A.S Elections

I feel deeply upset. Student government elections are approaching and once again my work becomes silent. I don’t want to run. I don’t want to be part of an association where I lose a piece of myself everytime I walk through the doors. In my current process of rebuilding pieces of myself that the association tarnished the last two years, I have distanced myself from the space. However, like most things in life that you wish would dissolve and leave you alone, it is election season and my phone wont’ stop ringing. From people that want to lobby me, vent to me, manipulate me to support their political aspirations. The eyes of my friends begin to turn a shade redder, a redness that yearns for power. Having lost twice, the political paradigm that supports white/anglo leadership over qualified people of color has pushed me away. Far away enough where I don’t care about elections. The structure, in which Associated Students is built on, prevents me from once again fully participating. I want to read. I want to write. However, in order to read and write at my own free will I must sleep with one eye open. Be conscious of my surroundings and people whose eyes change color at the site of power.

Path to Conocimiento

It was 1995 when my parents divorced and I was six years old. My father raped me when I was eight years old. He was taking care of my two older brothers and oldest sister and me while my mother went to Mexico because her sister died. He raped me four times in my mother’s bed. Living in silence for the next four years was like traveling to a different world. A world where my mother’s bed was just a bed and not the platform that sustained my body while the love for my father diminished. For most of my eight-year-old life, I was in what Gloria Anzaldua calls the “arrebato space,” where the rape from my father had shaken me. I was desperate for answers. Stumbling over the most delicate pebbles on the ground, I lost the capacity to stand on my own. I continued to fall until finally I fell into the second stage, the “neplanta space.” From the ages of nine to ten-years-old, I was a neplantlero. Living in a space where it was not about ‘he [father] touched me’ or ‘he didn’t touch me’ but where his touched manifested into consciousness. A consciousness that broke away from the binary of ‘good chicano’ or ‘bad chicano’ to a ‘surviving chicano.’ I was exploring new modes of being. Negotiating between what was love and what was not. Exploring the purpose of my body, as it not only invited love, through hugs and kisses, but also, as it lured in pedophiles. I was in a third space. A space of learning how to survive. Overwhelmed by my eldest brother’s sudden death, right before I turned eleven-years-old I descended to the third stage, “Coatlicue.” I was in despair, anguish, and hopelessness. Drowning in chaos, I found the will to swim to the surface and escape the demon waters by writing on my Harry Potter hardcover journal. The fourth space, “the call,” I validated my existence and experiences by writing them down. Writing soon shifted into the fifth stage, “Coyolxauhqui,” I was writing to put my life together. To give voice to my abused body, sorrow for my dead brother, and queer identity. To speak of my reality in a world that sewed my lips together and never called on me even though I kept raising my hand. Growing tired of being the only one witnessing my own experience, when I turned twelve years-old I cut the thread that was binding my lips shut and rather than waiting for someone to call on me I stood up and yelled! I told my mother that my father raped me. I told the world that I was gay. But most importantly, I told myself that I existed. This was my “blow up” phase, the sixth stage. What followed was what Anzaldua calls the final stage of Conocimiento, “spiritual activism” the seventh and final stage. I became a warrior, who was determined to speak out and transform my abused body into a strong, beautiful one. I was determined to make my writing known. Determined to make the words on paper onto the ears of people because living in silence was detrimental to my soul, my existence.

Teacher Dreams

My brother, Jose, you were my significant teacher. Although your life was cut short, Hermano, you taught me the beauty of waking up. Opening my eyes and witness the traumas of our past and face the demons of my present. Gracias.

Your death caused me so much pain. My heart was lost; kidnapped by the spirits of the afterlife whom held it hostage until I stopped chasing after them. I was exhausted. My shins were bruised. My mind stopped processing and my soul was detached, left behind a mile ago with the other souls of my family.

I was detached.
In the space between questions and answers.

I was no longer capable of movement. My spirit was still held prisoner and my physical being was crippled to the point where my hands could not write. My eyes kept closing, replaying the scenes of my father’s knife penetrating me in and out. My throat was full. Full of years of silence. Words that only made it on to paper but never onto the ears of others.

Hermano,
Teacher,
Voice,
Your loss was the truth. The truth of my despair. The same despair that I was able to hide from until your public death crushed our family, but more so, it killed me. All the nightmares of my childhood came to life and as much as I tried to keep them as nightmares you forced my eyes to stay open. It took two years of your lessons to finally learn how to clear out my throat. Release the words from my bleeding mouth. Words that I never knew were my own. Words of the spirit tongue. Words of Trust.

You taught me to stop chasing after the spirits of the afterlife. Stop crippling my body and be open to outcome. Open to liberation. Liberation of my abused body. Liberation of your detachment from my physical world. Liberation of clarity. Where the only thing that mattered was my present self and not “what” I thought my future self would be if I were exposed. I was detached from outcome but open to new modes of being.

Gracias Hermano. You taught me to write with my body. Make the words on paper, also onto the ears of the world.