it

was, during a trip to seattle, that the occupy movement protested at u.c. davis in
2011. the image of a police officer pepper spraying students, non-violent student
protesters, created a streak of anger in me. the subsequent protests of students
shunning chancellor katehi in silence, made my eyes water. we were visiting my
suegros for thanksgiving break. i remember my daughters were with me. and i
remember looking at my oldest daughter victoria with a certain amount of
seriousness and a certain amount of flippant anger, toya, if this ever happens to
you, you have my permission to protest, and if need be, to be arrested. and you
have to understand, my daughter is your superachiever, shes the one who always
does whats right. and i repeated that line. and she laughed thinking i was joking. i
pulled my seriousness and spoke over the dinner table between us and i explained.
what the police had done. i explained to her, how id protested at uc san diego
shutting down the i-5 in the early 90s. i explained to her how her mother had helped
shut down the i-5 in seattle later that decade at university of washington. and how
one day, she would become an activist fighting for social justice. and as our children
do, she did the first and most important thing. she verified my story with her
mother. and she sat quietly listening to our stories. this is a poem that came to me
afterwards.

for toya and esperanza

this thing
of protest
we learn
by listening

reading

& speaking
but most of all, by
remembering.
our reality.
relations. is the reason for
kinship to my

black brothers

is the reason
we learn to listen
paul simons

duncan
to remember
what love
and sex will mean

is the reason
you will
learn of my tos
as presos polticos
in a faraway land

 called chile.
or a tata-abuela
named dorina
occupying before
wall street
is the reason
you will read
of imaginary homelands.
seek representation.
walk the tight rope of assimilation
and resistance.

these are the languages lost
in the middle passage.
these are the echoes
you will hear from children
whose parents have died.
these are the whispers
your abuela toya
will come to tell
you as truth.


are the memories
you will draw on
when your humanity
is tested.

are the memories
you will seek
when you are most
afraid.

they are the poems,
the songs, and memory
of protest.
and recalling
why you must.



which is why i begin to recall things from this campus. things like how it was divided
into colleges specifically to quell protest during the 1960s. things like how herbert
marcuse paid for a window broken during a protest. things like the chancellors
window broken during a protest in the 1990s. and that things dont really change.
whether the names are angela davis or rafiki jenkins, agustin orozco, or juan
astorga. these are the people we are following in the protest. these are the folks you
spent a lifetime together with during a day like this during 1992. 1992 and you

realize the protest has finally led you down gilman. back up la jolla village drive.
down to the on ramp. where you are sitting on a freeway. and you can only think of a
past legacy of protest in chile. in chile, to now, to here.

these days as an english professor at a local community college, i implore students
to see these experiences as not in vain. i implore students to protest. to find their
own humanity through creative writing, through literature and through protest.
now, i know it is hard to see that trajectory as one that will help you. but help you it
will.

for me, the period immediately after college was one where i worked as a substitute
teacher. a gig that allows ample flexibility and time, it allowed me to begin doing
poetry readings around san diego. here at ucsd, id had the phenomenal training in
writing from folks like rosaura sanchez, quincy troupe, jaime concha and victor
hernandez cruz. these are the folks that saw my very first poems. theyd review and
ive kept their comments from that time period. but the moment was equally
influenced by classmates like adolfo guzman lopez, paul flores, agustin orozco and
juan astorga. places like the co-ops and the grove cafe. like the mecha office at the
price center. these were the young poets and activists that taught me that things like
creativity and integrity to a larger community outside were necessary.

and with adolfo, i began doing readings in town. see, we were both south bay kids.
wed grown up around national city and chula vista. wed taken classes at u.c. san
diego, but saw our literature as a literature comprometida. a literature tied to social
justice issues and we sought out other artists and writers in san diego to carry out a
vision of what san diego poetry should be. and more than we knew, we impacted the
literary establishment by doing readings at local taco shops. to be honest, at first i
hated the idea. i wanted to do readings at swap meets. but adolfo convinced me to
do it at taco shops. and so, we used my apas cutlass ciera to haul the p.a. equipment
around from taco shops in san diego, to taco shops in tijuana and we began creating
a space for ourselves. we did this precisely because there were no cafes, no galleries
willing to offer us a space to perform our type of poetry. and you know what, people
listened. we found that many kids like us didnt have places to perform. we did gigs
locally, but our group got more and more play. we toured the u.s. we opened for
groups like ozomatli and this little known group at the time called the black eyed
peas. we talked with folks like zach de la rocha and his band rage against the
machine and we found a young chicano activist community that shared many of the
same experiences we had. we were tired of cliches. we were tired of
hypermasculinity. we were paisa and mexican american. we were mexicano broncos
and mixed filipino mexican subjectivities. and we spoke a reality that many people
hadnt included when we said we were chicano. i realize now that these acts were
profound.

along the way, we worked with older artists that were fucking generous. one of
them passed away last month. but he was the catalyst of our first attempts to create
independent arts spaces. his name was luis stand. and there wont be a monument in

san diego for him. but folks like he, manuel zopilote mancillas and gary ghirardi
were instrumental in our development as artists and arts advocates. they taught you
about your work in a larger trajectory of funding agencies and arts communities.
and they forced you to think about your work. they forced you to see the city. they
tied mike davis city of quartz to a new term called gentrification and we realized the
steam train of redevelopment was coming to the city. first in the gaslamp, then the
east village then north park and now, logan. we saw firsthand how artists in search
of that space we craved as our own, were being used as mechanisms for
gentrification. and we wrote about it. the introduction of my dissertation talks of my
compadre adolfo guzmn lpezs dystopian view of urban redevelopment. and true
to his poems words, the city became a place where we wouldnt be welcome any
more.

