PALABRAS FROM AZTLAN
The Stallion
Last night I dreamt I was a stallion. I was wild and free! The
wind my only border, the sun my only master, and the moon my only mistress.
I was of no color, I honored no creed, I held no name.
Boom! went the thunder, bright was the lightning, and my dream turned nightmare.
An evil entered my world, put a rope around my neck, and forced iron into
my mouth. I was corralled, fenced in; I was imprisoned! My master was now
materialism, my mistress capitalism-I had become the beast-of-burden. My
seed was stolen and my descendants are now mules. I now have color, my creed
is profit! My name has become "Hispanic!"
But even the worker must rest; the beast of burden must be unhitched; the
slave must sleep. And it is here, in my stolen sleep, that I dream, and
my dream is always the same.
-Warrior of the Sun, Leavenworth, Kansas
LETTER FROM MAZMORRA
Cuauhtemoc returns to the Sacred City. Congratulations to Cuauhtemoc Cardenas
in his victory as the new mayor of Mexico City! This will eventually lead
to the total defeat of the oppressive ruling party, the PRI. We as sisters
and brothers must be prepared, for soon we will be in a position to help
create a political and cultural election by the year 2000. It is legacy-it
is history, and this history is on our side. This time Aztlan will remove
the physical and mental barriers that have kept us in bondage.
-Ramsey R. Muniz Tezcatlipoca, Leavenworth, KS
Barrio Defense Committee Forming
In response to the rising rates of Raza incarcera-tion and particularly
due to the unjust imprison-ment of activist Alvaro Hernandez, Chicanos Mexicanos
from Texas and Califas have formed the National Barrio Defense Committee
to address these struggles. Concerned Raza are encouraged to build Barrio
Defense Committees wherever you are-from the barrios to the prisons themselves.
The organization is based on the principle of self-defense for the Chicano
Mexicano community, consciousness of our oppression and a national fightback
against our continued incarceration by a settler system. To start a Barrio
Defense Committee in your neighborhood, area or town, please contact: Barrio
Defense Committee, P.O. Box 1523, San Jose, CA 95109.
Free José Luís Now! Free all Political Prisoners/POWs. -Raza
News Service raza@burn.ucsd.edu
http://www.members.tripod.com/~ncmc
ALVARO LUNA HERNANDEZ
Alvaro Luna Hernandez is a Tejano ex-prisoner, Chicano activista and now
a political prisoner held on fabricated charges by the state of Texas for
political activity. In July 1996, Alvaro Luna Hernandez was arrested in
Alpine, Texas, and charged with aggravated assault on a police officer.
"The sheriff in Alpine was in the process of killing me on July 18,
1996, so I have no regrets, no remorse of what happened in Alpine,"
Alvaro said about the shootout. Texas is determined to deactivate Luna Hernandez
for political reasons.
On August 9, 1997, a racist Odessa, Texas, jury convicted Alvaro on one
count of aggravated assault on a police officer. Alvaro was sentenced to
50 years in prison. His real crime was the self-defense of his own person
under attack, and the defense of his Raza, which historically, has been
oppressed in Texas for hundreds of years.
Alvaro Luna Hernandez is now fighting for his life and freedom. We call
upon "El Pueblo" to unite behind him. His attorneys are going
forth with an appeal of his conviction. Racism is the real basis of what
has taken place against Alvaro and why he was convicted. Alvaro has long
been an active voice for his oppressed community in Texas as well as for
prisoners there. Alvaro is presently held in the El Paso County jail and
should be written to immediately to ensure his safety. Alvaro Luna Hernandez,
#7005911, El Paso County Jail, P.O. Box 125, El Paso, TX 79999.
Alvaro's tape recording of his liberation struggle, made from within the
jail, is now available for $5 by calling his defense headquarters at: (713)
641-0505, or by writing to Alvaro Luna Hernandez Defense Committee, 1436
West Gray, #308, Houston, TX 77019.
Hasta La Victoria !!
A Pregnant Thought
(Note: this piece knows little boundaries. It is not about abortion, it
lies in the depths of evolution and revolution.)
Human revolution is but a pregnant thought by our collective, shackled society,
that would rather abort than suffer its joyous pain ...
César A. Cruz
What if we, as the societal clones, were to collectively carry the physical,
emotional and psychological history of torture, slaughter and pain in our
well-fed, middle-class bellies for nine months?
What if we took Lamaze classes to learn to inhale mutilated bodies, urinated
nightmares, monthly blood-runs, paranoid ticks of extortion by others, hunger
lines from San Cristobal to Soweto, and exhaled . . . . Exhaled excess capital,
stored-up hope, countless cans in our kitchen cabinets of sealed starvation,
premature ejaculations of repressed elation, conquered enslaved tendencies
of perpetual invasion?
What if we delivered a newborn movement of consciousness that sought to
rip the umbilical shackles that bind us to our own destruction? Push, push,
push. . . harder, harder, harder. . . Yourself, myself, ourselves to change
the rotting embryo that lies deep in our psyche of everyday actions.
Those in the waiting room, the poor, the hungry, the naked, what if they
didn't have to wait? What if we didn't wait? They can, should, must, have
and are carrying lessons, bruises, emotions, and numbing pain that has grown
and is about to be delivered. . . .
Will we abort or give birth to a child born out of the world's collective
family? Will we abort or give life to a child born in an ancestral homeland
without borders? Will we abort or give earth what it has been waiting for.
. . . what it has longed for...healing and cooperation.
A scream, a push... The sweat of pain that has begun to flow like streams
created by rain.... Death, our temporary wish as we squirm for that child
to finally make its way out of our physical, emotional, and psychological
reign of torturous and pleasurable hell... That hell out of our own creation.
That possible birth...of revolution, of evolution, if only, a pregnant thought..
. .
-César A. Cruz
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