---

I WAS RETURNING TO SCHOOL. I had liberated myself from high school at 16 years of age. I still don't regret it. The whole affair had become a sham. And the real world—harsh consequences and all—was a welcome freedom from years of false learning, hypocrisy and forced social situations in the guise of enlightenment and maturity. I didn't feel school was false because of the Euro-slanted history. I wasn't aware of that then. I felt it was false because nothing I was learning felt relevant or important to me. It paled in comparison to the learning I felt I wanted to do, but knew not where to find. And it was control. And I had had enough of that in few areas of my life. On my exit from school, I tore free with anything but grace. There were disciplinary problems, suspensions, psychiatric referrals, apathy. But that's what happens when you force someone into a spiritual meat grinder.

After a couple years of working in stockrooms, a dairy farm's chicken coops, fast food joints, supermarkets, hotels, and farms; after a bout of being homeless, in jail, and living in welfare projects; after waiting the required amount of time (until your class graduated or you were out of school for x amount of years), I went back to school at 19. I ended up entering the same year I would have if I stayed in high school.

In my first undergraduate Elective English course, Words (and Their Origins), we studied the Greek and Latin elements of many words, expression, and groups of words in the current American English vernacular. I found it utterly fascinating to study a bit of today's languages and how they come about, and to this day it is one of the classes I really remember enjoying.

It was revelatory to me to read of the particular relationship between language and war. War as a snake bearing powerful and complex gifts; as a writhing, moving, flowing creature that drags the skin of language everywhere it goes, shedding it in the wake of each thrashing. It was both fascinating and empowering to discover how the same pattern seemed to play out, over time. (And you may notice at this point that I look for patterns when scanning an expanse of time, but that is where I find some of my Truths in this life, yet another reason why age and wisdom must be revalued in this culture).

An invading empire or conquering forces takes the cities, and this is where the conqueror's language flourishes. In the indigenous or rural outskirts and in-betweens, the language of the vanquished remains and usually, becomes a low and foul tongue, a value imposed by the conquering and dominant culture. Just as the word "villain" once meant only "he or she who lives in the Village," but as the villages came to be the Unsavory Place, so did the description of their residents, the "villains". In many adjoining areas, the two languages will mingle. And this dynamic of war and language plays out throughout time, from the assigning of Set ("bad" god of Ancient Egypt) as diety of the Hyksos (hyksos meant "foreigner", were the only occupying non-Egyptian invaders to establish their own dynasties) to the Romans bringing their Latin and displacing the Celtic languages in most of the British Isles; to the Germanic Angles and Saxons establishing Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, and Wessex when the Romans pulled troops out of Britain; to the European Invaders who invaded the continent of North America multiple times. Wherever war goes, it takes language with it. And too, language wages her own battles, apart from the conflicts that bring tongues to bear.

While all this was extremely instructional, and started lines of thought still not finished, it was (at that point) entirely academic. A deeper learning would be triggered when I would see these ideas made real before my eyes.

The part about taking back my name. That was not academic. That was a big move, actually. I had been Jackryan since 8 years old, and here, 11 years later, I was veering back. It wasn't as if there weren't resistance. Anybody who had known me in the area since high school reacted in a puzzled sort of way, as if after high school, I had become a young Cat Stevens, joined some sort of cult, and adopted a foreign name. They had always known me as Jackryan, and it never even crossed their mind that I could have such a name, an appellation so strange to the Northeast USA. When these old classmates, or neighbors heard my name, they often gave me a look like "Who are you puttin' on?" After that point, I could easily draw a line between those who met me after college and before college by what they called me. It made answering the phone easier, responding to mail easier.

I re-met my father later this year, for the first time since I was about 5. When I did meet him again, he dropped a hint, made an offer, gave a reminder that I could take my old name back, if I wanted. It really wasn't worth a second's thought. I in no way had any urge to take back that name. And let me tell you something I did not realize until much later, when I took my given name back, entirely. Having the fake last name was a comfort. When someone asked for my name, there would be one of those dogged pauses once I gave the reply. There would be a look that (in time I learned meant) Wakeen...Ryan...is that Arabic and Irish, or Chinese and Irish?... If you live in a border town, or on the West coast of the USA—especially in California, where I share names with some of the mountains and rivers—this reaction may seem odd to you. Or if you love the movies of this decade, the name won't surprise you. But remember, what I speak of here has been an ongoing experience for the last 30+ years, and I was not living in Latino-heavy areas. That's sort of my point.

So, the name produced much face wrinkling, and in combination with the Irish last name? Sometimes a person hearing it would just wait for me to fill in the blank, knowing they wanted to know.

