Why I Love Old Traditions

Give Me Love

 

 

We have criminalized poverty, migration, work, and hope.

Only the most vulnerable element of our corrupt and exploitative system of underground labor, the workers, are disproportionately punished and branded as villains and illegals, while businesses, homeowners, consumers benefit.

This new video features powerful images taken of migrants in Mexico and the US Mexico border by photo journalist Ken Light over the past four decades. They are painful to watch. but important to see, as they reveal a reality for many today, and the family history of many living among us. The music is our Mexican son version of George Harrison's classic song Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) that we recorded with David Hidalgo.

Thoughts About Walls

Of all the walls designed to keep Mexicans and Mexican Americans in our place, trump’s is the least clever and would be the least effective. It’s symbolism, though, reinforces the barriers that actually keep us invisible, unheard, under represented, under resourced, maligned, stereotyped, dismissed and segregated. The actual walls are so complex and entrenched in American culture and politics that they are barely discussed or challenged. They protect the myth of an America within which we are illegitimate, where we are are strangers in our own land, and where our work and contributions are diminished as opportunistic and negligible. Those walls are protected by rigged rules and systems, biased language, and dominant political ideologies within which we are treated as marginal and token. 

So, trump’s wall, like trump himself, is a brutish, ugly manifestation of what has always existed in America. It is both a distraction and an opportunity to identify and address the real barriers that we should be discussing and dismantling. But we aren’t.

A Message About Dreamers

False and distorted notions about immigrants in the United States, and about American identity itself, have set the stage for the current tumult surrounding immigration and the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. 

I am a third-generation Mexican American. I believe in law and order. Only through the just application of law can we thrive as a free nation of justice and opportunity. And only through clear and honest analysis of our problems can we forge lasting and sustainable solutions. 

But our conversation about immigration in America is anything but clear and honest.

Undocumented immigrants are just one part of a broadly accepted system that has long benefited the American economy, provided consumers with affordable products and services and offered immigrants a chance at economic advancement. If work were not available, people would not risk their lives to come here. Those jobs are everywhere, offered by big, medium and small business as well as individuals.

To punish only the most vulnerable in this economic arrangement is an unjust application of law. If we were to punish wrongdoers equally, we would condemn as “illegal” the businesses that hire “illegal” workers to grow, pick, butcher, cook and serve our food. We would punish these businesses as harshly as the workers they hire. And we would drastically disrupt the lives of “illegal” homeowners who hire “illegal” workers who care for their homes and children, and the sick and elderly.

But we don’t. We brand only the workers as illegal.

It’s one thing to hold people accountable for their legal transgressions. It’s quite another to dehumanize people with terms like “illegal” that invite division, bigotry and persecution. Clearly there is something going on here besides law and order.

I have directed a non-profit Mexican American cultural center in the East Bay area of San Francisco for nearly 30 years. During this time our community, like many others, has been fundamentally transformed by immigration from Mexico. The change was so dramatic that our programming became largely focused on the challenges and opportunities created by this demographic shift. As traumatic as culture clash and acculturation can be, they also create enormous social energy and possibility.  But in order to focus and cultivate that energy, we must make social investments in the people most directly impacted - the workers, both native and immigrant, and their children. Of course, as a nation, we have neglected to do so.

Our organization, Los Cenzontles (The Mockingbirds), provides rigorous cultural arts education to young people. We connect them to the heritage that has provided resilience to Mexicans and Mexican Americans for generations. Our performing group is dedicated to exploring, expressing and sharing these cultural roots and connections. And our media productions tell stories of people in our community who built and fought for our country, but have long lived in history’s shadows.

While certain media outlets focus exclusively on negative stories about immigrants, dwelling on crimes and violence, all of the undocumented immigrants I know are just trying to live their lives. Many embody what it is to be a model American – hard-working people who take enormous risks to care for their families.

While some insist that the targeting of “illegals” is not about bigotry, many U.S.-born Mexican Americans and legal immigrants will tell you that we are also often treated as the unwelcomed “other,” even though we are as American as anyone. Many of our families have been here longer than those who demean us.

Three of my grandparents arrived from Mexico almost one hundred years ago. The fourth was born in Arizona before it was even granted statehood. I grew up in a Mexican American family with a strong work ethic, commitment to community and faith in the American dream.

Yet, recently, a drunken neighbor assaulted me in front of my own home when I came to the aid of a woman he was abusing on the sidewalk. Before he hit me, he called me an “illegal,” almost as if that gave him permission to attack. Raised to take responsibility for my community, I made sure that the man was arrested and charged. Too many Americans quietly accept the false myth that this is a white country and those who are not white are secondary. That has never been true. The best of America's legacy and promise is built not on race or ethnicity, but on the unifying values of hard work, sacrifice, vision and faith in one another.

The Dreamers that I know are regular young people doing their best to study and work. And they are all around us.  Most people would not even be able to distinguish them from other Americans. This is the predicament that the demise of DACA — the Obama administration’s program to protect Dreamers from deportation — forces America to confront: Who are we?

