Again, like with Ricky, it was sad to say goodby.

From Sterling, I drove back to Chicago—meeting with old friends. This included former Chicago gang member James Lilly, who’s now wheelchair bound from a gang-related shooting at 15. He’s also a world-class wheelchair racer and has an important film about his life and work called “Pushin’ Forward” – you can find out more at http://www.fanlight.com/catalog/films/463_pf.php.

From Chicago I came home for a short spell—back to family (which is always great), Tia Chucha’s, Young Warriors, the Community Engagement Advisory Committee of the LA City Ad Hoc Committee on Gang Violence & Youth Development, writing poems, essays, stories; and tons of regular mail and emails.

As they say, it’s all good.

c/s

For Trini with Love

2008-04-01T18:52:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago I did one of the best things I've ever done in my life—I married Maria Trinidad Cardenas. She is my best friend, mother of my two youngest sons, spiritual companion, and fellow founder of Tia Chucha's (and fellow revolutionary for truly encompassing and imaginative social change in this country).

In twenty years we've grown tremendously, having gone through much struggle, pain, sacrifice, and losses. But we also achieved healing, knowledge, wisdom, and mature love. The two most wonderful contributions we made to this world was having and raising our boys: Ruben Joaquin, who turns 20 this year, and Luis Jacinto, who turns 14. I say with much bias and fact—they are the two best boys any parents can have.

I attribute this to the sober fathering I eventually learned to apply with these young men. But mostly it was because of Trini's mothering melded with the most amazing stability and tenderness. In truth this also took much struggle to grasp—Trini like many parents was insecure, fearful, capable of many mistakes (like me). But with an awakened awareness, learned sharing and caring, Trini and I prevailed.

Presently, Ruben is an accomplished musician (he was part of the Inner Spark summer program at Cal Arts in Valencia, CA two summers ago) and a full-time Mission Community College student. He graduated a year early from City of Angels High School, part of LA Unified School District's Independent Studies Options program (where I spoke at their graduation ceremony).

Luis is a mostly A-student at Valley Alternative School in the San Fernando Valley. He's also a wonderful artist and cartoonist. He is applying with a portfolio to a prestigious LA County arts high school. This is very competitive, and Luis is aware he may not be accepted. But he told Trini and I that he wanted to try. That's all we've ever asked of him—“always do your best, even if you don't get what you aim for.” In time, his dreams will come true.

When Trini and I married in Kenosha, Wisconsin those 20 years ago, we both harbored uncertainty about a future and many concerns about each other. We had both been hurt in love and life (I was married and divorced twice before with two other children; Trini had also been married and divorced before). I was 33 years old; Trini was 34 (I always joke how she robbed the cradle when she married me).

I was also drinking, which I had done along with drugs since I was 12 years old. But my life was making a major turn at the time of our marriage: My oldest son Ramiro (then 13) was coming from LA to live with Trini and I in Chicago (my daughter, Andrea, joined us a couple of years later). Trini was also three months pregnant with Ruben—the major catalyst (and our love, of course) for the marriage). By then I also had earnestly accelerated my poetry/writing life, taking part in the growing Chicago poetry scene that eventually led to my helping found the Guild Complex Literary & Arts Center, Tia Chucha Press, the Chicago Poetry Festival, Prism Writers Workshops, and more.

Our first years as married couple were extremely difficult—with a very resentful teenager, a new baby, my absences due to work (I worked two to three jobs, wrote when I could, and attended poetry events), and increased problems with my drinking. I won't go into all of this here, but in time I learned to sober up (I've been clean now for more than 15 years), be a better father to Ramiro and Andrea, and, in time, for Ruben.

In 1994, a year after my biggest book, Always Running, got published and a year after my recovery, we had Luis. I was already active in work with gang and nongang youth due to Ramiro's gang involvement. I helped start Youth Struggling for Survival, the Increase the Peace Network, and the Humboldt Park Teen Reach as a result.

However, one of the most devastating losses (we also lost a few young men & women I helped mentor in the Chicago gang wars during this time) was the imprisonment of Ramiro for 28 years in Illinois's Department of Corrections.

By 2000, Trini and I were ready to return to LA—Trini grew up in Pacoima; I grew up in South Central and the East LA areas. We made sure Ramiro understood and accepted our decision (he did). After selling our house in Logan Square, packing and sending our stuff off in a large tractor-trailer through a moving company, the family took a train with Ruben and Luis back to the old Pacoima neighborhood where Trini had grown up.

In 2001, we bought a house and moved to San Fernando, a couple of miles from Trini's childhood home. We also began work on creating a cafe, bookstore, performance space, and arts workshop center that became known as Tia Chucha's Cafe & Centro Cultural. Later Andrea and her daughter Catalina came to move in with us as well (for which I was most grateful).

The rest is history as they say.

But for now let me say—we've had a difficult time as partners, as husband-and-wife, as parents. But I've never known anyone who has withstood all this and grown like Trini. I'm awestruck by her fortitude and perseverance. She has taught me much about change, focus and love. Today we still work together at Tia Chucha's (it's now Tia Chucha's Bookstore & Cultural Center). We're still actively engaged in revolutionary education and organizing. And we are both healers and water pourers for the San Fernando Sweat Lodge after years of training and ceremonies in the Lakota, Navajo and Mexika traditions (also some ten years ago Trini was adopted by Navajo medicine man Anthony Lee and his wife Delores).

As Trini wrote to me today, “It's been a rocky and wonderful twenty years. I'm so glad we haven't given up on each other when the going got rough. Our boys and you are so worth all the question marks leading to now.”

Yes, questions marks. They are always around us. And I've come to realize, most of them get answered by what we do, what we say, and what we create in our journeys to find true love, parenthood, community, and even social justice. Tlazhokamati, Trini. Gracias, thanks.

I know I have much more life to live, but I've already achieved many, many of my dreams and hopes. And for this—for my dearest Trini—I'm eternally grateful.

c/s

The Power of Youth, Their Voices & Community

2008-03-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

The Koures Youth Symposium, held February 20-24, 2008, brought some 25 young people and 20 adults to Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, CA to create poetry, dance and song around Native American and African stories interpreted by mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade. Meade created the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation of Seattle, WA (which sponsored the symposium) some 20 years ago to address the growing issues of uncertainty and chaos in the world with the creative power of story, poetry, song, dance, rituals, and intense & meaningful dialogue. It’s how we bring together the broken pieces of community with authenticity and imagination.

The participants included homeless youth from Seattle; Black and Latino gang members from Los Angeles; white students from rural Wisconsin; Mexika (Aztec) singers & dancers, poets and activists from the Bay Area, and others. The staff included psychologists, an African drummer & dance teacher, poets, and Chi Gong practitioners. I served as teacher/poet with Michael Meade, who based this event on his own study of ancient stories and their connection to modern times. Meade has been doing these kinds of events around the country for several years under the aegis of “Voices of Youth, Voices of Community,” which I’ve been privileged to help as a poet in Boyle Heights/East LA and other communities.

