And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From: "CATHERINE DAVIDS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Every Friday I give thanks to the Creator for being able to read
because Friday's are the day that Column of the Americas comes to
me.
Catherine
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FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF JULY 23, 1999
COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez
JOSE MONTOYA: ELDER OF FLOWER AND SONG
Poet. Musician. Artist. Performer. Educator. Orator. Organizer.
Rebel. Philosopher. Elder. Human being. All of these describe Jose Montoya
of Sacramento, Calif. He embodies the ancient indigenous Nahuatl concept of
the toltecatl, or consummate artist, who is "abundant, multiple" and
"dialogues with his heart."
The Nahuatl teachings said great painters paint "the colors of all
the flowers." For Montoya the poet, "the words and flowers have opened." And
his songs are solid as "rocks."
Montoya is all that, yet to this day he is a street "vato" -- a
homeboy pachuco who is the antithesis of a Hispanic media darling
intellectual type. He says little that the mainstream media want to hear. He
doesn't preach assimilation or the virtues of being middle class, nor does
he try to dazzle crowds with numbers and percentages about how Americanized
people of color really are. He doesn't brownnose power brokers, or feign
correctness of any sort, political or otherwise. What he does is believe in
street youth -- that none are throwaways. He believes that gangs and drugs
are a virtual creation of government, part of a counter-political strategy
to decimate the barrios, ghettos and reservations of this country.
In all that he does, he defends these youngsters, saying that they
are the modern-day pachucos or zoot-suiters -- youths who are marginalized
and attacked by everyone in need of a scapegoat. He also refutes charges
that he romanticizes them, asserting that in the face of cultural onslaught,
they are embattled youths, at the forefront of resistance. They've been
criminalized by a society that places more emphasis on gluttonous
corporations than on the needs of its young.
As part of an art collective known as the Royal Chicano Air Force
(RCAF), he helped uncover proof, through forgotten World War II-era
government documents, that pachucos were attacked and vilified as
unpatriotic hoodlums by government and media. In June 1943, thousands of
white military personnel -- with the assistance of law enforcement --
attacked zoot suit-clad youngsters, primarily in Los Angeles -- "accusing
them of being part of a fifth column," he says. The media labeled the
several days of rampages as the "Zoot Suit Riots." Subsequent to these
disturbances, Eleanor Roosevelt headed a commission that issued a damning
report, "The Government Riots," laying the blame of the disturbances
squarely on the government and the media.
In the 1970s, the RCAF operated a barrio art school for street
youths. Because not all the youths were interested in art, the RCAF sent the
other youngsters to the state library where, through archives, they helped
uncover the searing report. They also found that during World War II, state
legislators had plotted to open up concentration or "work" camps for
pachucos.
"After uncovering these documents, the youths began to ask whether
the government was behind drug-running," says Montoya. "The answer was yes!
A few years later, we found out that Ollie North was (complicit in) selling
drugs to fight a war against Nicaragua."
Just as these different youth programs around the country were
proving to be successful, they were defunded by bureaucrats who raised the
white flag in the war against poverty, asserts Montoya. "We were reversing
the dropout problem. ... Many had previously been on the road to Folsom
prison."
To this day, Montoya believes that education, history and culture
are the keys to turning street youths around. "I'm serious that people need
to pass down our history -- the history of Mexicans in the United States,
who didn't leave our lands to get here."
This desire to pass on knowledge triggered his creative spirit. Not
everyone wanted to hear poems. That's why he also became a musician and
artist. As a member of the RCAF, Montoya's signature became his aviator's
cap, goggles and jacket. He was a master at "tortilla art" -- he painted
using tortillas as his canvas. "If you don't exploit your sense of humor,
you're going to be defeated," he says. And singing resonates because "in the
barrio, everybody sings. You bring joy to despair. It's the best therapy."
Long ago, his ancestors wrote that great people of action and
thought became singers and poets and created flor y canto, the "flower
song," the beauty and wisdom of the people. To be a human being is to be a
creative being -- one who sings and paints and creates goodness, much like
Montoya, elder of flor y canto.
COPYRIGHT 1999 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
* Montoya is a member of a musical trio called "Casindio" and has a classic
CD titled "A Pachuco Portfolio" -- which can perhaps be categorized as
indigenous Chicano barrio sounds. If there's interest, the CD will be
reissued.
Unfortuantely, Montoya intentionally resists the computer age so he has no
e-address or a pachuco website. If there's interest, we will pass on the
messages to him.
* Gonzales & Rodriguez can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7905,
505-242-7282 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
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