Which is to say, whatever I may have managed I did as a way out of that sadness that is mine and not mine alone. And where others have found a measure of peace or rest or belonging in romance or family or career, I have found it in the page and its utterance, something like this space with you.
The author finally accepts who he is, his family, and his upbringing. There are some things in life that we cannot run away from but we can all cope and use our experiences as a strength.
My name is Jose;' the first time I have introduced myself as such in so many years, and it feels like a beginning, reclaiming the name my parents gave me in this American space.
We see that although the author is nervous and unsure, he is beginning to grow more comfortable and accept who he is.
I begin to suspect, though, that my complete assimilation into middle-class (?) (white) American culture is impossible, unless I lock my past away forever.
Another way of saying that the author will have to hide who is he is or was in order to fit in.
I like my therapist with his sandy blond hair and honest smile and his soft-lit office with the tan sofa and the purple quartz by the window. I also know we come from different worlds when he mentions in another conversation that a twenty-thousand-dollar inheritance is not a lot.
A soft reminder that although the author is very comfortable with his therapist and likes him very much, that most people are from completely different backgrounds.
I left to find a way out of the gay closet in that city where I hear being gay is not so bad.
Unfortunately, we see this in almost every culture, not being accepted because of your sexuality and thus leaving to find somewhere that will accept you.
I stumbled around a while, came to writing late, went off to study it. And kept writing and submitting and believing I had something important to say.Here's what I don't say:I'm not always sure how I did it, or what that means exactly.
I'm glad the author thinks about his response and makes sure there is not any doubt in his answer.
Always you are timid but curious enough to ask during the question-and-answer session at the end of the reading some variation of how did I become a writer. Because you've already gleaned, from my predominantly autobiographical poetry and prose and my chatting in between pieces, the basics of my past--the Mexican village, the poverty, the journey to the Texas border, the parents' focus on education, the love of reading and the classroom–I know your question is not about that, not about the mechanics of the craft, not about the discipline of the draft.
The author seems to have an appreciation that the student is asking about how he became a writer, he also knows there's something deeper behind it as the student already knows his beginnings.
Dear Student
I really appreciate that this memoir is in the form of a letter.
Coatlalopeuh
I had to look this up because I had never heard of it, it means the woman who crushed the serpents and is the possible origin for the word Guadalupe.
Women are at the bottom of the ladder one rung above the deviants. The Chicano, mexicano, and some Indian cultures have no tolerance for deviance. Deviance is whatever is condemned by the community. Most societies try to get rid of their deviants.
The author is recognizing all of the oppression that women face, unfortunately this is part of every culture in mankind.
Much of what the culture condemns focuses on kinship relationships. The welfare of the family, the community, and the tribe is more important than the welfare of the individual. The individual exists first as kin—as sister, as father, as padrino— and last as self.
The author is again acknowledging the position in not only Hispanic culture, but in other cultures that individuals are put in and the importance of family over individualism.
Today some of us have a fourth choice: entering the world by way of education and career and becoming self-autonomous persons. A very few of us
It is good to see the author realize that she had another choice and used that rebellion to forge her own path.
There is a rebel in me—the Shadow-Beast. It is a part of me that refuses to take orders from outside authorities. It refuses to take orders from my conscious will, it threatens the sovereignty of my rulership
I like this line, the author is finally gaining more acceptance and taking a stand about who she is. She is not a conformist and she refuses to follow others just because they say to.
At a very early age I had a strong sense of who I was and what I was about and what was fair. I had a stubborn will. It tried constantly to mobilize my soul under my own regime, to live life on my own terms no matter how unsuitable to others they were. Terca. Even as a child I would not obey. I was “lazy.” Instead of ironing my younger brothers’ shirts or cleaning the cupboards, I would pass many hours studying, reading, painting, writing. Every bit of self-faith I’d painstakingly gathered took a beating daily. Nothing in my culture approved of me. Había agarrado malos pasos. Something was “wrong” with me. Estabá más allá de la tradición.
Coming from a Hispanic family I can definitely relate to the sense of the family being above all else, sometimes even school.
I had to leave home so I could find myself, find my own intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed on me.
Here we see the author revealing that she could never be her true self while with her family, only who they told her she should be.