I had grown a little too old for the "Italian" line, and so I dropped it. At that point, I would just tell people I'm half Spanish, which sort of felt true, and seemed to be enough for them. Sometimes they would say I was gonna say! or perhaps Interesting. Or maybe just make a face like "Hunh! That's weird! But it was a rescue, nonetheless. The Irishness of my adopted last name saved me from certain conclusions in people's minds.

There's something about a last name. That's the one that tells of your blood, and your ancestors, and the languages they speak. The first name is decorative, and of choice. Your parents might spend a year in Barcelona and name you Mercedes, your father might make a trip to Hawaii and come back and name you Waikiki, your cousin might say "Effervescent" in her sleep and doom you to a lifetime of tiny seltzer-suspended gas bubble comparisons. But your surname is passed down by those who gave you flesh and bone, and it speaks to deeply-held beliefs about tribes and deeds and wars and vendettas and conquest and religion and legacy. So I was not unconscious of the ripple that the accented and q-ridden Joaquín caused, in the northeast pre-Phoenix USA; a ripple that was immediately smoothed by a calming, bright, 'appy copper bit of Ryan tossed in at the end. Later, I would feel guilt over how I had taken such solace in such a mask. But we look at truth when we are ready for it. No sooner.

I would find out the shape of my first name in people's minds by the way they remembered it. And again, that tells you so much about where I was living. You give a man a Spanish word, and he hears an Arabic one. (Reminds me of those today conflating Mexicans with the New Arabic Enemy. Double Your Terror! Double your fun!) They wouldn't act strange, or unkind, they would just forget the unfamiliar word that had a hard time taking root, and mentally reached into a Brown Name Stereotype file cabinet. Hakim, pass me that book? they'd say, casually. Sometimes it was Wanna soda, Achmed? I'm not kidding. I've heard more substitutions for my name than I can tell you. These particular ones told me that to many people, I may as well have been from the Middle East.

Of course, as I've implied, this all got much easier once Joaquín Bottom—aka Joaquín Phoenix—hit the public consciousness. On one hand, Mister Bottom/Phoenix made it easier! Suddenly everyone knew how to say my name, and gone, gone, gone was all the trouble. However, I went from Alien-Appellation to Famous Celebrity's Shadow. It was like that Ray Bradbury story and anywhere I traveled, I was just Five Minutes Too Late. I'd say my name, and the eyes would light up, while I waited for them to bubble up with appreciation for.....(drum roll) his name. "Oh, WaKEEN? Like Wa-Keen Feen-ix?" and I would tell them No, like Joaquín Murieta. (It was only later that my Father would tell me I was named during the height and passion of the movimiento that led Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales to write Yo Soy Joaquín in 1967.)

But after a while, in exhaustion, I began to say Yeah, like Wakeenfeenix more and more.

I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion,
caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society.

My fathers have lost the economic battle
and won the struggle of cultural survival.
And now! I must choose between the paradox of
victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger,
or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul and a full stomach.

Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere,
unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical,
industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success....

I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life --
MY OWN PEOPLE....

Yo Soy Joaquín, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

---

THE GREAT STONE WHEEL WAS ALWAYS TURNING, despite my jaunts into a land that wouldn't have me. My history grew on me, the voices of mis antepasados tugged at me. My brownness wouldn't go away, no matter what I made my name. It wouldn't go away—the land I'd never grown to know. My Mexicanness wouldn't fade, not even with a decade of cold Northern winters. My self, my whole self surfaced at odd moments, caused disconcerting flashes of light in the mirror. Dreams I had turned from sang out at inopportune moments, always when I wasn't expecting it. Midnight gulls, clawing at dawn. Guitar notes in unexpected places, falling in between the grinding of the jaw. Just moments. Images. Impulses. Saudade.

Spicy food, psychically replicating the burn I gave myself sucking on my fingers, as a child at the table with my Nanita and my Papi, the day I reached for the jalapeños and was swatted away with care. All my days as a notquite-White boy I hunted down the hottest salsa I could buy and took pride in my tolerance and reverence for the burn. Characters in stories with Spanish eyes, or names. Girls in my own life whispering Spanish into my ear at my own request as we made love. Memories of watching ¡Villa Allegra! on TV as a child, the camera swooping slowly over the festive town, the song, the shellacked and never-fading image of the Virgen de Guadalupe, the insistent and elusive memory of Spanish that danced sometimes upon my tongue, like the scent of sweets at the fair. You can smell the sugary booths, but you can't find your way there.

