My Father's Writings

Olga García Echeverría

Yesterday, I spent most of the day clearing out clutter from my file cabinet, desk, and overstuffed drawers. Entre todo, I came across a couple of envelopes with my father's writing on it. I stared at it for a bit, smiling at all the caps, his loopy "d," his "q" that looks like a "g."

I remembered then how when I was in college, my father would give me envelopes with cash. It wasn't much, sometimes $10, other times $20, but it definitely helped and I knew that whatever money he stuffed in those envelopes was a sacrifice on his part.

What these envelopes also reminded me of was how my father loved pens. He always carried one in his shirt pocket proudly, as if it were a carnation or a rose. My father's writing, however, was limited. It consisted of balancing his checkbook, making small lists in slanted print (all caps), and signing his name in cursive that was legible but looked as if it had been written by a 3^rd grader or by someone suffering from Parkinson's (which is telling because in the 3rd grade he had to drop out of school and work as a farmhand and later in life he did develop Parkinson's).

I remember him hunched over in La Oficina (AKA the kitchen table) with his pen in his hand. Each squiggly symbol required his full concentration. Time crawled by ever so slowly when my father wrote. I could warm up a tortilla de harina con mantequilla and eat the entire thing while he scrawled out the first letters of his name. True, tortillas de harina con mantequilla were gulped down in seconds, but still my father's letters appeared on the paper at snail's pace. While he wrote, I could stroll over to the restroom and wash the butter off my hands. I could get into bed and suck my thumb for a sec. I could play a quick game of Tic-Tac-Toe with myself or one of my sisters. I'd wander back to La Oficina and he would still be sitting there, writing. When he was done, he'd put down his pen and stare at his creation, doubting himself.

The most interesting writing my father did, however, was the one that was never seen. Often my father made reference to “Mi Libro Negro,” an epic journal he kept hidden in a mysterious place. According to my father, he possessed a black book where he wrote everything down. In this book was written the history of all the injustices committed against him by us (his wife and children), an evil uncle, his siblings, his shitty bosses, and the United States of America. Mi Libro Negro was a constant reference in the household. Any time my father was angry, he'd yell, “¡Está bien! Todo lo tengo escrito en Mi Libro Negro y el día que me muera, se van ha arrepentir!” The written word was powerful indeed; it documented all our transgressions, and my father warned that (like La Llorona or El Cucui) it would haunt us forevermore.

Juan Manuel Garcia Vasquez
April 27, 1927 -- Sept 27, 2013

 

When my dad died last year and we began to sort through his things, the running joke between my siblings and I was “Did you find El Libro Negro?” Imagine if it had been true! If we would have found a book (or books) filled with his words, thoughts, rantings, and desahogos. He did actually have a little black book, but he wrote only a few key phone numbers in it and kept his lotto tickets tucked safely within the pages.

I don't have many pictures of my father and me, especially in childhood, but I do have this one picture of me at two holding my father's pen. My mother said the pen was used to keep me calm during the photo shoot. I like to think of it as him passing on the pluma to me so that I could write.

Happy Anniversary 'Apa. You are loved and missed.

Cheers to My Students: Ending the Quarter with Creative Writing Cups

At the end of the quarter, my students are always asking for extra credit. I love extra credit. As a student, I always appreciate it. As a teacher, I think it gives students an opportunity to make up a few missed points.

This past week, I told students to write a personal story in 200 words. The topic could be anything related to their lives, as long as it was a significant event or memory. I offered 2 extra credit points for the typed story and 1 extra point if they wrote their story onto a cup.

The cup idea came from the current controversy with Chipotle Mexican Grill's Cultivating Thought campaign. Last month, Chipotle announced it would be featuring excerpts from 10 famous authors and famous personalities on its cups and paper bags. The idea is to give customers a little literature while they munch on their burritos. The idea, although essentially a great one, angered many Latinos however. When Chipotle revealed the 10 chosen authors, not one of them was Mexican, Mexican-American, or Latino. For many Latinos, this was pretty insulting. Are there no good Mexican writers? Also, since the restaurant is a "Mexican" grill, shouldn't at least one of their featured authors be Mexican? Much has been written in response to Chipotle's Cultivating Thought  blunder in the last weeks. Some Chicano professors even started a Facebook page entitled Cultivating Invisibility.