so why are we here? this brings us back to the memories of my daughters. while
much of their instruction moves towards expository writing. when their class
readings are reduced to articles and informational texts. i ask, where is experience?
this brings me to my wife and my activism in college. our work as parents and
educators is the attempt to register our experience as acts of integrity and
resistance in the face of a world telling you and i that there is no place for art; that
there is no place for humanities. id like to say, this is patently false. what art and
humanity do in todays society is require us to become human. that is, understand
how we are actors in making social change. in challenging what we know to be
wrong. god knows, this human reflection on contemporary reality is what we need
in an election year as prescient and complicated as this.

to our instructors, some of whom are here, i have another request. that is to
remember that despite our cultural production and critical work, it is imperative to
be able to work with the popular. to find ways to tie this great work to the
communities we serve. some would say this is a cheap approach at marketing, but
id like to think that as the forces of capital continue to espouse an ethos guided
strictly towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics, what exactly are
we doing to make our work approachable by the masses to help us address the
structural inequities facing our communities in the here and now? and this is a
frightening proposition for us as educators. but id like us to remember that this
activism was and is necessary, but also cool. risk taking, is necessary and cool. it is
something that has a chance to make effective change in the future.

and yet what is the role of humanities? the role of humanities is to make us human.
to teach us of experience through history. teach us experience through literature.
and in the end, it is a process of making us more human. it is the capacity to feel. to
act. to understand the processes of time. to see how they repeat. how they occur.
and perhaps, learn to make change for the future.

today, i find myself in many ways, more alone than ive been before. one of my
mentors david avalos, a renowned chicano artist and graduate of uc san diego has
become one of my confidantes. hes helped me in many ways. from helping mend

fences with the chicano arts establishment to understanding the processes of shared
governance as a professor, hes helped me grow as an individual. he reminds me
that now, im the old guy in the room. im the person young artists come to for
advice. i try to be as generous as he and other arts mentors were. i find myself
taking pleasure in teaching young writers the lessons imparted on me by folks like
rosaura and quincy. i find when young people find their voice, ive come full circle.
my life is enriched by reading a poem alongside them. i find myself repeating poems,
sometimes, words taught to me and realize they too inspire another generation of
students focused on the arts and humanities. i realize my life is the line from that
famous sandra cisneros text that implores the young esperanza cordero (the
character ive named a daughter after) to come back for the others. the ones that
cant out. Cisneros writes, When you leave you must remember to come back for the
others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango
Street. You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are...Then I didn't
know what to say. It was as if she could read my mind, as if she knew what I had
wished for, and I felt ashamed for having made such a selfish wish... her wish was to
leave mango street, to leave to go to the university. to leave her community.

survival is like this. it asks that we make the road by walking if only to come back for
those that cannot traverse it alone. im here, as james baldwin wrote, at the edge
asking you to come into the water. that water of humanity. that water asking us to
remember the past so that we can live free. ive learned the songs of freedom in my
lifetime. ive learned them with young black activists like buu aaron and rafiki
jenkins, with graduate students like carlton floyd and jos ruiz. ive learned them
but have also had the chance to learn about the context in which they were written
through theorists like robyn kelly and tricia rose. for we must ask what meaning?
where and for whom? i realize today that we are living the reality that my compadre
adolfo guzmn wrote about when he said, hes a different kind of chicano plastic
surgeon. he works with black clay. in writing this, not only did adolfo point out that
we must broaden our definitions of what chicano is, but we must also see precisely
how the black experience informs the chicano experience and vice versa; as we are
both marginalized communities with a long history of resistance to oppression.

so what has this degree in arts and humanities given me? i work with students, im a
poet, ive run for office, i hope to own an arts cafe. but perhaps most importantly, its
given me memories that i cant give you, but ill try. its the way poetry classes in
tioga hall feel after the rain. its dancing with real women have curves when im 22.
its demo and construction for a gallery opening in 18 hours. its the love that comes
when youre out until five listening to jazz, and driving home, you smell the bakery
wake the city up. its spanish harlem at 2 am when the poems and tacos have finally
been eaten. its oakland changing once again and you have to return to class to tell
the students what life on the other side is.

ill leave you with another poem; a poem written thinking of my daughters and their
future experiences. it discusses meaning in creative writing and how i see it being

taken on by the next generation. how the next generation will need experience
through arts and humanities to survive.

she wrote
the things i couldnt write
about. the things,
frightening to me.
i kept my nose
to the grind.
reading. the movement
had passed me and my brother diego by
like that old pharcyde song
and the remnants
were at green circle bar.
they were there watching
this little known
band called the roots.
an even less known one
called cafe tacuba
was in the audience.
or were watching a tribe called quest
while the wu-tang was in audience.
this is san diego.
this is san diego.
this is san diego.
both memories, tied to the ankles
of a youth id forgotten

she keeps writing
and has published
yet im not sure what
that means on an instagram
or snapchat update.
im handing her
a blue note record
thick as a night
where jazz is live.

im handing her
a bit of chants
to change. this time,
no loose. no loss.
no losers. just, no.
no justice. no peace.
no justice. no peace.
peace out, bruh.


she looks over the edges
of pages. she tells me thank you.
she has her bag ready.
the protests tomorrow.
i check her bag.
sonnys
and giovannis blues
aint bad guideposts
to the road
ahead.

mija, ill tell you what my to ignacio told me about protest. hes the youngest uncle i
have. hes the one that helped organize the no vote plebiscite in chile. hes the one
who tells me, you know how you beat tear gas? rock salt underneath the tongue.
rock salt and a bandana over your face. that keeps the tears from coming, he said. i
wish you well mija. i wish you well. godspeed. and ill be here to make sure youll
come home.