For nearly 30 years, Los Cenzontles Academy has demonstrated that our children are as capable as any others given training, support, opportunities and raised expectations. And I know of no other youth more committed to their futures, and appreciative of their opportunities, than the children of immigrants and the Dreamers.

Because of its economic benefits, politicians on both sides of the aisle have long protected our malfunctioning system of underground immigrant labor and broken laws. Reasonable people have long called on Congress and the President to overhaul the laws to conform to reality and decency. But they have failed to do so, prolonging a situation that provides political opportunity, invites scapegoating, exacerbates social tension and prolongs uncertainty for millions of hard working people, while jeopardizing social order and public safety.

This stalemate has also unearthed historic undercurrents of bigotry, distorted notions of who contribute legitimately to American society. These notions represent the worst of America’s legacy and provide no path forward.

We have delayed honest conversations about economics, immigration and identity for much too long. Dealing justly with the Dreamers and the issue around undocumented labor provides us an opportunity to address many of our big and pressing issues.  These include fair wages, class disparity, bigotry, and the unique value that an inclusive American identity provides.

And we must refocus our commitment to invest meaningfully in our most valuable resource: our youth. And they include the Dreamers. They are us.

The Dreamer - Jackson Browne feat. Los Cenzontles 

Being Visible - Huapango

Culture is what has provided working class Mexicans the resilience to sustain themselves through centuries of neglect and abuse. The fortunate immigrant communities in the U.S. are able to maintain and continue traditions from their specific ancestral regions. Traditional culture involves active participation from all ages and connect generations as families negotiate dramatic changes to their lives and navigate their future. 

This brief video provides an intimate glimpse of a traditional huapango (musical dance) held at the Marin City Recreational Center hosted by members of the community from a region of Guanajuato, Mexico, with a rich tradition of huapango arribeño and son huasteco. Thousands of people from this region have settled in the Bay Area since the 1970’s and began producing regular community dances in the past seven years. 

This song features Bay Area based group Tradición de la Sierra with elder troubadour Pedro Sauceda Diaz visiting from San Luís Potosí. These events often raise funds for causes related to their pueblo of Xichú, Guanajuato, or to support community members in need. This event raised funds for Los Cenzontles Academy at which many of their San Pablo, Richmond and San Rafael Canal District based children have attended for many years. 

The musical form presented here, almost unknown to people from outside the region, is called huapango arribeño (highlands huapango) that are played in three parts and can easily last 15 to 20 minutes depending on the poet and the dancers. The instrumentation is two violin with two folk guitars - the jarana huasteca and the huapanguera. 

This video, created by our production team, features Don Pedro reciting three decimas (ten line poems) out of the five that form the first part of the song – in other words, just a small part of the entire piece. But we wanted to share this glimpse into this community gathering to demonstrate the power of living cultural traditions that unify and fortify our diverse, and often invisible, Mexican communities. 

Why my Mexican grandparents were more "American" than Donald Trump (and his ilk).

Why my Mexican grandparents were more "American" than Donald Trump (and his ilk).

1) My grandparents lived and built their American dream. Unlike Trump, who inherited wealth and privilege, they knew the value of work beyond a line item. In a new land, they moved themselves from fieldworkers and seamstresses to business people and homeowners. They were pioneers who adapted to their new country with humility and optimism. 

2) My grandparents invested in people. They ensured that their children received a quality education and supported their extended family, community and church. When Trump talks about investment he refers only to a financial world of winners and losers. Bankruptcy and job loss are simply costs of doing business.  America fails to properly invest in its people at its great peril. 

3) My grandmothers were grateful for the opportunities this country provided them. Both became U.S. citizens at an advanced age. After they blessed us with “Dios Lo Bendiga”, they would add “God Bless America”. The staggering sense of entitlement and shortsightedness that pollutes our society is disgraceful and dangerous. Without a sense of our history of progress, gratitude for our good fortune, and sense of collective responsibility our society will slide into increasing fear and hopelessness. A powerful country overrun by fear is a recipe for tragedy of global proportions. 

Work hard, invest in people and be grateful. 

Tradition and Independence

Mexico has a long tragic history of its folk culture being manipulated and its folk artists controlled by people who benefit from division.

These people and institutions create hierarchies of purity and wave banners and arguments about patriotism or revolution, religion or anti-religion, etc.

These cynical and destructive campaigns to control artists and culture play out here among Mexican Americans as well. Arguments about birthright, appropriation, colonialism and purity are flung around. 

But these efforts are power grabs disguised as causes to promote a select few. They are based on a false understanding of folk music and do a great disservice because they inhibit creativity and open collaboration by instilling fear and division.

We must not allow human expression to be controlled. Expression is an essential human right. We all carry cultural traditions within and they are ours to cultivate. And even if we cultivate them chueco - then so be it. Diversity of expression strengthens us. And our traditions are strong enough to survive and thrive regardless.

For those who claim to protect the integrity or purity of our traditions I say that in the end it is the pueblo that decides what thrives and what does not. That is the way it has always been.

Mexico’s campesinos have suffered 500 years at the hands of people and institutions who have tried to control their voices. It is time for us, the children and grandchildren of Mexico’s working people, to set ourselves free and fight for our independence of expression.

Tradition is a doorway, not a wall.