Maya Part 3: "The Runaway Boricua"

I click into the yahoo video of “On the Pulse of Morning,” President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration poem. More attentive than the first time, my body jerks at attention, standing, instantly grabbed by the first three words—A Rock…A River…A Tree. 

The “God-Poet” delivers a sermon on the mount, the steps to our January cold Nation’s Capital, televised before the whole wide world.  Each of her 657 finely chiseled words pricking the delicate contours of my sagging heart such that it starts ballooning with thankfulness. Heard His mercy loud and clear, God’s clarion call amplified on loud speaker urging humanity to get its act together or risk Mastodon extinction (something like that).  Sadly, to the dim understanding of some USAmericanos two decades later, [xenophobic protectionists] who would turn back the civil rights clock—such human folly! I despaired:

“…YOU, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter...

The River sings and sings on…

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher…”
The Privileged, the Homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree (...)

The Poet Laureate punctuates her poem on the diplomatic and upbeat note…Good Morning! 

And the mention of “Hispanic” triggers episodes of the US life I left behind.  The "brilliant renegade author" slides the soapbox under me, and before I knew it...

You can call ME…”The Runaway Boricua.”  

Whenever I get the slightest whiff of Latino hatred, hostility and scorn that could potentially arrest my God-given human potential on the planet…I run fast as the wind.   ADIOS California…me voy pa’l carajo y cantando…my days of ‘California Dreamin’ are over!  I don´t stick around where Latinos are not wanted.  It stunts my growth and taxes my erudite insights…a scholar of the “School of Fate.”   

Sure, back in the ‘80s I ran away too.  The Grand Street Settlement House, my first community service gig fresh out of Hunter College…fighting and losing an internal war…torn apart by the Lower East Side turf wars, the Jews and the Blacks and my Boricuas always bringing up the rear…como el rabo d’el perro siempre atrás y guindando.

My Black & Puerto Rican Studies degree, hot off the equal rights press, mentored by the trailblazing anthro-political linguist Dr. Ana Celia Zentella herself, I thought about branching out in my career…then saw the image in the looking glass.  The blooms of my promise…a budding social/community activist…trampled like worthless weeds in "The City’s" political camp grounds?!  Uh uh. Not for ME. 

Pa’ colmo…adding insult to injury.  In another life in California…the fabled land of diversity before “affirmative action” became one dirty word. And FCC broadcast rulings for EEO and minority equal access were also whacked in the backlash!  I couldn’t keep my nose clean.  From so much brown nosing we Latinos had to do for the crumbs of the American Pie served us…never satisfying the mounting needs of the Golden State’s fastest growing “minority.”  Always forced to lie low…constantly leery of the body snatchers…LA MIGRA…who could make you and your whole familia disappear.  Heartsick was I over the INJUSTICES perpetrated on our neighbors to the south...equally-oppressed.  


The “multi-tasker maximus” doing the job of three-in-one at UC to prove myself…to be accepted…to excel…never coming to terms with that damned double standard of the elite USAmericano: “Presumed incompetent” no rhyme or reason…ostensibly ostracized, Latino professors and students alike.

The persistent denial of Maya’s Truth, “we’re more alike than we are different. That…”it is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.  We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of that tapestry are equal in value no matter their color."  

Once upon a time in the Lower East Side and South Bronx growing up, the powers that be tried to pin me and Mi Gente with their label: “Puerto Ricans are dumb?” Due to the language barrier Spanish-speaking (im)migrants contend with…measuring our abilities with an American yard stick.

But in our homeland…in our native tongue?: I have discerned puertorriqueños to be among the most intelligent…thoughtful…well-informed…well-spoken…well-intentioned, clever and gracious people to have ever smiled upon me. Absent the political fanatics, of course, pro-commonwealth…pro-statehood…pro-independence diehard rivals, who “can’t agree to disagree without being disagreeable” even as our lives depend upon it. Where’s Solomon the Wise when we need him?

Always living for the cause wherever the sign read “Latina Professional Wanted,”  making inroads for over 40 years on behalf of people of color, then… Fate saw fit to steer me to places dark and unseen.  And here I was now: the Messenger, the Translator, the Narrator, the interpreter of island events as they’ve occurred over the course of my fifteen years on the island:

 

(Dateline 2012, Nuyorican Chronicles) The island upsurge of civic protests opposing the lackluster leadership shows no signs of abating.  Down with the “self-seekers” beholden to external money interests…our1%  The Machiavellian politics safeguarding the status quo at all costs…impedes real and sustainable progress for Mi Gente, long criticized for being complacent and apathetic. It is unreasonable to expect “colonized subjects” to bite the hand that feeds them in our US-reliant “Welfare State,” and still no welfare-to-work reform programs on the books [78 municipalities, see regional map below].  We are the “Forgotten Americans,” SO POOR, our island $14,500 per capita annual income (USD) is half that of Mississippi, the poorest state in the Union!  Makes more dollars and sense to make a living off those Federal aid handouts than it does to work for this unlivable wage!  Imagine our lost generation of disconnected youths whose biggest, most lucrative employer (I call)  Puntos de Drogas Inc. Island barrio drugs and firearms selling hangouts that operate like 711 franchises, entrenched in every metropolitan town and mountainside.  Is it any wonder, then?  Middle class islanders are gettin’ out of Dodge faster than you can spell “gentrification.” Who will save Puerto Rico now?  US…and I don’t mean the United States. 




NEXT:  Finale