The extra credit assignment I gave my students allowed me to share the Chipotle controversy with them. More importantly, the act of writing on a cup really seemed to spark something creative in them. They wrote about parents sacrificing so much to come to this country. They wrote about their educational dreams. They wrote poetic pieces about growing up with a single mom. Overall, I was really moved with their stories and their artistic cups. Some of them really went all out for that one extra point. In regards to grammar and sentence structure, their stories were more well-written than anything else they've submitted all quarter. This really blew me away. Something about the creative process (outside of the pressure of writing an official "essay" perhaps) seemed to free them. Their ideas flowed. They used effective transitions. They used concrete details. The writing wasn't void of errors, of course, but I got to see another side of their writing capabilities. This last impromptu assignment I gave my students was a reminder of how powerful and important creative writing assignments can be. Academic writing is another animal, but when students are able to let down their fears of writing and effectively communicate their ideas, then I think we are on the right track.

Here Comes The Sun

Currently, my favorite "fun" reading material consist of The Sun Magazine. My friend Greg introduced me to the The Sun a couple of years ago by gifting me a year-long subscription for my birthday. It was the best gift ever.

There are many things I like about this magazine. For starters, it has no corporate advertisements. Just great black and white photos. Although a literary magazine, it is also void of information for literary contests, residencies, calls for submissions, etc. Just a primary interview in each issue, fiction, memoir, poetry, and sunbeams (memorable short quotes).

I don't always love every single poem or entry in The Sun, and as always I want more authors of color, that could be improved, but overall I find the magazine engaging, relevant, and insightful. It's good quality publishing and I feel I've learned many things (implicitly) about the craft of writing from this magazine.

This month's issue has an interview with Noam Chomsky, one of my favorite "dissident intellectuals."

The Chomsky interview, conducted by David Barsamian and entitled "Undermining Democracy: On How The U.S. Breeds Inequality At Home and Instability Abroad," was my Sunday midday break from grading and graduate homework. It was a treat to hold a real magazine in my hands (versus an electronic device) and read the piece. The topics discussed weren't by any means "light," but perhaps I enjoyed it so much because I was also indulging in an iced-coffee and two Cuban stuffed potato balls. This is my idea of a party--good words, good food.

Although Chomsky's linguistic theories are still a bit elusive to me, I really appreciate Chomsky's work. I like that he's constantly questioning assumptions. And when it comes to the political socio-economic realities of the world, Chomsky really knows how to break things down in concrete terms. Talk about someone "unpacking" meaning. This might sound corny, but I also love reading and listening to Chomsky because I believe him to be a decent human being who genuinely cares about the world. That definitely emanates from his words and his life's work, and I have a lot of respect for that.

For more info on The Sun Magazine: http://thesunmagazine.org/

Tears for the Month of May

Photo by Michael Collopy

I've been sick and stuck in bed for the past four days. Usually, I long for those "free" days when I can lounge, but when one is ill it isn't any fun. One tosses and turns. One moans. One  longs for basic things that are usually taken for granted--being able to eat a meal without feeling nauseous, being able to take a walk without feeling weak or dizzy, being able to go about the day (complaining or smiling) without too much of a struggle. Whenever I am sick, I am humbled. I am reminded through sickness that I am not a machine, that the body (as Dr. Gabor Mate has repeatedly highlighted) knows how to say "No" or "Enough," and that it will.

That's what my body did this past weekend. I'm not sure if it was saying "Enough" to the 80 student papers I graded and gave feedback on. That took three days of intense labor. Even with a detailed rubric and 15 years of teaching experience under my belt, it was difficult. It wasn't the labor alone that wore me out. It was the sadness I felt as I read the papers because so many of the young students I work with haven't been given the tools they need to effectively articulate their thoughts in written words. I don't say this to put them down. I have a lot of respect for my students, their efforts, and I understand they are developing writers. What is overwhelming is what's lacking, everything they have systematically been denied (cheated of) for the past 12 years. The deficit is so great that it overwhelms, and I know (because I have lived and witnessed it firsthand) that it is race and class that have marginalized these students. It's that systematic marginalization, not my students' words, that sickens me.

Violence also sickens me, and there is so much of it in the world. This past week I read about Jose

José Luis Solis López, AKA Galeano, a school teacher at the Zapatista Escuelita in La Realidad, Chiapas. He and others were ambushed earlier this month by the paramilitary group CIOAC-Histórica. In addition to murdering Galeano (with gunshots and a machete), they wounded 15 others and destroyed La Escuelita and a clinic. What was this targeted community's crime? Being Zapatistas. Being a revolutionary and autonomous indigenous community that demands justice, equality, and above all peace. If you'd like to learn more about the Zapatista in Chiapas and their educational efforts, you can visit: http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/ 

Since their historic uprising in January of 1994, the Zapatistas have set up Mayan schools for Dignity, established health clinics, empowered indigenous women, and given the world a model of  autonomous communities with real democratic governance and sustainable agriculture that is good for the earth and good for the people.