Assimilation? A good idea? Again, we all have our own definitions, and it is important to realize this. To be aware. I don't want to fight anyone if I don't have to. But if I do fight them, I don't want the conflict to be a sublimation of a disagreement on the definition of a term. Sure, move here and buy an American flag, fly it next to the flag of tu patria; learn American English; along with your tamales and enchiladas and rice, prepare American food (what is that?); Follow the law of the land, and contribute with your taxes. Find ways to make the nation better, smarter, kinder. If you want to call that Assimilation, then sure, I can roll with that.

But as far as forgetting where you come from? Repudiating personal integrity and allegiance to your homelands to give unwavering support to the new land regardless of what it does? Reshining your face so that it better matches your tie? Submerging your ethnic identities in the name of being Just Like Them? It won't work. I'm living proof. You couldn't have hoped to remove more influence of someone's ethnicity than in my case. And it doesn't work. The children will find the path home, crumbs or no. You might teach them a thousand new chants, you might retell all the stories in the tongue of the new clan, you may change the name, and the very terrain, but the hands will not rest, and the true heart will always lurk.

Mama Lucha: The blood does it's own work.

---

AND SO THE BOY BECAME A MAN and tried on a thousand and one masks as he did. He was known as a chameleon, able to change his appearance with a bit of cotton, a little facial hair, and a look in the eyes. He was fluid in his appearance and his location, and he told those who knew him to write his number and addresses into their book in pencil. What was he looking for? What was he running from? Anything? Was it all a grand metaphor of costumes changing, clothes ripplingruffling as the tangential symbols were rearranged in a quest to find the true face? Or just a way to keep things interesting? To remind himself and the world of what one could modify, and what will not Stay? Perhaps he was finding his way somewhere. Or maybe he was just a jester, an actor, a player moving deeply through the play.

He was not hiding 100% of the time, and he would have you know he never once thought he was hiding at all. There were times in his life when he would defend his ethnic origins. But what did his old last name matter? In fact, what does a name matter at all? What does the Mexican blood matter in the whole mix? Sure, there was more of it than any other type, but what did it all mean? He was not a baron or duke, waiting on an entitlement that could only be handed down by family name. He was everchanging, and nothing of the old world need stay.

What does race matter? Why think about it at all? We don't need to think about it anymore. That old, dead world does not remain. But whenever someone joked about Mexicans or Spics, or when he would see his heritage ridiculed or denigrated, he found that bits of it did remain. And he felt them within him like splinters.

Hey, I'm Mexican, he would say to those people, in those moments—forgetting everything about the fake allegiance to Italy; forgetting the Indian part, and only rising to the defense of Mexico, the land that had molded his longest bones. Oh, but you're not like them, not like those Mexicans, they'd conclude, and it would make him think. And he thought for years. For what Mexicans did they mean? Did they mean the kind who wouldn't understand their jokes? Or just the kind who weren't there to hear them? Did they mean full-blooded Mexicans...and what did that mean, anyway? Later, he would think of all the peoples who have made up the Mexicans and wonder how it mattered to the insult to have this much of Mexican blood or how much was Romanian, or something else. But at the time, he just pondered what it meant that he was Not Like Them, not like these Other Mexicans in the minds of those making the jokes. And as time went on, he was more and more sure that if he were not like anyone, it was the jokemakers.

But he did try. And for a while, he tried to have it both ways. To be White, and Mexican. But as more and more time went by, he began to be more and more conscious of all those things he would have to agree with to retain his White affiliation, and to laugh on the right side of the jokes.

Perhaps it was too late, once he stepped over the line at 19, and took back his alien first name. Perhaps it was asking for trouble when he pronounced his name when meeting and correcting someone more than three times, and wouldn't let them brush it off with a "whatever."

Perhaps it is just nine Whatevers that add up to one tiny grain of anger, enough fuel to start a fire. Perhaps The Unapologetic Mexican began to shine his stone when Joaquín developed the notion that if someone wasn't willing to learn his "odd" name, then they were also not worthy of being his friend.

Perhaps the long feathers were dipped in the first blood when Joaquín began to answer the question "What can I call you for short?" with the repitition, "Joaquín."

But the Indian rose. And bit by bit, he blew the cold air of the North from his flaring, truculent nose. For he was a proud spirit, and not the type to break down in silence. Life brought him many battles and new chances to assert himself. And perhaps each time, he had to examine his flag, had to see just who it was that he was presenting, and if he could stand behind that Self. Perhaps the entire journey was a series of adjustments and examinations. Or maybe the turning of the great stone wheel is moved by nothing so deliberate.

Perhaps the sun simply rises where it must, and sends its purifying eye into every corner. Perhaps in the dawn's light, the dust becomes diamonds, and long-silent tongues dance like fire.

