Corky, un boxeador de puño en alto (27 de marzo 1969)

Rdolfo «Corky» Gonzales

El 27 de marzo de 1969 se celebró en Denver una conferencia internacional que reunió a 1500 jóvenes mexicanos a instancias de la Cruzada por la Justicia, una organización defensora de los derechos civiles, cuyo líder era Rodolfo «Corky» Gonzales. En ella, llegaron al término «chicano» para autodefinirse, que se utilizaría a partir de entonces en la lucha por los derechos civiles de los mexicano-americanos.

Corky Gonzales era un personaje interesantísimo: exboxeador, poeta, activista político, cosechó bastante éxito como boxeador, pero alcanzó la cima de su fama con su poema más conocido, Yo soy Joaquín (I am Joaquin):

I am Joaquín

Yo soy Joaquín, 

perdido en un mundo de confusión: 

I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, 

caught up in the whirl of a gringo society, 

confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes, 

suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society. 

My fathers have lost the economic battle 

and won the struggle of cultural survival. 

And now! I must choose between the paradox of 

victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger, 

or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, 

sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. 

Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere, 

unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical, 

industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success.... 

I look at myself. 

I watch my brothers. 

I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate. 

I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life -- 

MY OWN PEOPLE 

I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble, 

leader of men, king of an empire civilized 

beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés, 

who also is the blood, the image of myself. 

I am the Maya prince. 

I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas. 

I am the sword and flame of Cortes the despot 

And I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec civilization. 

I owned the land as far as the eye 

could see under the Crown of Spain, 

and I toiled on my Earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood 

for the Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man and 

beast and all that he could trample 

But...THE GROUND WAS MINE. 

I was both tyrant and slave. 

As the Christian church took its place in God's name, 

to take and use my virgin strength and trusting faith, 

the priests, both good and bad, took-- 

but gave a lasting truth that Spaniard Indian Mestizo 

were all God's children. 

And from these words grew men who prayed and fought 

for their own worth as human beings, for that 

GOLDEN MOMENT of FREEDOM. 

I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest 

Hidalgo who in the year eighteen hundred and ten 

rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry-- 

El Grito de Dolores 

"Que mueran los gachupines y que viva la Virgen de Guadalupe...." 

I sentenced him who was me I excommunicated him, my blood. 

I drove him from the pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me.... 

I killed him. 

His head, which is mine and of all those 

who have come this way, 

I placed on that fortress wall 

to wait for independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero! 

all companeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY 

to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made. 

I died with them ... I lived with them .... I lived to see our country free. 

Free from Spanish rule in eighteen-hundred-twenty-one. 

Mexico was free?? 

The crown was gone but all its parasites remained, 

and ruled, and taught, with gun and flame and mystic power. 

I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed, 

and waited silently for life to begin again. 

I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez, guardian of the Constitution. 

I was he on dusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives 

as Moses did his sacraments. 

He held his Mexico in his hand on 

the most desolate and remote ground which was his country. 

And this giant little Zapotec gave not one palm's breadth 

of his country's land to kings or monarchs or presidents of foriegn powers. 

I am Joaquin. 

I rode with Pancho Villa, 

crude and warm, a tornado at full strength, 

nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earthy people. 

I am Emiliano Zapata. 

"This land, this earth is OURS." 

The villages, the mountains, the streams 

belong to Zapatistas. 

Our life or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maize. 

All of which is our reward, 

a creed that formed a constitution 

for all who dare live free! 

"This land is ours . . . 

Father, I give it back to you. 

Mexico must be free. . . ." 

I ride with revolutionists 

against myself. 

I am the Rurales, 

coarse and brutal, 

I am the mountian Indian, 

superior over all. 

The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering machine guns 

are death to all of me: 

Yaqui 

Tarahumara 

Chamala 

Zapotec 

Mestizo 

Español. 

I have been the bloody revolution, 

The victor, 

The vanquished. 

I have killed 

And been killed. 

I am the despots Díaz 

And Huerta 

And the apostle of democracy, 

Francisco Madero. 

I am 

The black-shawled 

Faithfulwomen 

Who die with me 

Or live 

Depending on the time and place. 

I am faithful, humble Juan Diego, 

The Virgin of Guadalupe, 

Tonantzín, Aztec goddess, too. 

I rode the mountains of San Joaquín. 

I rode east and north 

As far as the Rocky Mountains, 

And 

All men feared the guns of 

Joaquín Murrieta. 

I killed those men who dared 

To steal my mine, 

Who raped and killed my love 

My wife. 

Then I killed to stay alive. 

I was Elfego Baca, 

living my nine lives fully. 