Butchering teachers, burning down schools, destroying clinics. These are the types of crimes that attempt to break the spirit of a movement. But they won't because the wrongfully departed live on forever in the hearts and minds of people in struggle. The wrongfully deceased fuel the living with pain and rage and a love for justice so strong that it cannot be broken by military tanks or guns or machetes. History has shown us this over and over again.



Galeano Vive

 



After reading about Galeano's brutal murder, I couldn't stop vomiting. (Perhaps it also had something to do with that "organic grass-fed" meat from Trader Joe's that I ate. The one that is shipped all the way from New Zealand. How do I know it is truly 100% grass fed and why does it have to come all the way from New Zealand? But that is another topic, another blog).  

 

Because I was so sick this past weekend, I unplugged from cyberspace and it felt good to be in limbo for a bit. I knew nothing of the happenings of the world except that Subcommandante Marcos had spoken at Galeano's memorial in La Realidad, Chiapas. You can read the complete transcript here: http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/2014/05/marcos-gone-light-shadow/

 

Among the many pertinent things discussed in his address, Marcos declared an end to his publically created persona. He stated, "We think that it is necessary for one of us to die so that Galeano lives...That is why we have decided that Marcos today ceases to exist." Marcos died a metaphoric death at that memorial, and then he rose and identified himself as Galeano, a metaphoric rebirth. My girlfriend played his words for me on her smartphone as I lay in bed withering in pain and his words, as always, were poems unraveling and challenging us all. His words were enough to fill me and move me and remind me that we must keep fighting for those things we deem precious and essential in life. The last thing I heard before going to bed that night was a chant, "Galeano Vive Vive! La Lucha Sigue Sigue!"

 

When I finally did turn on the computer again on the Morning of May 28, the first headline I saw was "Maya Angelou Dies at 86." I stared at the screen, letting the words sink in. I took in a deep breath and then there was nothing else I could do; I cried, and cried, and then cried some more. I knew instantly I was not crying for Maya alone. They were universal tears. Accumulated tears. Tears for the month of May. I cried for my sick body, all the stress I sometimes put it through. I cried for my students (and for me because I am making all of them rewrite their papers and there will be another 80 papers to review).  I cried for Galeano and all of his loved ones. I cried for the Zapatistas who are being persecuted for being democratic self-ruling communities who grow their own food and have their own schools. What a crime! I cried for the birth month of my querida and much-missed sister and partner-in-poetic-crime, tatiana de la tierra. I will never stop missing tatiana. Her ashes are scattered in the mountains of Colombia, but she is here, whirling in the wind. 

 

And I cried for Maya Angelou, a woman writer who greatly influenced and nurtured me. I never met her in person, of course, but she was a rock, a river, a tree to so many of us. Angelou who defied borders. Who rose up against all odds. Who glittered and poeted her way through life. Who gave and loved and taught, like Galeano. She was a bearer of fruits, like the Zapatistas, and she knew violence. She knew hatred. She knew systematic racism. She knew poverty. She knew all the terrible monsters of the world and she stood up, looked them in the eye, smiling, and said:

 

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terrors and fear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise.

I rise.

I rise.

 

How Beautiful Things Can Also Be Shitty

The Birds of Lincoln Heights

There is an elderly man in my neighborhood who loves to feed birds. My girlfriend and I call him Mr. Tom because he is not much of a talker and "Tom" is pretty much what we could get out of him.

Every morning, at around 7:00 AM, Mr. Tom drives one of his two Cadillac to the small "park" in the middle of our street. I say "park" because it is more like an island of grass with a few palm trees, benches, and a sandbox. Mr. Tom only lives a few houses away from this island of grass and sand, but he needs the car to transport the huge sacks of bird seed that he unloads from the trunk of his car.

After Mr. Tom has unloaded the seed sacks, he drags them to the sandbox, opens them, dumps them, and then carefully proceeds to rake the seeds into the sand. He is very systematic and serious about this process. Once, our dog ran into the sandbox while Mr. Tom was raking, and he got terribly bothered, as if someone had just ruined a masterpiece he was creating. All we could do was apologize profusely and try to explain to our dear little dog that the park and the sandbox were off limits in the early mornings.

I don't know why Mr. Tom does what he does. I imagine the cost of feeding so many pigeons on a regular basis costs a pretty penny. Whatever his reasons, his daily ritual does make for an interesting sky. I call our block The Pigeon Capital of Los Angeles. Often when I leave for work in the mornings, there are dozens of birds perched on telephone wires and more dozens circling the sky. It's reminiscent of Hitchcock's The Birds, which is one of my favorite movies, so I don't much mind the ominous quality of having so many birds looming.

