November 19, 2002 

Reader:  Dan Negrotto

Respondent:  Lisa Selensky

Recorder:  Valerie Jensen

“We Never Stopped Crossing Borders”

By Luis J. Rodriguez

Unsettling America, page 6

Biographical Information:

Luis J. Rodriguez was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1954 and is of Mexika / Raramuri indigenous descent.  At the age of two, his family migrated to Los Angeles where he grew up in Watts and East Los Angeles.  Luis became involved with gangs at the age of 11 and he lost 25 of his friends to gang violence by the time he turned 18.  At the age of 18, Luis faced a 6-year prison sentence and was using heavy drugs, including Heroin.  After receiving widespread support from members of his community, Luis was given a lesser sentence.  Feeling responsible to the people who rallied to his defense, Luis turned away from the “Crazy Life” and dedicated himself to conscious revolutionary thinking and activity, expanding his organizing efforts to other parts of East La as well as Watts and South Central LA.  He also got off of drugs “cold turkey” at the age of 19.  Luis’ autobiographical account, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA (Curbstone, 1993), received the Carl Sandburg Award of the Friends of the Chicago Public Library.  His books of poetry include Trochemoche (Curbstone Press, May 1998); The Concrete River (1991), which won a PEN West / Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence; and Poems Across the Pavement (1989), which received San Francisco State University’s Poetry Center Book Award.  He is also a journalist and critic whose work has appeared in The Nation, Los Angeles Weekly, Americas Review, and other publications, and is the founder of Tia Chucha Press, which publishes emerging, socially conscious poets.  Luis has also returned to his indigenous roots, participating in Native American ceremonies in Chicago and various reservations, including the Lakota and Navajo reservations.  He also connected with his Mexika / Tolteka traditions in Mexico.  Luis currently resides in Chicago and is working as a peacemaker with gangs in LA and Chicago.

Literary Objectives:

Obj. 1a.  Involuntary of forced participation.  Did not choose to come to America or join its dominant culture.

Obj. 1b.  “Voiceless and Choiceless”.

Obj. 2c.  “Quick Check” on minority status.  What is the individual’s or group’s relation to the law or other dominant institutions.

Obj. 3c.  “The Ambivalent Minority”.  Does a Mexican who moves from Juarez to El Paso truly immigrate?

Obj. 5a.  To discover the power of poetry and fiction to help “others” hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience.

Poetry Reading:  Unsettling America, page 6.

Interpretation:

Luis J. Rodriguez like the Mexican-American minority was forced to participate in the dominant culture.  Part of America already belonged to Mexicans; therefore, we must ask, "Did they come to America or were they already here?".  Mr. Rodriguez points out the many barriers placed in the path of the Mexican-American by the dominant white culture.  Mr. Rodriguez uses the Rio Bravo vs. Rio Grande to show that these barriers did not exist to the Mexican, until the white dominant culture arrived.  He used his poem to help "others" hear the minority voice.  Finally, Mr. Rodriguez noted, "We were invisible people" and "This is not your country".  He used these statements to show how the Mexican-American minority is viewed in relation to the dominant culture and its systems.

Questions / Comments:

Question 1- What is significant of him stating Rio Bravo and Rio Grande?

Yolie:  Rio Grande has a certain meaning to Mexican Americans.  This is how the poet sees himself.

Dr. White:  The Rio Grande is big, you can’t cross it.  Rio Bravo is kind of like saying, Watch us go!

Question 2 – What is significant about the lines: We were invisible people & This is not your country?

We were invisible people:

Barbara:  In Los Angeles, Hollywood did not represent Mexican Americans well.  If they had roles, they were minor parts.  Television is a reflection of real life, but they (Mexican Americans) do not exist.

Dan:  It’s kind of like us against them, he saw goodness in people.

This is not your country:

Lisa:  It sounds ironic, they were here and it’s really their country.

Annie:  It doesn’t fit in with the dominant culture since that is what took over.  They were a slow moving minority.

Jeri:  It goes back to Rio Grande; it got renamed to Rio Bravo.  We couldn’t call it ours.  Sounds arrogant because they are taking something that is already ours.

Barbara:  Where does the refrain, “this is not your country come from?”  Is it from a song?  I’ve never heard that before.

Valerie L.:  The line, this is not your country sound like barriers that separate.  Architecture is Spanish with white people living there. 

Adelaide:  When I go to Los Angeles, it’s easy to see white L.A.  It’s not easy to go to Watts.  It’s not Disneyland. Disneyland is white culture; Watts is full of architecture and sculpture.

Yolie:  I think it’s ironic when he wrote white area was Southgate because Southgate is all Mexican Americans now.

Geri:  And in the 1950’s Mexican Americans began to Americanize their names.  That made them even more invisible.  They have ethnic aspects with Anglo names.