I,
Of the same name,
Joaquín,

In a country that has wiped out
All my history,
Stifled all my pride,
In a country that has placed a
Different weight of indignity upon my age-old burdened back.
Inferiority is the new load . . .

The Indian has endured and still Emerged the winner,
The Mestizo must yet overcome,
And the gachupín will just ignore.

I look at myself
And see part of me
Who rejects my father and my mother
And dissolves into the melting pot
To disappear in shame.

Yo Soy Joaquín, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

---

JUST AS IT IS THE DESIGN AND INTENT OF INVISIBLE AND INTERNAL COLONIZATION, a person, not taught otherwise, will learn from where he can. And on the way to less adulterated knowledge, one will absorb the tired and practiced lessons of the everpresent culture. Those are the default, and that is the viewpoint and map that is put into the brain of the unwary. This is why those who live on the pablum and propaganda that the dominant culture's media sees fit to dish out see nothing wrong with those things that the more discerning find dangerous or offensive. This is something that Joaquín had to learn on his own.

The foundations for this awareness came, perhaps in his advertising courses, or his sociology courses in college. These taught him firstly, to become aware of the agendas behind statistic gathering, marketing, and presentation of data. But the specific awareness of cultural bias and racist messaging was introduced to him in his encounters with his papá, who annoyed him with his media observations; who irritated Joaquín with his eye that could find oppression in seemingly the most innocuous places. Was a cigar never just that?

But in the land of the Blind, the heat on the cheek may be the slice of light that you seek. And he had yet to see many things. He was about to make that final step that separates the hypnotized from the conscious mind. It is a step fraught with pain, because it means reexamining all that has already been accepted, and possibly even yourself. Especially yourself. You can't go back and take the red pill once you've taken the blue, and there is no turning back once you've decided to shed the scales.

Joaquín wasn't aware of his own angry reaction to his father's absence, how it might manifest in a rejection of all things Spanish—even while defending his own Mexican blood.

He didn't see that choosing French over Spanish in High School was a deeper statement than just a choice of what elective to study.

He didn't understand that he didn't just dislike parts of himself or his reflection, he disliked the parts that seemed non-White to him; he didn't know that this was a notion, comparison, and judgement implanted into his mind by others.

He didn't know what the terms "Internal Colonization" meant.

He didn't know why California had so many Spanish names, nor how the US wrangled its way into gaining 50% of Mexico's property.

He didn't understand the effect the White Dominant Culture—in which he was born and raised—had on nations like Chile, or Venezuela, or even on Mexico.

He didn't note the obvious in his bringing a black and white flag that spelled out SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE to his father's house, when first visiting him. He didn't even do it "on purpose." He didn't even think about it for another 16 years.

He didn't see the neoliberal framework resting quietly within the original Star Trek series, or in many common arguments for "American Intervention," or "Exploration," or the arrogance in the idea that all Mexicans wanted from crossing the border was American Style, or understand what a gaping hole had been left in his heart by the loss of his culture by birthright (even though as a child, he thought with longing toward the familial coherency and tradition that bound the families of his black, vietnamese, or (practicing) Jewish friends.

As he was hypnotized by the dominant White culture that was busy absorbing not only his own but many cultures, Joaquín would even wear symbols of his own oppression, like many do in such a nation. But he didn't think of them as such. He saw nothing wrong with wearing clothes that sported the Iron Cross, a symbol of White Conquest, and one emblazoned on the sails of the ships that he would later learn invaded his ancestors and murdered so many of them. He didn't know the word Pocho. He didn't know the truth of the Zoot Suit riots. He didn't know real History; not Americas' nor Mexico's. But he would learn.

---

JOAQUIN WANTED TO BE FREE, and that is why he moved to New York. He had yearned to be in the city for years. He had spent a good stretch of years in rural New York, and all the television, fashion, and speech from NYC that filters up through the woods of New York State had infected him with its shapes and sounds. He knew he was destined to live there before ever seeing the city up close, for he would meet people who would sometimes ask him "are you from the city?" He had visited more than once, and always returned drunk with the energy, intrigued by the variety, by the diversity of speech and dress and lifestyle and type. He yearned to feel more at home with those who lived around him. He no longer wanted to be stared at in convenience stores, even if he dressed in odd ways. He found great joy in jogging up the stairs, swinging around a pole, dodging and juking and balancing better than he ever had as a high-school running back, and more like when he took gold for kata at his first martial arts tournament. The skills required to move through the ocean of humans in a city ten million strong was a natural dance to him, and circumnavigating her flexing and unflexing streets and humid cul-de-sacs became a joy that he felt in the core of his being.