The downfall, though, is all the bird shit. Few on the block escape it. Depending on where you park or which way the wind blew that particular morning, our cars may or may not get plastered. I used to get angry when my car got bombed, but I've now come to accept it as just a part of living on this street. It's a pain to have to be wiping bird shit on a regular basis, but I admire Mr. Tom's devotion way too much to complain or ask him to stop. Maybe it's what keeps him alive or feeds his happiness. It definitely keeps the birds happy. And despite the inconvenience, I cannot deny how spectacular the sky looks when so many pigeons are flying in choreographed circles, swooping down to the sandbox and then back up into the sky.

A Poetic Excerpt

I'm the type of person who believes in recycling books. On numerous occasions I have gone through my bookshelves and said goodbye to some great reads. I love books, and in particular I love my books, but I think that a book that sits on a shelf collecting dust is a waste and a shame. Despite this, there are some core books that I cherish and that I would never donate or pass on. These books are magical. It does not matter how long I have had them or how many times I re-read them, they continuously inspire and offer new gifts. Among these books are Hafiz' poems, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, works by James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Linda Hogan, Federico Lorca, and the list goes on. One of the most recent additions to my "permanent" book collection is All The Odes by Pablo Neruda. What I love about this thick volume of poems is that it includes odes to the most common of things--a spoon, a table, a chair, salt, an apple, an onion, a bird, a few yellow flowers. Here's an excerpt. Hope you enjoy.

Ode to a Few Yellow Flowers

Against the blue shaking its blue,
the sea, and against the sea,
a few yellow flowers.

October arrives.

And although
the developed sea is so important,
its myth, mission, yeast,
the gold
of a single yellow plant
explodes on the sand
and your eyes
are tied
to the ground,
escaping from the magnanimous sea
and its whip,

We are dust, we shall become.

Not air, or fire, or water
but
earth,
we shall be
mere earth
and maybe
a few yellow flowers.

Joining the Choir of Electronic Tweets: A Brief Lamentation

If it weren't for the TESOL computer class I'm taking and the technology fair I have to participate in, I wouldn't have signed up for Twitter. I am not by any means a Luddite. There is plenty of technology in my life and I use it daily. My cellphone alone, where I do the majority of my emailing and calendaring, usually goes everywhere with me; it's like a strange new limb I've grown. Sad, but true.

When I am not emailing, calendaring, Moodling with students, teaching (using computers, of course), doing homework (almost always on computers), then I am blogging, taking digital pictures, writing (in Word), texting, using Facebook, reading online news, listening to podcasts. And the list goes on and on...

In fact, technology has become such a big part of my life that I long for those rare moments outside of it. Getting into bed with a good book (the old-fashion kind with tangible spines and pages). Purposely going for a walk without my phone. Sharing a meal and conversing with friends or family in real-time and face-to-face (not via Skype and with all cellphones off and out of sight). Looking at something beautiful--the ocean, a mockingbird, a blooming cactus flower--without having to take a picture of it. Must every moment be electronically documented and shared? I am not trying to sound righteous. I am guilty of being addicted to my cellphone camera and the Photoshop Mobile App. I log onto Facebook more than I like to admit, and I easily get sucked into the FB stream; it's a never-ending social media vortex or as one Facebook user recently described, "FB is crack."

I cannot deny all the wonderous things that technology has to offer. As a teacher, I know I cannot just ignore technology. I have to literally be "plugged in." It's part of my job. And so, sadly I must take another plunge, get a Twitter account and join the electronic choir. I must learn how to Skype. I must set up a webpage. I must stay up to date with the technology trends or get left behind. Ironically, though, the more "plugged in" I am, the more disconnected I feel. Multi-tasking, that championed skill of the fast-paced 21st century, sometimes feels like the fragmentation of the self. Can I get a witness? Personally, I think there is something precious about just doing ONE thing at a time. The expression "being in the moment" has become a bit of a cliché, but I find value in it, I crave it, I hold on it like a lifesaver as I waddle my way through this ever-rising tide of techno-todo.

The Beauty of Winging It

There's something to be said about spontaneity. Take the title of this blog, for instance. In class tonight, we were asked to go onto Blogger and create our student blogs. I made a conscious effort to not overthink anything as I went through the Blogger steps. When I had to enter a title, the first thing that came to mind was "Winging It." 

Driving home after class, I thought about "Winging It" as both an idiom and a blog. I like the expression, but what does it mean to me? Why had it surfaced? In regards to a blog, what could I do with it? This is what I came up with: 

• This blog has wings.
• It may be about birds.
• It may be about personal flights.
• It may be about being on-the-spot and having to wing it.
• It may include a Jazz Chant (TESOL Joke)

Or it may do none of the above. The beauty of "winging it" is that you don't have a concrete plan. You flap your wings and take off without knowing where the next landing will be.