To this day I’m not sure where I found the strength to leave the source, the mother, disengage from my family, mi tierra, mi gente,
This is a very strong line the author uses, we learn at a young age, the mother (especially a Hispanic mother) is the glue of the family.
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Will to Power
Nietzche was a German Philosopher and one of his great works Beyond Good and Evil is about the morality of those concepts and how there can be a gray area in both. Good nor Evil are pure black and white concepts.
I don’t love my country. Its abstract gloryis beyond my grasp.Still (though it sounds bad) I’d give my lifefor ten places there, certain folks,
The thought of loving our country unconditionally is an odd thing to think about when you are a minority, this country does not fight for us but wishes us to fight for it, we can however find people and things in it that we would fight for.
I am the welder.I am taking the powerinto my own hands.
We have the power to change and shape things as we wish.
Yes, fusion is possiblebut only if things get hot enough –
Yes, unity is possible and we must do it when the time is right.
we all come from the same rockwe all come from the same rockignoring the fact that we bendat different temperaturesthat each of us is malleableup to a point.
While the author is talking about the metals he works with, he is also referring to people, we come from the same rock, have different breaking points and are able to adjust to different circumstances.
from dictators in our neighborhoods,who wore blue suits and broke our doors downwhen they wanted, arrested us when they felt like,swinging clubs and shooting guns as they pleased.
We see many of these same injustices with police even now, most people simply want better while the men of law want to keep us down.
yes, i’ll laugh, carnales,just like we all want to laugh,not to mock us nor to spite you,just to say i understand, pero eso sí, compiras,’no quiero regresar.
The author is saying that he does not laugh at others pain or in spite but at the situation, that this can't possibly be what is happening and lastly that he understands and does not want to go back to this life.
all the crazy liesthat say that we are savage; i’ll laugh at mean ass convicts who terrify the worldyet love to eat ice cream,
We see the racism tied to all minorities as criminals and convicts, we are not monsters, we are people just like everyone else.
now exist and once existed; somewhere. . ., someone remembers. . . . .
Remembering the old neighborhoods that are now long gone and those that remain, tried and true, lucky enough to stay untouched.
Neighborhood of Reyes’ Bar where Lalo shotgunned Pete Evans to death because of an unintentional stare and because he was escuadra, only to end his life neatly sliced by prison barber’s razor. Durán’s grocery & gas station Güero drunkenly stabbed Julio arguing over who’d drive home and got 55 years for his crime. Ráton: 2o years for a matchbox of weed. Is that cold? No lawyer no jury no trial i’m guilty Aren’t we all guilty?
The author lists the tragic fate of dear friends, those loved and lost over minor disturbances or unfortunate events.
Zaragoza Park
As others have notated this is a park in Austin, Tx. I actually went here quite a bit growing up.
Speeches by elders, patriarchs with evidence of oppression distinctly etched upon mestizo faces.
We read about the elders giving their stories of oppression and injustice while looking at all of the mixed people in the crowd.
You live on, captive, in the lonely cellblocks of my mind.
I like this line, most people would think of the mind as a vault when it comes to memories and wanting to hold on but here it is referenced as cellblocks, showing the inability to escape or be free.
Neighborhood of my youth demolished, erased forever from the universe.
It is amazing to see that even in 1969, the sense of displacement. Today we see this is in the gentrification of neighborhoods that we grew up in and loved.
Then Feliz began laughing again, but it wasn’t Feliz laughing. It was gurgling out of her own throat, a long ribbon of laughter, like water.
I'm not sure if the author wanted he ending to sound as scary as it is but it sounds terrifying.
By the time he reached his mom and Roque, the note was already somewhere on the asphalt parking lot.
We get to see Erick finally care about one of the men his mom was with, a good, honest man and he did not want to ruin that because one of the baseball players wanted to get to know his mom.
stinging hands. He wasn’t even sure if it had been hit by Pete Guerrero. He thought for sure it had been, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t watch the game then—he couldn’t. He didn’t care who won. He stared at his official National League ball, reimagining what had happened.
This is one of the first time if not the first time we read about Erick being completely stricken by amazement and happiness.