Essentially, young people in various stages of trouble and transformation were helped in creating their own unique verse, in their own voices (with some assistance in shaping and editing their work) for four days in the woods. They also learned African dance from Duncan Allard, a practitioner in the Shona tribal traditions of Zimbabwe, various songs from indigenous Africa and Mexico, and aspects of stage presence.

A few of the young people were quite active in poetry, even performance and Hip Hop. But most had never written poems before. Most had never had to connect words with feelings, with ideas, with pain, with joy, with community. By the fifth day we had the whole group make a public presentation at the Brava Theater in the Mission district of San Francisco. Some 200 people showed up to hear original poems – all were truly amazing – Meade’s stories; Mexika, African & Brazilian songs; and an incredible warrior dance from Zimbabwe. I also read a poem and did what we call a “harangue” on the power of language shaping for healing as well as personal and social development.

It was a movingly powerful event that at one point had everyone in the audience on their feet.

This symposium started me on a new round of trips that will also have me in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan by the end of March. The exhaustive work at Koures also turned out energizing, carrying me through a number of talks in schools, prisons, juvenile lock ups, universities, conferences, and other venues.

For one, I didn’t leave Northern California following the Brava Theater presentation. I ended up in the Sacramento area to do two workshops/talks at the New Folsom Prison (Maximum Security B and A yards). I was supposed to address a long-standing writers’ group out of C Yard, who knew about my work and were expecting my visit. But several stabbings in that yard over the previous two weeks had them locked down. I ended up in B Yard, another Max yard, which had no writers’ group. Still some 40 men showed up to hear me read poetry and talk. In the end the men requested to have their own writers’ group, which I hope does happen. I also talked to a smaller group of prisoners in A Yard before returning back to the Bay Area. As always in the talks/readings in prisons, we had a wonderful time dealing with some vital issues.

Through Intersections for the Arts and Writers Corps, I ended up in a juvenile lock up just south of San Francisco addressing several young men—another powerful time with young people that most of our society has written off. I also took part in an event at Intersection for the Arts in the Mission that included readings by youth in the Writers Corps program. The next day I was at the Mission Public Library where I read and spoke to a standing-room only group. Then the following day I went to the Alameda County Juvenile Hall (now totally renovated into an electronics prison-liked institution) and the San Francisco County Juvenile Guidance Center in a maximum unit. Again, I have to thank Amy Cheney of the Right to Read program and all the staff and teachers who arranged for this. The young people were respectful and attentive, and they were also sharp and incisive in their questions and remarks. They do not deserve to be written off, regardless of what they’ve done. Punishment as the essential form of “rehabilitation” in juvenile facilities and prisons has only made resentment and rage the main response from the youth and prisoners instead of redemption. Yes, we need consequences, but a major aspect of these should be helping these young men and women with their own healing, including linking to vital internal and external sources for change, passion, and positive contributions to community.

In spite of the inane punishment-driven institutions we send our most troubled men and women, as I said, there are heroic people in those institutions trying to make some important impact with little to work with. I’m honored they think of me from time to time to help in this work.

I'd like to end this with a poem from one of the Koures Youth Symposium participants, Rose Conley, who wrote this during the five days of our deliberations. It's called "A True Story About Poetry":

A homeless man in London sat on the ground and on the ground he spread a blanket and on the blanket he spread brightly colored envelopes. Walking by, I asked him what they were. “Poems,” he said in English. “How much?” I asked in American. He shrugged across the Atlantic and I trickled down a few pound coins on to his blanket, made my selection, and turned back towards the West End. As I walked, I read. The poem was called, “I Bring You Oranges.”

Eight years later, I found myself in a room full of strangers, spreading out my blanket. Looking around, everyone had their blanket spread out, and we browsed, dropping pound coins and making our selections. My blanket was the emptiest, and I didn’t have much to share, and the other people had piles of envelopes stacked like strata in front of them and they had brought their lives and their letters and their drumbeats and their heartbeats and their mouths and their necks. I didn’t have much, so I brought them oranges, and I fed them oranges while they fed me their poems.

Community-Based Gang Intervention Model

2008-02-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

After almost a year of ongoing meetings, writing, researching, debating, and fine-tuning, the Community Engagement Advisory Committee (CEAC) -- made up of gang intervention specialists, peace advocates, community leaders, and researchers -- of LA City's Ad Hoc Committee on Gang Violence & Youth Development, finished its ground-breaking Community-based Gang Intervention Model.

On February 13, the Ad Hoc committee, headed by City Councilman Tony Cardenas, presented this model for approval of the 15-member LA City Council. In an historic vote, the council voted unanimously to approve this model. This is a major victory, however, more must be done to implement such a model across LA's vast poor and working class communities where most gangs are located.

Although gang violence has gone down tremendously since the heyday of the 1980s and 1990s (one fact I came across claims that around 10,000 young people were killed in the LA area by gangs from 1980-2000), LA is still known as the "Gang Capital of the World." Police say there are 700 gangs and 40,000 gang members in LA, not counting the larger LA County area with several hundred more gangs and thousands more gang youth.

It's a real problems deserving of real and serious attention. For example, communities in East LA and South Central LA (now called South LA) have murder rates among African Americans and Latinos as high or higher than the murder rates in South Africa or El Salvador (both these countries have the world's highest murder rates).

However, for several decades, police suppression of gangs has been the main response from the city. These include gang injunctions where whole neighborhoods are put "under arrest" (people have strict curfews and can't interract, even if they'r related, can't have cell phones, baseball bats, and such). They include "three strikes and you're out" where convicted felons can be given 25-to-life prison sentences even for non-violent crimes. They include tearing down of whole housing projects, such as East LA's Aliso Village, which at one time was the largest housing projects west of the Mississippi. They include trying 14 years old as adults, giving kids 50 years and longer sentences (one 14-year-old received a death sentence for an incident in which no one was hurt).

This has only served to squeeze poor communities of color, forcing whole families to move into surrounding areas as well as across the country -- and taking the LA gangs and lifestyle everywhere. Today the biggest gang problem in the US involves LA-based gang structures like Sur Trece, 18th Street, Crips, Bloods, and MS-13, among others.

And we've created the largest prison system in the world, with 175,000 prisoners in close to 35 prisons, in California (thirty years ago the state had 15,000 prisoners in around 15 prisons).

Also US immigration authorities have been targeting immigrant gang youth, particularly after the LA Rebellion of 1992, but also since 1996 when convicted undocumented immigrants could be automatically deported. Since 1996, some 700,000 convicted undocumented felons have been deported, most of them to Mexico and Central America. Today LA-based gangs have become active in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (and recruiting among the poor and war-traumatized youth of those countries), but also Cambodia and Armenia.