He also discovered some important things while in the city. For example, one of Joaquín's past girlfriends had once told him (clever and prescriptive as she thought herself to be) that he dressed (hair, clothes, etc) so outrageous just to prove how different he was. That he would not be happy if people didn't make him stand out. She implied this in a most unfriendly manner. And while she was known to make snippy, snappy, snide statements, it was not something he took lightly. He thought about it. It was one of those statements—made by someone close, and with a feel like it might be true—that makes one take note. So, not wanting to be so false, he kept it in store, and over time, compared it to his life and feelings to see if it were true.

It was his move to the city that proved this idea false. He did not want to be anybody's spectacle. He liked it that in the city, you could dress funky and freaky, in armor or a dress—and nobody would really notice too much. If you really pushed it, they might look for a moment or more, but it was a different look. New York is ready to be an audience. It wants to watch The Freaky. It longs to keep the carnival alive. It is a surreal land, and without its players, it would be a city of train-catching and commercially successful zombies and skeletons. Like a good burlesque show, you feel the crowd ready to form the semi-circle at any time, and if you're entertaining enough (or sympathetic enough), even to drop coins and bills into your bucket. In the woods of New York, the crowd will stare, but they are not ready to take their seats and clap, and they sure won't toss any coins. Mostly, they don't mind making you feel very uncomfortable if you look weird or different. That cold stare is more like the stare of a lynch mob. Or perhaps to be generous, the stare of a suspicious yard dog. These places have no carnival they want kept alive. They wanted to let you know the rules that if you did not follow, would insure your penalty.

What Joaquín discovered was that he wanted to be able to be himself (and all that that entailed), but not to be made to feel in danger or ashamed for that self. And while he could verbalize even that lesson at the time, he did not yet see in what other ways it might have applied to his journey.

Here I stand,
Poor in money,
Arrogant with pride,
Bold with machismo,
Rich in courage
And
Wealthy in spirit and faith.
My knees are caked with mud.
My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo rich,
Yet
Equality is but a word–
The Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken

And is but another threacherous promise.
My land is lost
And stolen,
My culture has been raped.
I lengthen the line at the welfare door
And fill the jails with crime.

Yo Soy Joaquín, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

---

HE KEPT A SECRET ON COLUMBUS STREET.

He was living on the Upper West Side at the time, and he didn't think too much about race, didn't talk about race, didn't Make An Issue Over Race. Like most people, he Let the Past be the Past. He Wasn't Responsible For What Anyone in the Past Thought, Felt, or Did. He never once decided to Make Race in Issue, and he didn't even think in those terms. These were not political trails he was carving through the wood, they were very personal and often private movements toward....

He had a favorite place to eat, and it was called El Charro Méxicano. He didn't go there with anyone else, not with his girlfriend, not with friends, not when he was tired of cooking, and not when he was in "the mood for Mexican." He went to this particular restaurant so he could return home, although he didn't say those words to himself.

Because for a little while, in El Charro Méxicano he almost felt he was home, a home for which he had found no parallel, as of yet. A home that did not exist in his life, but only in his heart. And sitting under the proud posters of La Virgen de Guadalupe, drinking his piña Jarritos, smiling quietly at the latina waittresses, listening to the corridos and Spanish-language pop music on the radio, he was home. He felt safe, buoyed by the loving arms of something so familiar and intimate as to escape definition. He didn't talk about it, he didn't write but once about it, and he didn't try to bring anyone there to share in it. He went, alone to the cramped little restaurant, and sat without saying anything. Just eating. First chips and salsa, then perhaps huarache, or a burrito with rice and beans. He was quiet, he was polite, he was not remarkable in his behavior. And as it was his only way to pay tribute to a land and life that was no longer available to him, he tipped very well.

Usually, upon leaving, he hoped to say Gracias, but would always falter at the last moment, usually curse himself for his own cowardice. He found the familiar words of Thank you coming out instead. In the end, he was afraid that he would mangle even the single Spanish word, and cold-blue alarms would clang from the kitchen like Mexican air-raid horns, sending the now frowning waitresses pouring out to tell him he was no longer welcome, and that it was not really his home, anyway.