When he got back, he turned on the TV, scooted up real close, as close as he could, and ate his dinner with a soup spoon. He was away from all the men.
Erick's way of escaping, no longer having to deal with these outsiders who only wanted his mother.
What did Erick want to be when he grew up? A cop, a jet-airplane mechanic, a travel agent, a court reporter? A dog groomer? Erick stood there, because his mom said that he shouldn’t be impolite.
Again more distance but this time the character Erick is trying to distance himself from the situation.
Then he’d wink at Erick
The Author is referring to himself in the third person, unsure if this is to distance himself from what was going on around him or if the author is telling this story as an outsider looking in.
urracas
I had to look this word up because I did not know what it meant, but it is the Spanish word for magpie which is a type of bird. A Magpie is in the same family as the crow.
It was because of him that I learned to love you. I knew your name before I ever spoke to you. Had seen you in class a dozen times, seen you talking to your friends, seen you across the room at a party or two. I’d even thought you had beautiful eyes
From the love that has been lost, we see a new love or interest start.
Neither of us went home for Christmas break—his family in Texas and my family in Nebraska were too far and too poor for them to come and visit. Spring came and went. Our last night together, he wept in my arms. I called him every day that summer, left messages with a woman who only spoke Spanish. He never called me back. Eventually, she started to hang up when she’d hear my voice, and then the number was disconnected. When fall came, I went back but he didn’t. I couldn’t sleep. I’d wake up screaming, wake up calling for him. With time, the silence froze something inside me, but the bird songs stayed with me
We have been hearing of their love and now we see the separation and distance.
Some towns hardly more than a city-limits sign, two houses, and a gas station
I grew up in a town just like this, Manor, Texas. We only had one four way light in the town until a few years ago.
the name itself was an incantation
I really like this line, it calls to the magic and bliss of this place she loves.
the roasted corn and the shaved ice with syrup and El Pato’s and the botanas and the chorizo from San Manuel and the taquitos de trompo served with frijoles a la charra and baked potatoes and the cabrito al carbon on the other side of the border.
This reminds me of my own childhood. It brings a sense of nostalgia as I'm sure it does for many other Chicanos.
La Raza!Méjicano! Español! Latino! Hispano! Chicano!or whatever I call myself, I look the same I feel the same I cry and sing the same.
I like this statement, those of Spanish descent go by many names, but this should not distract from who are collectively.
I bleed as the vicious gloves of hungercut my face and eyes,as I fight my way from stinking barriosto glamour of the ringand lights of fameor mutilated sorrow
This is an amazing comparison, as we know the author Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez was a featherweight boxing champion. He is saying that even through all of his fights in the ring, he must still fight in much of the same way for our rights.
The Indian has endured and stillemerged the winner,
This line confuses me a bit, from what we know of history I would not say in any terms that the Native American Indian emerged a winner. Years of death, persecution and displacement from their homeland, they definitely endured but not won.
I have been the bloody revolution,the victor,the vanquished.I have killed and been killed
I like this statement, its like Joaquin is saying, we have been here, we have been in your wars and ours, killed your enemies and been killed by your enemies.
I am Joaquín
Again this is a bold statement, I am Joquin, I am here and you cannot look past me.
I am the eagle and serpentof Aztec civilization
This is a reference to Quetzalcoatl or Kukulkan, the winged feathered serpent god of Mayan and Aztec mythology. Primarily known as the symbol of death and resurrection.
Cuauhtémoc
I was unaware of this figure, after looking into it Cuauhtemoc was known as The Last Aztec Emperor.
I must choose betweenthe paradox ofvictory of the spirit,despite physical hunger, orto exist in the graspof American social neurosis,sterilization of the souland a full stomach.
I read this statement and think of the Sal Castro documentary, it would be easier to just sit back and do nothing or do I take a stand for what I believe in, even if it means losing.
My fathershave lost the economic battleand wonthe struggle of cultural survival
Joaquin is aware of the struggle and lives it everyday. He knows his forefathers have done the same, our people do not have a history of being economically on top but we make do with what we have and survive.
I am Joaquín/Yo Soy Joaquín
I've seen a couple others say that this is Joaquin unsure of who he is but I think it is the opposite, I think this is a bold declaration. This is me, This is who I am!