CEAC's solutions are to stop this squeezing of our communuities ("concidently" opening up large inner-city areas to high-end development and gentrification) and to provide real resources of jobs, education, skills training, tattoo removal, and re-entry programs for prisoners/juvenile offenders. We want to make gang intervention a well-funed alternative to suppression, with teams of trained gang intervention workers able to move quickly among the gang hot spots. We also have included another prong to provide adequate wrap-around services to youth who need it.

In addition, the CEAC included important aspects of arts & culture (for creative, imaginative and culturally-engaged lives), faith-based/spiritual components, and more to help establish whole and healthy communities that can nurture whole and healthy people, particulary among our youth.

We believe gang intervention must be community-based, driven and led by community, not the police or politicians. Of course, the police, schools, city officials, city departments, and such should be integral to any urban peace plan. We welcome all members of the community to take positive and active steps to curtail the violence that is destroying families and communities.

c/s

Another Friend Passes Over -- RIP raulrsalinas

2008-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

Raul R. Salinas--also written as raulrsalinas--was an immense inspiration and mentor in my life and writing. Not only was he one of the veterans of Chicano poetry, he was known among the Beats, Jazz poets, and as a leading poet of the prison life after spending 11 years in state and federal prisons in California, Texas, Illinois, and Kentucky. He died today at age 73.

I knew Raul for many years. We took part in Native sweat ceremonies with Barrios Unidos in California; we read poetry together in various events, including in San Anto, Tejaztlan. He also founded La Resistencia Bookstore in Austin, serving as an example to me when I later helped create Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore in the San Fernando Valley section of LA.

One time we found ourselves in hotel rooms next to each other. I walked out into the balcony and saw Raul on his balcony looking into the Texas sky as I was doing. We shared moments about heroin addictions, jails, poetry, but also the Native spirituality we both shared. A couple of times he told me that his favorite poem of mine was "Tombstone Poets," about two heroin-addict poets in East LA.

My favorite of his was his most famous: "Un Trip Through the Mind Jail," a classic of Chicano poetry (actually of any poetry, anywhere). This text appeared in the 1960s and opened up the imaginations and language adventures of vatos like me.

Please go to his website at www.raulrsalinas.com to find out more about his work, his importance in US and world letters, and about La Resistencia.

A true revolutionary, poet of the people, human rights advocate, Native spiritual leader, and a great friend, I will miss Raul very much. I will also honor his life and work by continuing his struggles for the dignity and rights of all people, but in particular the Native peoples of this land, this country, this continent -- this world.

Tlazhokamati y tiahui.

c/s

On the Road Again...

2008-02-06T19:24:00.000-08:00

I'm getting ready to embark on a number of trips outside of town. I'll be in New Jersey this coming Monday, February 11. I return after a few days, and then I go to San Francisco for two weeks – to be part of the Mosaic Foundation's Koures Youth Symposium in Santa Rosa, CA (Tia Chucha's Young Warriors is bringing to young leaders as well), which culminates in a public event at the Brava Theater in the Mission district of San Francisco on February 24. I will also take part in programs sponsored by Intersection for the Arts and the Mission Public Library. In addition, I'll be visiting New Folsom prison near Sacramento, a youth detention facility in the Bay Area, and the juvenile halls of San Francisco and Alameda counties. You can get more information on my events page of my website: LuisJRodriguez.com

Then in March I will be visiting universities, high schools, poetry centers, elementary schools, and more in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan. I'll be gone through the end of the month. In addition, I have some local schools – primarily those coming to Tia Chucha's for field trips (we have about two a month during the spring).

Traveling about a third of the year, I'm able to sustain my family and to help with Tia Chucha's – it also allows my wife Trini to devote more than 40 hours a week to Tia Chucha's without pay, but also for me to write, accomplish my commitments to Tia Chucha's, other community work, and, most importantly, to spend time with my family.

Recently, I spoke at the New Roads School in Santa Monica, invited by a good friend in a seminal rock & roll bad of the 1960s (I'll keep his name private for now), whose son goes to this school. With a roomful of students, we had a great discussion about gangs, drugs, how to overcome obstacles, the arts, and life in general. I also went to a Creative Writing class of another friend, Mel Donalson, at Cal State University, Los Angeles, where I got to speak about writing in different genres, the fiction dynamic, and my own writing process.

I also had an amazing time at Wilson High School in El Sereno/East LA where I spoke to several assemblies of students. On the walls in the auditorium, the students had placed posters and artwork with scenes from my book “Always Running.” Several young people even got up to read poetry and essays -- and there was two girls who announced that they stopped doing drugs after reading my book. I was very moved.

For Martin Luther King's Jr. birthday commemoration, I co-hosted with Elaine Swann a concert at Golden Hall in San Diego, CA with the incomparable Odetta, and various local singers, dancers, poets, and speakers. Some 600 people came.

I also did three events at the Getty Museum at the Getty Center around the fantastic photo exhibit by one of Mexico's leading photographers, Graciela Iturbide (the exhibit ends April 13, 2008). Her work captures the images of mostly indigenous people of Mexico, including the Tehuanas of Juchitan, Oaxaca (Zapoteca indigenous people), a place close to my heart when in the early 1980s I took part in uprisings against the Mexican government including when farmers, workers, students, and indigenous communities took over the city hall and demanded equal representation. It was quite a time – they were quite a people.

Graciela spent many years among them and these photos are internationally acclaimed. She also spent a couple of days in East LA and was one of the few Mexican photographers to capture the Cholo cultural phenomena of Chicanos in the 1980s – mostly women, many of whom were born deaf after a particularly powerful epidemic hit East LA's Mexican community in the 1960s.

I ended up speaking to a group of college and university professors as well as teachers at the Getty earlier in January. Then at the end of that month, I spoke to a group of students, black and brown, from Locke High School in Watts (the school was actually built on top of where my oldest sister once lived, and where I stayed a couple of summers when I was a kid).

This exhibit also allowed the Getty Museum to organize a panel of Chicano artists and writers to discuss art, Chicano life, and the Cholo culture, among other things, in the context of Iturbide's work. Visual artists Ernesto de la Loza and Alma Lopez as well as novelist Yxta Maya Murray were on the panel that I moderated to a fairly packed house on January 27. Powerful ideas, visions, and even critiques (in particular about museums, the Getty included) were on the table. However, we also affirmed our Chicano realities and the diverse means these are expressed in Chicano art, especially over the past 40 years. It turned out to be a rich and powerful discussion, including with the audience. I thank the Getty for inviting us to have this exchange.

Finally, I want to draw everyone's attention to an important upcoming event with the theme of “Common Roots, Common Dreams: A Celebration of the Commonality of Black and Mexican Culture & History.” With all the recent media attention on Black & Brown conflicts, this is in honor of what actually unites us and the reality that African Americans and Mexicans are more united than divided. Sponsored by Rock A Mole Festivals, CDs & Films, the event will be held Sunday, February 17 from 6 to 10 PM at Industry Cafe & Jazz, 6039 Washington Blvd. in the heart of the Arts District of Culver City. Food, beer and wine will be available.