---

BUT JOAQUIN KEPT DARING; HE KEPT DARTING toward the giant tomato sun of his bloodline, and the heart of his history. If it wasn't El Charro Méxicano on the Upper West Side, then it was the bodega on 13th ave in Brooklyn, where he did finally begin to mumble Gracias after buying his café con leche. His younger brother of the same father had no problem with speaking a few words of Spanish in the bodegas. He had a Spanish-speaking girlfriend, and anyway, he didn't feel any shame from his lack of Spanish. It wasn't tied up with his identity, perhaps. He was never in the home where Spanish was spoken, and he didn't remember Papi at all from those days. He grew up calling the Legal White Father "Dad," and he had his own journey, which did not always reflect Joaquín's, of course. But Joaquín would listen to his younger brother ask ¿Cuanto? to the Brown Woman at the Counter, and another tiny degree forward he leaned, deep within his boots. Even when you couldn't see him making ground, he was in motion. And he was close to knowing it out loud.

Like a slow dawn, the feelings and the notions and the fate within him grew larger and more golden, they intertwined with a logic and a wisdom that he never anticipated. In his clearer moments, he understood this pattern to be one of a great love granted by the Universe's simple design. Other times, he might just wonder how so many coincidences could lead him to a place so very personally important to him. But just as we ought not to stave off every perceived pain with a pre-emptive proscription (or prescription), some injuries or ailments are meant to inspire natural growth and resistance within a healthy organism. And anyway, there was no staving off the growing wave of anti-Mexican sentiment soon to spill over into the Mainstream American conversation. Soon, this animosity to his own people and patria would make itself known, and with the disgust and anger he would feel at the sudden crossfire, so also would he realize a self-love and acceptance heretofore unknown to himself, and a solidarity with Raza that would inspire him to better know himself, his familia, and his world. It would prove to be a defining time for Joaquín, who would soon be known by yet one more name.

I have existed
In the barrios of the city
In the suburbs of bigotry
In the mines of social snobbery
In the prisons of dejection In the muck of exploitation
And
In the fierce heat of racial hatred.
And now the trumpet sounds,
The music of the people stirs the Revolution.

Yo Soy Joaquín, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

---

HE LEFT BEHIND, THEN, THE GRITTY STREETS of Kensington, Brooklyn. He left behind the Mexican bodegas and the Méxicanos (and Bangladeshi and Chinese) who populated the poor area of the city, and emigrated to the much vaunted county of Westchester, NY—home of Martha Stewart and Hillary Clinton. The Whitest suburbs known to Humankind, where you could find many Blacks and Latinos...as long as you were checking yards or those pushing strollers. It was a town that boasted of The Best School Districts, and had a huge amount of Hired Help that came in to do much of the town's menial work. The brown people rode the train to the suburbs from Harlem, Yonkers, or the Bronx first thing in the morning, and then, when the work day was over, they took the train out of Westchester, and went back to Harlem, Yonkers, or the Bronx. And like when he first walked the halls of New York University (his second college), Joaquín began to look around him, and experience a guilt. And wonder where, exactly, he fit in.

He was able to make the move into an apartment where the rent was more than double his old rent because of a new job. It was a job with a publishing firm, and after he grew tired of commuting to Westchester (where the job was, of course), he rented an apartment there. Paying the high rent was balanced by the 20 hours he got back; the 20 hours a week he used to spend riding the trains; the mad rush through Grand central, the five newspapers, thousand stairs, and film of sweat he brought to work with him every day. His current girlfriend and he were excited about the new place with the super high ceilings, back yard, washer & dryer access, and postcard streets. He felt a bit of sadness, as he had grown to love the character of Brooklyn, but knew that every step forward so far had been a step up. And this was a good job and worth moving for.

But the questions of why the Latinos and Blacks couldn't live like he was, or wouldn't want to remained. He felt ashamed, a sort of Survivor Guilt. Or perhaps like a sellout. He couldn't place it. But the feeling was not to be denied: he lived among Whites, and if he was unsure before, he knew he was out of place in this postcard. The young men who smoked butts outside the restaurants on their break from dishwashing, or cooking—were brown. The men who came to trim his bushes were Brown. The girls taking care of the White women's babies were Brown. The men who drove the grocery truck and brought him his groceries were Brown. And the Policemen who walked the streets to check cars and everything else were White.

He stood in line at the bagel joint, and listened to the superficial banter of the horridly self-absorbed and frivolous suburbanite mothers as they waited for their bagels and coffee, and couldn't help but wonder why the man making the bagel was Indian, the owner of the deli down the street was Korean, the laundry owners Chinese, the nannies all Black, but the Citizenry and law so White, overall. He wasn't sure what it said about him, or them, or everyone, But he was beginning to pay much more attention to things that had once only weighed on him for a moment or two.

