Monday, March 26, 2018

los mil egoísmos de ser + they will never have the poetry on their side.

Upon hearing about the Temporary Protected Status implemented by BUSH I being revoked for Salvadorans, I called a dear friend and Salvadoran who in our long conversation was cooling down after recently having his face spit on in the asphalt parking lot of a Northwest Houston Starbucks. So I sat with my heart in my stomach and grew woozy in front of multiple screens. What to do? Go back and read Harvest of Empire's section on El Salvador? Read an article or two? Try to pacify the inertia of fury by tapping into a young individuals abrupt path change? Yes. Follow the rabbit hole, the Wikipedia junctions and numerable clicks links and etc etc etc etc. The cluster fuck of information can be used but it can also consume and annihlate you. Where do we come from my lowly? How can humanity balance and measure and find unity together? The powerful, the governments, the elite, are all the ones that make the drastic decisions that effect the bottom tier. But, we must empower ourselves. Use the tools they allow us to find and use and be more creative. Oh it is certain, "they will never have the poetry on their side!" (Prensa La Libertad).

The information can help, can push one into empathy, understanding, organization, critical thought and reflection and hopefully action. My indolence is still my greatest enemy but the imagination of the women I live with, friends, family, bakers, writers, horticulturalists, and artists / activists push me forward and raise me up.

Archive.org documentary (below) led me to read Amparo Casamalhuapa's mediocre novel pictured below. The beauty of persistence is its uncertainty. Nothing is ever guaranteed; not the horizon, results, process, and consequences of time spent dedicated and given to work. Potentially the final concrete wall covered and styled with rusty corrugated steel may destroy you and will never move, but then again maybe the wall will come down. "So what you going to do when the wall comes down?"  Bring on the cold bucket of water as insight and awakening where people such as Amparo Casamalhuapa, a resister, writer, and forward thinker; the distant teacher of mine who was inspired by "the teacher" Alberto Masferrer–

 "El Salvador Another Vietnam"
 










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