This is a free event – Rock A Mole (rhymes with guacamole) festivals generally are. I'll be one of the hosts, and will do a poetry collaboration with one of LA's best performance poets, BessKepp. Also on hand will be new music with “Ten East” jazz band and a traditional Mexican band, “La Santa Cecilia;” a short play, “The First Embrace” that will depict Mexico's embrace of fugitive slaves despite enormous pressure from the US during the mid-1800s; a beat box chorus with both break dancers and traditional Mexican dancers; the world premiere of a new poem by Mike the Poet celebrating the ongoing synergy between Black and Mexican culture; and a killer house band with Fre Ballesteros (my favorite saxophone player in LA) of the Boxing Gandhis on sax, Michael Suicer of the Ray Charles Orchestra on drums, Boudro of the Gladys Knight band on bass, and G Mack of Polyester Players (who's played with the likes of Mary J. Blige) on guitar (singing will be one of my favorite singers in the city, and the creator of the music for my CD “My Name's Not Rodriguez,” Ernie Perez – musical director is Carvell Holloway, who also did the great trumpet solos on my CD).

To top it off some of the best African American and Mexican/Chicano poets and rappers will be performing, including TamaraBlue, Metaphysics, Sarah Cruse, Busstop Prophet, Ant Black, and Redemption (Redencion of Guanajuato, Mexico), among others. For more information, go to rockrap@aol.com.

Don't miss this!

Hand Made Art Books of My Poetry

2008-01-23T20:36:00.000-08:00

I've been honored to have four limited edition and signed hand-made artist books -- as well several broadsides -- of my poems published with a lot of love from the Pajaro, California-based C&C Press. The artists, Sher Zabaszkiewicz and Matt Cohen, created C&C Press to recapture the beauty, subtlety, grace, and craftmanship that hand-made artist books have embodied over the ages.

As the artists in the C&C Press' website say, "We began to realize that the artist's book operates best when a synergy is struck amongst its parts, creating a harmonious interrelationship between text, image, structure and design. That realization has forever change the way that we look at art and the artist's book."

Since 2005, Sher and Matt have published amazing collector's artist books of my work, numbered and signed, including "Seven," "Two Women/Dos Mujeres," "Making Medicine," and several broadsides of poetry and sayings. They operate out of a 2,100 square foot building housing a family business owned by Matt's parents. The space, some 30 minutes south of Santa Cruz, CA, includes a platemaking machine, foundry and wood type, various shears, drying racks, and more.

Sher and Matt have used materials like old T-shirts of mine to create the paper--which is also hand made--for these projects. They have travelled across the country to various university libraries, book fairs, and other institutions selling these amazing artists books at collector's prices.

In 2005, we had the first exhibit and presentation of their work at Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore. We hope to have another event featuring the latest artist's book of mine, "Making Medicine." In the future I will present them with more unpublished poems to complement their unique and powerful masterpieces.

To find out more about what Sher and Matt do, please go to their website at www.candcpress.com. They are working with other writers and artists on various projects as well. Please consider ordering these amazing books for your collections.

"Witnessing Whiteness" -- A New Book by Shelly Tochluk

2008-01-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

My friend, Shelly Tochluk, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of the Elementary Education Department at Mount St. Mary's College near downtown LA where she trains teachers in the LA area. She has been active for years bringing consciousness of racism and race issues to various communities. She now has a book that attempts to address "whiteness" in the US with testimony by various cross-cultural leaders, activists and artists, male and female.

She's also on the leadership team of AWARE-LA -- Alliance of White Antiracists Everywhere-Los Angeles.

Shelly's book is "Witnessing Whiteness: First Steps Toward an Antiracist Practice and Culture," published by Rowman & Littlefield. Here's what Shelly has to say about this important book:

"Witnessing Whiteness" invites people, especially those of European ancestry, to consider their relationship to white privilege and the lingering shadows of racism. In an easy to read style, this book helps people understand why race is still a relevant issue, how race influences white people’s daily lives, and how to develop the beginnings of an antiracist practice.

This book includes personal testimony from well-respected cultural workers across race, such as Luis Rodriguez (author of Always Running), to offer dialogue that illustrates how whiteness embeds itself in our psyche, lingers through continued social conditioning, and affects cross-race interactions. This book is accessible and intended for all people, but speaks directly to educators and trainers at various levels.

For more information, visit the book website: www.witnessingwhiteness.com

Shelly's book release celebration is scheduled for February 23, 2008 from 5 to 9 PM. The evening will include poetry, dialogue, and exploration of the steps toward an antiracist practice and culture. It will be held at The Donahue Center, Mount St. Mary's College, 10 Chester Place, Los Angeles, CA 90007.

On March 2, 2008, Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore will be hosting a book reading and talk for "Witnessing Whiteness." Call 818-898-1479 for more information.

Alexander Taylor -- A Man of the Engaged & Purposeful Life

2007-12-21T17:22:00.000-08:00

My friend, mentor, teacher, second father--and to whom I owe much of my publishing life--Alexander "Sandy" Taylor passed away this morning after suffering a stroke a couple of days ago. He was the cofounder and publisher with his wife, Judith Doyle, of Curbstone Press--in my view the most important press for literature that matters in the United States. Sandy was 76.

Since 1975 Curbstone Press, out of Willimantic, Connecticut, has published the amazing works of socially engaged poets, fiction writers, translators, and memoirists such as Martin Espada, James Scully, Claribel Alegria, Jack Hirschman, Carla Trujillo, Thuy Dinh, Sam Hamill, Carolyn Forche, Daisy Zamora, Truung Vu, Sarah Menefee, Tino Villanueva, Gionconda Belli, Ernesto Cardenal, Arturo Arias... and many other emerging and veteran voices in the frontlines of ideas and words of revolutionary meaning, purpose & expression.

They introduced amazing new Latino and Latina writers in their Miguel Marmol Literary Prize--including Mary Helen Largasse--that otherwise may have been forgotten.

The press built its reputation on publishing those writers that other publishers saw as too political, too risky, too experimental, too unknown--yet Curbstone never skimped on quality work or less than stellar writing. Many vital voices from Latin America and Vietnam, among other countries, found a home here.

And somehow they also made a home for the writings of an unconfident and unschooled former gang member and former drug-and-alcohol addict--and a long-time community activist, revolutionary and thinker--named Luis J. Rodriguez.

Yes, if it wasn't for Sandy and Judy, I would not have been read or known. I truly believe this. They published my first non-self published work, "The Concrete River" (I had published my first poetry collection under my own press, Tia Chucha Press). This book has had several printings and has passed the 10,000 copies sold mark--a rare occurrence for poetry in the US. They've also published two other poetry books, including my latest "My Nature is Hunger." And they took a chance on my first children's book, "America is Her Name" in English and Spanish versions. Curbstone is currently working on another children's book based on the character from that book, America Solis.