It can be hard to tell the difference between Fate, Circumstance, and Self-Determination. Perhaps all three are one thing for which we have yet to make a word. Or perhaps that is what we call "Life." Either way, Life brought the Publishing company a contract to edit a series of books that dealt with many different areas of the world, and it was understood that Joaquín, being the only Mexican at the company, would be assigned the Mexico book. This was the beginning of any education he had on Mexico. And the first thing he became educated in was the slant of some of the Media that brings other nations to the minds of today's young. The copy was slanted, and did some amazing things like twist the tradition of siesta and the lack of obsession with exact schedules into Good Ole Mexican Laziness. Joaquín found this offensive, and began reshaping the words of the book. It took a lot of doing. But as Fate (or Life or Chance) would have it, the book series was cancelled, once he was finished doing what he was doing.

But he had gained a few things from the effort. One, a much better idea of Mexico. Granted, he had only edited one perhaps high-school level book on Mexico, but he had known nothing previous to this; only what the TV, and the movies, and the mutterings of those you know who know someone who knows. But this book had spoken of Olmec, and Aztec, and Mayan, and Toltec Indians. It had shown temples, and pyramids and stone hoops; it spoke of Quetzalcoatl, the Mayan calender, the cipher, and the MesoAmericans who came to the land thousands and thousands of years ago. It had opened Joaquín's eyes a bit to a culture that he had felt calling, but had never known.

Another thing it showed him was that his father was not just a writer in a corner of the country read by one or two people in a small community, but that he was known enough to have his name and his work mentioned in this book on Mexico. And that made him feel proud. He had been born with that surname. Once, that name had been on all his papers. In fact, the adoption papers in his filing cabinet showed the change from one to the other. And he still had the old Social Security Card.

But then the book was filed away, and with it, the thoughts. For the time being.

A day came when he had spent enough time at the Publishing company that his talents became known and appreciated. This was something that would happen sooner or later in any area he dabbled, and probably in no small part due to his own unabashedly aggressive self-advertisement. There were a few things he had learned in his journey so far, and one of those things was that if you want someone to know something, you better tell them with your own mouth. And if you want to go somewhere, you better reach out your arm and grab something. Pull yourself closer to that place. Or make the ground move beneath you.

And so one day came the transition from Editor (as he was hired) to Designer. And after helping to design one book, he was given the chance to design his own book, and it would be a children's book. He went home and stayed up all night working on two cover ideas. He showered, went to work with his printouts, and upon meeting with the Publisher and Creative Director with his ideas, his position expanded to be Writer, Illustrator, and Designer. Of the entire book.

Needless to say, it was a thrilling opportunity, and he knew it was a new phase of his life. That meant, of course, he must choose a new name.

---

HE KNEW WHATEVER NAME HE CHOSE for the book, it would be one hard to shy away from later. He knew that it meant years of mail, bills, royalties, contracts and documents with either a name he wanted to get away from, or a name he cherished seeing in print. It didn't present too much of a challenge, and far more of an opportunity. He had emotionally divorced himself from the early days of his life, the days of Gearheart, the miseries of his early days and his denied self. He no longer wanted the name clinging to his license, his ID, his legal record, his financial record. Every sight of the fake last name began to cause him to recoil. Every time he saw a piece of paper with that name, he felt like a fraud. It was a mask he was done with; bandages he had once uses to cover a wound. And there's nothing more stifling than a broken mask, or old, stinking bandages.

He used the opportunity to return to the name he had been given at birth, Joaquín Ramon Herrera. And it felt right. It felt good, and it felt like returning to something profound, and real, and honest, and true.

It wasn't until a Mexican publisher, Selector, bought rights for Latin America that Joaquín learned there was an accent mark over the "o" in Ramón. He saw his name on the cover of that book, and smiled to learn something new about it. And he began to wonder what, exactly, those marks were for. He had been drawing an accent mark over his name for years, and he was very particular about it. He was particular because it indicated that the "í" was from the Spanish alphabet, the alphabet one must know to say his name the proper way. It was only when people tried to use the letters from the English alphabet that those terrible sounds would escape their mouths.

But what was it? What was the rule that determined whether or not an "i" was an "í" or not? He had looked into taking Spanish, finally, when in NYU. But every semester it was the same. They just required too many days per week. Languages were a five-day week, and Film was a schedule that would brook no alteration of its practicum-oriented class structure. And every semester, the two seemed to clash. So he did seriously look into learning the language where there was an opportunity. And that is movement. Because once, twenty years earlier, he had the chance to take Spanish, and he opted not to.

It seemed to be one of those things that had escaped him.

---

MAYBE IT WAS THE READING OF THE NEWS, the daily news, the news that I had been plugged into since that fateful day in September of 2001. I can't remember a line I crossed, because as I've made clear by now, there is no line, and if there was, it was the line I slid down to get here, the baseline, the bassline, the fine line separating the womb from the path to the tomb. My birth. I've just been a while getting here.

