Hispanic Poem

A New Dawn by Phil Duran i hear their voices crying from the ground: "grandma, grandpa, we're dying the air is polluted, the water is poisoned, the children get sick and there's no medicine, and the schools didn't let us in, saying there's not enough room for people like us, now we are the slaves of our society and our family may die forever bearing no more children in this uncaring world of conquest & greed, the legacy of your generation... please help us before it is too late, we love you -- your unborn grandchildren." O pueblo querido, despierta pues ya llegó el amanecer, el sexto sol, the sixth world of the Maya has arrived the sun hid behind the 7th moon to mark a new beginning, to heal the nations from the four directions, remember your past to live in the present so our children can have a future wake up to a new day and remember the Taino People who first met that lost italian in 1492 Columbus/Cristóbal Colón, a pirate and a murderer who stumbled upon our shores by accident & didn't have to qualify for citizenship or medical insurance or English only or other nonsense in order to be treated with native hospitality he slaughtered the people who showed kindness and nurtured him back to health, but they were not destroyed, they are still here and their chief said the other day in his own language: "Tau Guazabara, hello Warrior," a wake-up call to honor the original name of this land now called "America," the Taino name is Amikekia, it is Turtle Island the land of the family of the rising Sun the People's Island Land of the Great Lord and they still call themselves "La Raza" and you, Sr. Hernán Cortés, you stepped onto these shores on Good Friday in the year 1519, the exact day predicted by the Maya 1144 years earlier, when Quetzalcoatl was expected to arrive with good news, and instead the indigenous people of Tenochtitlan/México met the face of death, not the face of brotherhood but because you married a full-blooded woman from this Continent, a great Mestizo nation was born in the pain of conquest and they call themselves "La Raza" it was only a matter of time for the second wave of death to come from England and reach the happy villages on the Northeastern shore, where Chief Massasoit fed strangers and freedom-seeking Pilgrims landed in Pautuxet, Squanto's empty village decimated by European disease which was offered as a permanent home, where the natives could have shown their wrath and instead had compassion on weary travelers who became brothers in sorrow, lost and hungry and cold, learned to grow crops with proven indigenous science, and white communities were born which today bear European names: New Plymouth, Weymouth, Salem, Charlestown, Dorchester, Boston, towns that now thrive because of native generosity, yet the original hosts are unacknowledged in the pages of American history other strangers came later, crossing the big water to change our world, where the people lived with the land, the salmon was plentiful, effective medicines were used and numerous foods were already cultivated including the potatoes & chile picoso & chocolate & cacaguates, and many, many more- and today our tacos & tortillas are more popular than hamburgers and white bread the indigenous peoples south of the border face death every day because they are Indio, but their moral courage keeps them alive and teaches us how to survive and carry their banner and fulfill our sacred purpose with them so we can point our country to a higher learning, yes! a learning about our values and our madrecitas who taught us how to nurture our children before they become tomorrow's heartless politicians whose mothers did not hold them enough does congress know the meaning of love? does congress know the pain of poverty or only the pain of an overstuffed belly and the tight necktie with a custom-fitted three-piece suit? why do they want to split las familias while preaching family values? why do they attack the women, the children, and the poor on purpose, wanting to send some back to a México that also rejects them, where they have no relatives? why violate the unalienable rights of human beings who can't defend themselves? is congress afraid of a Brown takeover? why are Republicans and Democrats both pointing the same two-barrel shotgun at law-abiding, tax-paying, scapegoated people? why does it condone the legal world of contradictions, of virtual diversity by affirmative rhetoric guilt by association, evidence by fabrication argument through intimidation, and the right to remain silent without representation? remember who you are, raza and eat your menudo with pride, the self-evident truths are on your side and many who stand with you know they now share a common destiny, this is the land of your birthright where moving northward does not make you immigrants, only wanderers across a homeland driven by poverty and want because two nation-states created great deficits and environmental horror from the wealth that was once yours IT IS THE INDIAN WAY to welcome strangers but we must bring back our indigenous past, learn the spiritual ways that were lost, be kind to all who come here for "the Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth" and we are all related: mitakuye oyas'in, in lak 'ech yelir: "i am like you, we are the same" the new law says you have to live here 10 years before you can apply for citizenship and not be viewed as foreigners but we've been here tens of thousands of years and our Mother Earth never betrayed us or made us go hungry, so we will not disappear until the Creator, our heavenly Father, decides the time, the manner, the reason, and the season. May 3, 1997