However, the most important book of mine they supported with publishing--and with the most amazing marketing plan any writer can hope for--was "Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA." I gave this book to Sandy in 1992 after my oldest son Ramiro had joined a Chicago gang the year before. I struggled hard to earn my son's respect (I did not raise him), but there was too much resentment and pain between us. I thought of writing a true-life account of my own involvement in gangs and drugs some 20 years before as a means to help Ramiro--but also the thousands of young people of all races and communities caught in the web of gang life.

Sandy didn't hesitate. The book was a massive unknown. But somehow he trusted my ability to tell this complicated and difficult story--the first of a Chicano gang member's life from a participant's viewpoint (although Chicano barrio street gangs had been in existence since the turn of the 20th century, and were some of the largest and most violent in the United States).

Curbstone had also obtained a couple of large grants to develop big-publishing type marketing strategies for a small press. When the book got published in January of 1993, I embarked on a whirl-wind book tour that took three months and involved 30 cities all over the US. I also made a huge risky decision--to quit all my work (I had three jobs at the time in typesetting and in radio) and concentrate on making this book a success. Most importantly, a year before Los Angeles had erupted in flames in the worse civil uprising since the 1960s after the acquittal of police officers in the beating of an African American man, Rodney King. Many authorities blamed the destruction on LA gangs--both African American and Latino. This was an important factor contributing to the attention "Always Running" received.

Besides readings in schools, conferences, community centers, boxing clubs, prisons, juvenile halls, and more, I also appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Good Morning, America," CNN's "Talk Live" and "Sonya Live," National Public Radio (including "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross), KABC's Talk Radio, among others. Articles on my book and life showed up in "Entertainment Weekly," London's "The Face," New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Hartford Courant, and many more.

Sandy and I estimated that with TV, print, radio, and personal appearances we may have reached some 70 million people in those three months. In addition, by then several big-time New York City based publishers began vying for the paperback rights to the book. Curbstone put the services of its board members and friends to help us achieve an amazing book deal--the money went into the six figures--with Touchstone Press/Simon & Schuster that published "Always Running" in English and Spanish versions beginning in early 2004.

That book, now in more than 20 printings, is used in schools, colleges, universities, prisons, and other institutions throughout the US and parts of Latin America. In 2004, Sandy helped me obtain a new contract with Touchstone for the 10-year anniversary of the book (with a new cover and a new introduction). And just prior to the Writer's Guild strike in Hollywood, I was in the process of talking to independent film makers on a possible feature film based on the book--something that Sandy was also instrumental in helping shape.

He also always had a loving embrace and word for my son Ramiro--even now that Ramiro, who's 32, is presently incarcerated in an Illinois State prison for three counts of attempted murder. And Sandy was most patient and kind with one of my other sons, Ruben, who at 4 years old went went me to part of my book tour--especially when Ruben got chicken pox and we had to be holed up in a hotel for seven days (Ruben is now 19 and doing well along with my daughter Andrea, 30, and my youngest son, Luis, 13).

I consider Sandy one of the great ones. He was a second father to me--something I've been blessed with after my own turbulent and emotionally void relationship with my own father (who died in 1992, before "Always Running" came out). Sandy reached out, advised me, taught me, and always, always had time to talk to me. Something my real father never did. I don't want to get into how important this is in my life, but I will say this--I know Sandy's generosity and caring extended to many other writers over many years, who felt his gentle but steady hand on their shoulders pushing them forward, investing and sacrificing so that voices like ours can be heard, appreciated, honored.

No writer can ask for more.

So I will say with all candor--I would not be here as writer, lecturer and editor if it were not for Sandy Taylor. Such debt can never, ever be repaid. Yet Sandy lives on in the people he's touched, cajoled, rallied for, and celebrated. He lives on in his own poetry and translations. He lives on in the wondrous but economically unstable small publishing world that he helped create--where the best of this country still values what matters, and against all odds and economic advise continue to make books that will out live all of us.

I send many prayers and best wishes to Judy Doyle, Curbstone's venerable mother and Sandy's partner. Also to Sandy's family. And most importantly to all the Curbstonistas--staff, board, volunteers, writers, and community leaders who have been enriched by the existence, vision, imagination, and sacrifice of Mr. Alexander Taylor.

Que descanses en paz, mi amigo.

Prison Life -- Dignity & Fairness in Short Supply

2007-12-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

Today my 32-year-old son Ramiro called, as he usually does, to talk from the Pontiac Prison in Pontiac, Illinois. Over the years we've had some important talks about life, the family, his kids, politics, spirituality, and just regular dad-and-son dialogues. After serving 11 years of a 28-year prison sentence for three counts of attempted murder, Ramiro has mostly stabilized his often turbulent emotions. He left the gang life, something that is dangerous to do in a major state prison system like Illinois--which after California and Texas has the largest prison system and a massive gang presence.

He's hoping to get paroled in three years--after 14 years of good time, which under old state law allows my son to possibly get released with half of his time done. We are praying and working hard for this. Ramiro, in particular, has stayed out of trouble as best he can--but he says this is hard for anyone, even those who only want to do their time.

For example, in another prison, Ramiro dedicated himself to learning horticulture and culinary arts in a special program that allowed prisoners to obtain Associated of Arts degrees with a local college. Ramiro received two degrees and a couple of certificates before this program was cut in ongoing efforts to make prisoners' lives as uncomfortable as possible.

Then he worked in various jobs, including on the grounds, and for a time as a teacher's aid, helping teach English to Spanish-speaking prisoners. Ramiro really got much out of this, but then he got transferred.

Now in the Pontiac Prison--which is really two prisons, a maximum ad-seg prison and medium security facility--Ramiro got a job in the ad-seg section of the prison as a janitor. He did this for about a year, and he really got to like it. He says he was one of the hardest workers. Even the prison staff overseeing this work apparenlty liked him. He did his work without complaint and as thorough as possible.

However, recent changes in prison policy have thrown this up in the air. Prisoners must now change jobs every six months, causing a consternation to prisoners who love to work and do their time without any problems--including my son. In Pontiac, the prisoners must also get rid of their denim jackets, which has kept them warm during Illinois' severe winter months. Even more devastating is a new state policy of ending smoking in all prisons. This looks to be more problematic since smoking becomes important to calm down and deal with prison life.

The system apparently plans to implement this on January 1. They know this may cause problems -- which begs the question: Why does the system do things that they know will upset the little bit of peace and order in a prisoner's life? In anticipation of problems, all state prisons will be locked down for about two months beginning in January.