Was the line when I went to the May Day demonstrations in NYC, and hung up a Mexican flag on my Nice Suburban Porch? Was it CNN and Lou Dobbs pounding away at all my neighbors psyches day after day? Was it when the town realized how damn dark I get in the summer? I don't know exactly when it happened, but at one point I began to feel a bit uncomfortable in my Nice, Suburban Neighborhood. It all culminated in one very strange night when the local convenience store where I had been shopping regularly for years wouldn't let me in as they closed (unusual) and was afraid to open the door to let out a customer until I left the front of the store (extremely odd and unique, even).

It really all happened at once, or seemed to. It would be hard to say one thing caused the other. I know for certain that some government declaration or another, some pending bill, or vocally defended sentiment regarding English being made the O-FISH-ULL LANGWIDGE of the YOUnaghted Staaates rang a big, brass gong for me. Because I've always really enjoyed when people tell me how to walk, and how to talk, and how to dress, and how to live. That's always been pleasing to my natural sensibilities. And in this spirit of freedom, I said Ya Basta.

And I began preparing myself to learn Spanish, for good and for all. And I began preparing to leave the East Coast, the side of the country where I had spent most of my life. I decided it had been a long time since I had been in the place of my birth (Los Angeles, CA), and it was time for me to make a sojourn home. By this time, I was only too glad to leave. I had begun to talk to the gardeners and grocery truck drivers more than I had ever spoken to my neighbors, anyway.

In the time preceeding the move, I researched all I could about Spanish. I downloaded mp3s from native speakers that awakened the pronunciation on my tongue, a collections of sounds that had lain dormant and waiting to spring back into my life; I watched movies in Spanish, I listened to only Spanish language music, and tried to read through a book written in Spanish. I looked at old textbooks from classes. I made up exercises to teach myself. I joined a forum, I milked a friend for all the information she could give me on her knowledge of the language.

When I reached the West coast, I found a class, signed up (and am still taking them) and mostly, I allowed myself to be immersed in the feeling of returning to something I had left long ago. To stop hiding from myself. That is the biggest step. I allowed myself to know how much I wanted to learn, just how much it meant to me. I wrote about it, in a private journal. But I did not walk around telling people.

I have since brought many books into my home, books on the Spanish conquest of Mexico, books on the ghettos of America as written by sociologists, books on the Chicano movement, literary anthologies that contain many great Chicano/Chicana works that tell the stories of my people, of those who came before me, and of those who have lived and suffered and felt as I do; books on the Spanish language, college texts on Mexican History, books written by Conquistadores, books by Cervantes, poetry por Lorca, books by my father, books on Zapatistas. I encourage all who travel a path like mine to reeducate themselves with vigor. There is an education, a body of knowledge, and a view we can share, one that does not denigrate us, one that connects us to our people, to our history, to our struggle. There is a hope and a love and a pride there.

Spanish, to me, the sounds of Spanish? The feel of it, to speak it? It is a music I cannot describe. It escapes me ability to write. It is a perfect day in my child heart, a return to the utterly forgotten, saudade (incidentally, not a Spanish word!) fulfilled. The very sound of it, the feel of my tongue and cheeks and lungs joining to make the sounds is a melody that resonates in all of my bones at once, the belly catapulting the huffy and dramatic vowels into speech, the curl of care around each syllable, like green husk wrapping gold. The rolling and blending of the age-old sounds create such a song that is the language of my early memories. To return to the language is a dream I have had for a long time. Many dreams, I've had, for so long. I feared they were dying in storage, I feared that I could live without them. That my life could be so small. And now, they are alive, as am I.

Ware the sky. Orange-hot bells pealing dawn as I fly.

Like a sleeping giant it slowly
Rears its head
To the sound of
Tramping feet
Clamoring voices
Mariachi strains
Fiery tequila explosions
The smell of chile verde and
Soft brown eyes of expectation for a
Better life.

And in all the fertile farmlands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke-smeared cities,
we start to MOVE.


La raza!
Méjicano!
Español!
Latino!
Chicano!

Or whatever I call myself,
I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
And
Sing the same.



I am the masses of my people and

I refuse to be absorbed.

I am Joaquín.

The odds are great
But my spirit is strong,
My faith unbreakable,
My blood is pure.
I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!

Yo Soy Joaquín, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

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Part 2 of 2. Part 1 here. To be used as the basis for probably two books, one written in this voice, and one illustrated children's book titled I Am Wakeen.