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