My son called to get a little extra money so he can get stocked up on commissary food and items for the lock down. He's taking it pretty well--for him it's par for the course. The system always comes up with something to disrupt the prisoners' existence, even with things that worked (like education and jobs). Smoking, I understand, is unhealthy, but these other programs helped keep prisoners from coming back.

Yes, prisons have many pathological, maladjusted and sick individuals. But the vast majority are mostly criminals of want--those who are on drugs (addicted in need of real treatment) or committing acts out of desperation (stealing, robberies, cons, etc.). They need trades, schooling, even simple life skills so they can adapt to a relatively healthy life in the free world. This does not happen. As most people know--prison becomes their university for a more sophisticated criminal life, which is paid for by our tax dollars.

People will learn something, even if we deprive them of everything else. We need to provide real and comprehensive rehabilitation and re-entry programs so that most of these prisoners don't end up in the same place over and over again.

My son is doing his time. He made his mistakes and is paying for them. What I question is the way we tend to enshrine these mistakes for a life time. He needs to change, but we must also help in the healing process. Instead, we tend to put more trauma and deprivation over past traumas and deprivations.

So far Ramiro is on track to get out in a few years--and despite whatever barriers, disappointments and obstacles get in the way (and he's had 11 years of them) he's still focused on coming home. I know the key has been our growth as a family that never abandoned him, as too many other families have done to other prisoners.

We're doing our part so that Ramiro comes home, stays out of trouble, becomes a decent father to this kids, and learns to contribute positively to his community and country.

The state needs to do their part as well--considering the public trust they have as a tax-supported entity. I request that the public put pressure on politicians and policy makers to provide a real path out of the criminal life, instead of helping push more and more of mostly poor and neglected young people into the more dense aspects of this life

This only fuels the growing prison industry, one of the most lucrative in the country, for a small class of people at the expense of our children.

c/s

Democracy is Alive and Well in Venezuela

2007-12-07T16:48:00.000-08:00

Most TV pundits and opinion pieces in the US savored the loss of Hugo Chavez's Reform during the national Venezuelan election on December 2. The Reform package, which consisted of 69 amendments to the country's constitution, was narrowly defeated 51 percent to 49 percent. Chavez graciously accepted the loss, saying he would not contest the results despite the close election. This is the same Chavez that has been called a Dictator, his Reform touted as major steps toward Dictatorship and Chavez's plan to be President for Life.

These kinds of statements were utterly defeated on December 2.

Even though the National Assembly accepted and contributed to the Reform, the matter was brought to the whole country to decide. The election was held on a Sunday to make it easier for people to vote (unlike in the US where elections are held on Tuesday when most people are working). While only half of the 16 million registered voters took part in the election, a low turnout by Venezuelan standards, it is still much more than in US national elections that generally involve only around 25 percent of eligible voters.

In addition, US pundits decried Chavez's government and paths for change, but his process is still much more democratic than what we have here. For example, there is no electoral college in Venezuela that can reverse the popular vote like it can in the US (remember Gore's victory over Bush in the 2000 popular vote, but his loss in the electoral college when the 9-member Supreme Court certified Florida's crooked election).

Also, Chavez brought his Reform to the public -- contrast this with how the US Patriot Act was decided by Congress in cahoots with the Executive Branch. US voters had no say-so about this act, which has proven to be one of the most unconstitutional and draconian this country has ever produced.

No, I think the election was proof that Democracy is Alive and Well in Venezuela. And let's remember--the people were not voting for Chavez as President for Life. The Reform only asked that those who do run for president can do so indefinitely (including Chavez). The people would still need to elect them. This is a big difference over "President for Life."

Venezuela is in a difficult revolutionary process. It is still moving faster toward social and economic justice than most countries in the hemisphere. But it is also deeply divided, which the US has exacerbated through its varied media/propaganda and clandestine/military destabilization efforts.

Hovering over this process, like in most of Latin America, is the economic might, military prowess and political machinations of the United States government. Remember, the US government was involved in the overthrows of democratically-elected reform governments like Arbenz in Guatemala and Allende in Chile? (and others around the world). From our previous acts and positions, we have no right to judge.

I truly hope the Venezuelan people--especially the poor and working class that are virtually abandoned in most countries--can forge a society and government worthy of their ideals, courage, history, and needs.

With or without Chavez.

For now, the Bush Administration should stand back and stop putting down a process that is wholly more democratic than most countries in the world, including the United States. As far as I can see, the election was a victory for the Bolivarian Revolution because it proved a process of change was still up to the people to decide.

The Personal Healing of Age-old Plant Medicine in Peru

2007-12-02T19:24:00.000-08:00

From Venezuela, after spending 10 days there for the Feria Internacional del Libro (International Book Fair) in Caracas, I went directly to Peru where I hooked up with my old friend and fellow Mexika healer Tekpaltzin (Frank Blazquez) of DeKalb, IL. This was on November 18.

I flew into Lima and the next day I took another flight into the Amazon jungle to a sleepy and tropical place called Puerto Maldonado near the Bolivia/Brazil borders. At the airport I received a vaccination shot for Yellow Fever that's supposed to last 10 years. I got a certificate for this and then went to meet Frank.

Frank had already spent a few days in Puerto Maldonado before I arrived. I got there in almost 100-degree shirt-clinging weather. He introduced me to a Quechua-speaking medicine man from the jungle named Panduro. Maestro Panduro does many amazing ceremonies, but he's known as one of the few who are considered real masters of the healing powers in the Ayahuaska plant, which comes from these jungles and has been used to heal for tens of thousand of years.

For more than ten years, I have been doing indigenous medicinal ceremonies with peyote. It turns out both the Raramuri (my mother's tribal roots) and the Huichol (my wife Trini's) peoples of Mexico have been doing peyote ceremonies for tens of thousands of years. The peyote ceremonies I took part in were under the expert guidance of a Navajo medicine man from Lukachukai, AZ named Anthony Lee. His family also adopted my wife Trini, and subsequently the whole family, and we've been back to the Navajo rez every year since then for all-night prayer meetings, sweats, and other ceremonies.

Once with the help of Tekpaltzin, I consumed Huachuma, also from Peru (and also known as the San Pedro cactus). But Ayahuasca comes from plants. Maestro Panduro explained how the preparation also includes the Chacruna plant, another healing plant from the Amazon.

Being in the Amazon, it turns out, is the best place to take Ayahuasca. I first tried Ayahuasca last year in Qosqo (Cuzco) and Lima when Trini and I (and three other members of our San Fernando Valley sweat lodge circle) did healing work with Aeli Ronin of Lima and Maestra Dona (Dona is an indigenous woman from Iquitos, Peru, also in the Amazon).

This was a very strong and healing experience, but I always felt I needed something more. This time I needed to do this in the jungle with one of the best known masters of Ayahuasca use. Frank arranged this after he had already undergone some intense experiences with Maestro Panduro a few years ago.

