Guillermo Gómez-Peña, A Declaration of Poetic Disobedience from the New Border (2005)
https://www.ispeech.org
To the Masterminds of Paranoid Nationalism
I say, we say:
"We," the Other people
We, the migrants, exiles, nomads & wetbacks
In permanent process of voluntary deportation
We, the transient orphans of dying nation-states
la otra America; l'autre Europe y anexas
We, the citizens of the outer limits and crevasses
of "Western civilization"
We, who have no government;
no flag or national anthem
We, fingerprinted, imprisoned, under surveillance
We, evicted from your gardens & beaches
We, interracial lovers,
children of interracial lovers, ad infinitum
We, who defy your fraudulent polls & statistics
We, in constant flux,
from Patagonia to Alaska,
from Juarez to Ramalia,
We millions abound,
We continue to talk back...continue, continue (in lupe)
(Shamanic tongues)
To those up there who make dangerous decisions for mankind
I say, we say:
We, the unemployed, who work so pinche hard
so you don't have to work that much
We, whose taxes send your CEOs & armies
on vacation to the South
We, the homeless, faceless vatos aquellos
in the great American metropolis
little Mexico, little Cambodia, little purgatory
We, the West Bank & Gaza strip of Gringolandia
We, within your system, without your mercy
We, w/out health or care insurance
w/out bank accounts & credit cards,
We, scared shitless at ground level,
but only at ground level
We will outlive your project X, Y, Z, culeros
(Shamanic tongues)
To the Lords of Censorship & Intolerance
I say, we say:
We, mud people, snake people, tar people
We, Living Museum of Modern Oddities & Sacred Monsters
We, vatos cromados y chucas neo-barrocas
We, the permanently unsatisfied subcultural typos
We, the immortal majority sieging your dreams
of purity & order
We, against the corruption of formalized religion & art
We, bohemians walking on millennial thin ice
Our bodies pierced, tattooed, martyred, scarred
Our skin covered with hieroglyphs & flaming questions
We, indomitable drag queens, transcendental putas
waiting for love and better conditions in the shade
We, "subject matter" of fringe documentaries
We, the Hollywood refusniks,
los greaser bandits & holy outlaws
of advanced Capitalism
We, without guns, without Bibles
We, who never pray to the police or to the army
We, who barter and exchange favors &? talismans
We, who still believe in community, another community,
a much stranger and wider community
We, community of illness, madness & dissent
We, scared and defiant
We shape your desire while you contract our services
to postpone the real discussion
(Shamanic tongues)
To those who have conveniently ignored our voices:
I say, we say:
We, who talk back in rarefied symbols & metaphors
We, the artists & intellectuals who still don't wish to comply
We, bastard children of two humongous nouns:
"heterodoxia" e "iconoclastia"
We, radical theorists in the academic trenches
We, the urban monks who pray in tongues & rap in Esperanto
We, who put on masks, penachos & wigs to shout
We, standing still in our underwear
right in the center of the stage
with the words carved on our chests:
"Performance artist: will bleed for food"
We, critical brain mass
We, fuga inminente de cerebros y hormonas
We, spoken word profética, sintética
(Shamanic tongues)
To those who are as afraid of us as we are of them
I say, we say:
We, generic brown & black males who fit all
taxonomic descriptions
We, who have no name whatsoever in the news
We, edited out, pixilated, censored, postponed
We, beyond the video frame, behind the caution tape
We, tabloid subject matter par excellence
We, involuntary actors of "The Best of Cops"
We, eternally stalking mythical blonds in the parking lot,
We, mistaken identities in your computer memory
We, black & brown nude bodies in the morgue
We, embalmed bodies int he Museum of Mankind
We, one strike & we're out; two strikes and you're in
We, prisoners of war in times of peace;
prisoners of consciousness without a trial
We, prime targets of ethnic profiling (your favorite sport)
We, of the turban, burka, sombrero, bandana, leather pants
We surround your neon architecture
While you call the FBI, and the Homeland Security Office
(pause)
Yes, we are equally scared of one another... Your move...
(Howling)
To the share-holders of mono-culture
I say, we say:
We, billingual, polylingual, cunnilingual,
Nosotros, los otros del mas allá
del otro lado de la línea y el puente
We, rapeando border mistery; a broader history
We, mistranslated señorrita,
eternally mispronounced
We, lost and found in the translation
lost & found between the layers of this text
We speak therefore you cease to be
even if only for a moment
See remaining text at http://hemisphericinstitute.org/journal/3.2/artistspresentation/guillermogomezpena/eng/disobedience/ggp_disobedience_06.html
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