We stayed in a couple of small and cheap hostels in Puerto Maldonado, which turned out to an amazingly alive and compact city in the Madre de Dios department. At the first hostel, we were directly across the street from the main marketplace, full of people, products, noises, and smells. Motor scooters and three-wheeled motored vehicles were everywhere, the main way for people to get around. For one sole, which is about 30 cents, you can get a ride almost anywhere in town in a motorbike or three-wheeled motored vehicles (these were the "taxis" around here).

However, the noise of dogs barking, roosters, and early-morning preparations for the marketplace got Frank and I up earlier than we wanted. We found another hostel for about $13 a night (the first one was about $8 a night) in a more quieter section of town and decided to move.

We met Panduro's wife, his 11-year-old son, and other family members. Panduro, 55, also has an older daughter and son who are both out of the house. Panduro does most of his ceremonies in the large front room of his house built specifically for this.

After showing us around and eating at some fantastic local spots (although we were on a red-meatless/dairyless diet), we prepared for the first night of my ceremony. Frank had already gone through a night of Ayahuasca healing before I arrived.

I won't go into the details of this ceremony. It may come up in poems or other writing, or not at all. But I will say this--the ceremony was intense, difficult, painful, but also most healing. I got a dosage similar to those given in the pueblo. Apparently a number of US groups come down here for Ayahuasca ceremonies, but they are most often introduced to this on a much milder level.

What I went through was what the old veterans of these ceremonies have been doing for years. The first night was wild and amazing. The next night was supposed to help bring some loose ends together and a measure of closure. But it turned out to be more intense than the first.

Not only that but because of the trouble that Maestro Panduro saw me in, he brought me another large dosage of the medicine later in the evening. I went through quite an experience. As much as I wanted to back off, to run away, to just let this go, I didn't let on that I would even consider this. I took all the medicine Panduro felt I needed and carried out his instructions. I didn't come all this way just play around or to lose heart.

Of course, the fact my 32-year-old son Ramiro is behind bars in a state prison in Illinois also helped me stay strong for whatever the medicine felt I needed. Many prayers went out his way.

In addition, I've had a particularly hard year in 2007 -- the year of my last 52-year cycle under the Mexika calendar. Tia Chucha's Bookstore & Cultural Center was forced to move out of its space early in the year--a massive project that we're still reeling from (fortunately, we're in a new location with our programming in full force). I also had to see my mother placed into a home for Alzheimer's patients, one of the most painful things I had to see happen. I also suffered through an ass-kicking attack of gall stones (that sent me to the emergency room) and several weeks of pain due to slipped disks in my back that had me unable to get out of bed for a while.

Also, my 30-year-old daughter Andrea and my 11-year-old grand-daughter, Catalina, moved away from the house after being with us for six years--although this was the right thing to happen as Andrea finds her independent way in her career and as a single mother (we'll always be there for her).

But, man, do I miss them.

I withstood all this, including some hard times with Trini. And in the end, I feel much stronger, more centered, and ready to take my writing, my health, Tia Chucha's work, my family's situation, and community work to new and higher levels.

The medicine is still in me--it'll be with me for the rest of my days, intertwined with my DNA. I'm not sure if or when I'll need to do another ceremony in the Amazon. But for now I'm taking what I've already undergone as far as I can -- to maintain my sobriety, but also for a re-generative push into new layers of what I must do in my life, for my family, for my art, for our community, and in this world.

We're at the ends of times. We're also at the beginnings of something new and vital. The world is unraveling, but we must also get a hold of the new threads the future is handing us, and with awareness of self with awakened & initiated souls to help re-imagine and re-weave the world.

Healing -- a Crucial Aspect of Any Revolution

2007-11-25T14:53:00.000-08:00

Tomi is a 30-year-old reggae singer/poet from Nigeria/Jamaica who has been living and working in Venezuela for a year. His friend Johnny is a tall English-speaking reggae performer from the Caribbean island of Dominica. They both support Hugo Chavez and the Reform, although they were not born or raised in Venezuela. But they have witnessed an amazing revolutionary process, full of pitfalls and problems, yet steadingly moving toward greater power and justice for the country's vast poor and disenfranchised.

Venezuela, we should remember, is an oil-rich country that also has some deep poverty. In Caracas, home to more than 3 million people, the hills are dotted with the makeshift housing of the poor exactly like those of the favelas in Brazil (although in Venezuela they are called "ranchitos").

However, as Tomi points out, the rich for decades used the oil as a kind of ATM--they pulled out profits from this resource for their own enrichment. Now that the Bolivarian Socialist government has taken over the oil industry, the poor people for the first time received electricity (something that caused an uproar among the upper classes); they have free and comprehensive health care right in their neighborhoods; they have free access to technology and computers, including the Internet, again in their neighborhoods; there are now 50,000 cooperatives in existence, most created over the last three years, and the highest number of cooperatives in the world; and people have in Hugo Chavez an African/Native man who is working on placing more power in their hands--a people made up mostly of African, Native and Spanish descent.

I'm not quoting from propaganda pieces--I've seen this with my own eyes.

The majority of the opposition to Chavez and the Reform comes from the richest communities. They are mostly the white Spanish-descended landlords, owners of industries, and financiers who continue to live well in the country. What you see in Venezuela is class struggle. I call things as I see them, and this may surprise many who read this. But history is much at play in Venezuela, which has its own history of how power and wealth got accumulated into the hands of a small grouping of people, and denied from the vast majority.

The US government decries Chavez and calls his government a dictatorship. However, Chavez was freely elected. His government continues to present to the governing assembly and to the people its proposals for their approval. In fact, the Reform is being campaigned for--the election is slated for December 2 and people will have a choice. If they don't want the Reform, they can vote against it. If the majority wins, this will be the law of the land. That's democracy.

In the Opinion section of the LA Times, Saturday, November 24, 2007, William Ratliff, who is supposed to be a learned intellectual, a research fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, claims that the 69 constitutional amendments in the Reform will most likely pass, and that the Venezuelans are fools for doing this.

They are no fools. They are one of the most intelligent, engaged and feisty electorate you'll ever find (I truly don't believe Mr. Ratliff has gone down there to find out). They want change, and for now Chavez represents that change.

Ratliff says, "the vote will be bad not only for Venezuela but for the rest of Latin America." Why? Isn't that what democracy is all about? If there are truly open elections that's good for Latin America where such elections in the past have been fraudulent, violent and un-democratic (especially in countries that the US government has backed). Ratliff also calls this a "populist dictatorship." A contradiction in terms. If the majority of people want it that's their choice. And their right.

Ratliff also misrepresents the Reform. He says the new amendments would allow Hugo Chavez to be "president for life." In fact, it would allow him and any other candidate to run indefinitely, but the people will still have to choose their president. He calls the probable support of the Reform on December 2 "self destructive voting." You mean like the last two presidential elections in which George Bush won. That is definitely self-destructive. In fact, the US democratic process is one of the most cumbership, complicated, money-driven, and wholly undemocratic in the world. Maybe Venezuela can show the world how it's done.

For this Reform is not just an election. It's part of a revolution.

Now, for me, any real revolution is about healing. It has to heal centuries of injustices, including against the indigenous and African peoples, and decades of control of the major industry and resources by a small number of families. It has to heal the exploitation of the poor and the uneducated. It has to open the schools, the factories, the housing, and the land's bounty to ALL the people. This is what the rich opposition is against--they want this control for themselves.

Tomi and Johnny are two of the many people in Venezuela who see the light at the end of the tunnel. In the past, any people who tried to find their own revolutionary path--such as Cuba, Nicaragua or Chile under Salvador Allende--have been targeted, attacked and blockaded by the United States government. The US government ended up overthrowing progressive governments (with no elections) in Guatemala, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and other countries. Is it possibe the US will do the same in Venezuela?

Progressives, revolutionaries, activists, and lovers of justice & peace must organize against any such actions by the US government. But more importantly, we must envision and organize for a world in which real healing, real cultural expression and real dignified work, housing and life can be had by all, including in our own class-burdened society.

That's what is at stake in Venezuela. Let the people decide, the people who will actually be most affected by this process. The US can't even guarantee real democracy and justice within it's own borders, let alone in the world. It can't even tell the truth about what's going on.

Most Americans may be scared, pulled around by inaccurate information, and lied to. But the truth will out--I've seen Venezuela. And there is something truly alive and promising there. I've also seen the poor countries of Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Peru. And I'm here to tell you--Venezuela is better off going its own way, away from US capitalist interests and control, away from the rich and greedy in Venezuela who'd love the US to dictate what happens in that country. These rich and greedy don't want full democracy--they want the phony democracy in which money and power rules.

Healing, however, is a deep and long process. Let it go where it has to go. What's the alternative but civil unrest, massacres, death squads, and increased poverty that the US contributed in places like Central America. No more. Venezuela must go its own way.

The United States--Is Revolution Possible?

2007-11-15T06:26:00.000-08:00

For the third time in a year and a half, I've come to Venezuela to take part in important international encounters and festivals: I was part of the World Social Forum in Caracas in the spring of 2006 and the International Poetry Festival in the fall of the same year. Now I'm an invited guest to the 3rd Caracas International Book Festival, slated for November 8 until November 18. Interestingly, I'm part of a several-day forum and dialogue--the central theme of the festival--posing the question: Is Revolution possible in the United States?

Venezuela has been in a revolutionary process for some time, personified in the country's president, Hugo Chavez, who has been duly vilified in the US mass media--in lock step with the US state department. The country is largely behind Mr. Chavez, but there is a strong opposition--even Caracas' five municipalities are split three to two for Chavez. Most of the opposition are made up of the more well-off Venezuelans, many with ties to US corporations. Students protests against Chavez have largely been from the well-off private institutions. They are protesting the election in December to change the Venezuelan constitution called "the Reform." While many Venezuelans I talked to seem to support the Reform and Chavez, there are also legitimate concerns. The opposition, however, is against the Reform in total. Their protests are essentially "No to Reform."

Venezuela, like all of Latin America, is undergoing deep revolutionary changes, something all revolutionaries must welcome in a time when US Empire has sucked the life juices out of most 3rd world economies and has carried out illegal and costly wars--in lives and in dollars--in Iraq and Afghanistan (and many other sovereign states over the past 150 years). The world needs deep and lasting social change--with deep-rooted imagination and encompassing the great capacity of the world's poor to envision and shape their own futures.

Other Americans in the US forums (there have been five distinct panels and discussions) include Ward Churchill, Amiri and Amina Baraka, William Blum, Tufara LaShelle Waller (the Highlander Organization in Tennessee), Antonio Gonzalez (the Southwest Voters Registration Project), Jimmy Massey (the Irag Veterans Against the War), Hector Pesquera (of Puerto Rico), and many others that, unfortunately, I can't name all here. I will say that some of the invited Americans include those currently residing in Venezuela--Charles Hardy, Eva Golinger, Chris Carlson, Dada Maheshvarananda, and others.

The discussions and debates were serious, informative, feisty at times, and important. A few actually said there can never be revolution in the US--it is too dulled by consumerism and privilege. Others claimed revolution is possible, although no one claimed it would be emminent.

My presentation covered the various key aspects that indicate a growing and deepening revolutionary crisis in the US. For example there's the growing gap between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest (today one percent of the population controls a fifth of the country's wealth, which is as bad as it's ever been since the 1920s). In addition there are more than 40 million people living below the poverty line (this is the official numbers; I'm sure it's far worse). There are 45 million people without health care. There are 4 million Americans in jails, prisons, parole or probation (the majority are African Americans or Latinos). And there is a growing credit and housing crisis, with the average American carrying more than $18,000 in debt, which is driving more people, including many whites, into the poverty levels.

In LA alone poverty grew 17 percent between 2002 and 2005; some 500,000 households can't get enough to eat or have limited acccess to nutritious food (Susannah Rosenblatt, LA Times, September 23, 2007).

The present crises, however, are predicated on an important development of world historical significance: the transition from industrial production to electronics/digital production that we've undergone most heatedly within the past 30 year. Globalization is an essential aspect of this development--it's capitalism in the age of electronics.

There is already, then, a revolution in the productive forces of society laying the basis for a political/social revolution. What people need in the US is an orientation of this and the class forces at play, a clarity of the objective realities we face--with a vision of where to go and a strategy of how to get there. That's the job of revolutionaries. Something that is also in the early stages of developing.

Is revolution possible in the US? Yes. Will it happen tomorrow? No. The United States is a large, multi-layered and complicated society. It is also the heart of empire and war in the world. Social revolution is possible, but it will entail serious, long-range and fully engaging efforts on the part of revolutionaries in relation to the maturing objective conditions.

Of course, Latin America will not wait for the US revolution to transpire. Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and other countries are already in various stages of their own revolutionary developments. There are, of course, key links that must be forged between the revolutionary process in the US and that of Latin America.

The fact is we are already linked. Globalization has brought the continent, and most of the world, that much clsoer. Each country's revolutionaries must do the vital and essential work with the very forms of struggle that history has handed us in the diverse regions of this truly revolutionary continent.

This dialogue, therefore, is far from over. We've only scratched at the surface. I'm honored to be part of this important international debate. I know that what happens in the US is vital for the whole world. An imaginative, democratic, worker-rooted, and visionary process in the US would be necessary if we are to success. It must also include all Americans--all races, all sectors--especially the growing number of Americans most effected by the unfolding systematic crises within capitalism. Still, while the discussions are good the reality of what lies ahead is more complex.

I will report more on my trip and the parameters of this discussion in future blogs, including what I perceive to be the root and essence of these complexities.