I was the Espinoza brothers 

of the Valle de San Luis. 

All were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization 

were placed on the wall of independence, heads of brave men 

who died for cause or principle, good or bad. 

Hidalgo! Zapata! 

Murrieta! Espinozas! 

Are but a few. 

They dared to face 

The force of tyranny 

Of men who rule by deception and hypocrisy. 

I stand here looking back, 

And now I see the present, 

And still I am a campesino, 

I am the fat political coyote– 

I, 

Of the same name, 

Joaquín, 

In a country that has wiped out 

All my history, 

Stifled all my pride, 

In a country that has placed a 

Different weight of indignity upon my age-old burdened back. 

Inferiority is the new load . . . . 

The Indian has endured and still 

Emerged the winner, 

The Mestizo must yet overcome, 

And the gachupín will just ignore. 

I look at myself 

And see part of me 

Who rejects my father and my mother 

And dissolves into the melting pot 

To disappear in shame. 

I sometimes 

Sell my brother out 

And reclaim him 

For my own when society gives me 

Token leadership 

In society's own name. 

I am Joaquín, 

Who bleeds in many ways. 

The altars of Moctezuma 

I stained a bloody red. 

My back of Indian slavery 

Was stripped crimson 

From the whips of masters 

Who would lose their blood so pure 

When revolution made them pay, 

Standing against the walls of retribution. 

Blood has flowed from me on every battlefield between 

campesino, hacendado, 

slave and master and revolution. 

I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec 

into the sea of fame– 

my country's flag 

my burial shroud– 

with Los Niños, 

whose pride and courage 

could not surrender 

with indignity 

their country's flag 

to strangers . . . in their land. 

Now I bleed in some smelly cell from club or gun or tyranny. 

I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger 

Cut my face and eyes, 

As I fight my way from stinking barrios 

To the glamour of the ring 

And lights of fame 

Or mutilated sorrow. 

My blood runs pure on the ice-caked 

Hills of the Alaskan isles, 

On the corpse-strewn beach of Normandy, 

The foreign land of Korea 

And now Vietnam. 

Here I stand 

Before the court of justice, 

Guilty 

For all the glory of my Raza 

To be sentenced to despair. 

Here I stand, 

Poor in money, 

Arrogant with pride, 

Bold with machismo, 

Rich in courage 

And 

Wealthy in spirit and faith. 

My knees are caked with mud. 

My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo rich, 

Yet 

Equality is but a word– 

The Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken 

And is but another threacherous promise. 

My land is lost 

And stolen, 

My culture has been raped. 

I lengthen the line at the welfare door 

And fill the jails with crime. 

These then are the rewards 

This society has 

For sons of chiefs 

And kings 

And bloody revolutionists, 

Who gave a foreign people 

All their skills and ingenuity 

To pave the way with brains and blood 

For those hordes of gold-starved strangers, 

Who 

Changed our language 

And plagiarized our deeds 

As feats of valor 

Of their own. 

They frowned upon our way of life 

and took what they could use. 

Our art, our literature, our music, they ignored– 

so they left the real things of value 

and grabbed at their own destruction 

by their greed and avarice. 

They overlooked that cleansing fountain of 

nature and brotherhood 

which is Joaquín. 

The art of our great señores, 

Diego Rivera, 

Siqueiros, 

Orozco, is but another act of revolution for 

the salvation of mankind. 

Mariachi music, the heart and soul 

of the people of the earth, 

the life of the child, 

and the happiness of love. 

The corridos tell the tales 

of life and death, 

of tradition, 

legends old and new, of joy 

of passion and sorrow 

of the people–who I am. 

I am in the eyes of woman, 

sheltered beneath 

her shawl of black, 

deep and sorrowful eyes 

that bear the pain of sons long buried or dying, 

dead on the battlefield or on the barbed wire of social strife. 

Her rosary she prays and fingers endlessly 

like the family working down a row of beets 

to turn around and work and work. 

There is no end. 

Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth 

and all the love for me, 

and I am her 

and she is me. 

We face life together in sorrow, 

anger, joy, faith and wishful 

thoughts. 

I shed the tears of anguish 

as I see my children disappear 

behind the shroud of mediocrity, 

never to look back to remember me. 

I am Joaquín. 

I must fight 

and win this struggle 

for my sons, and they 

must know from me 

who I am. 

Part of the blood that runs deep in me 

could not be vanquished by the Moors. 

I defeated them after five hundred years, 

and I have endured. 

Part of the blood that is mine 

has labored endlessly four hundred 

years under the heel of lustful 

Europeans. 

I am still here!

I have endured in the rugged mountains 

Of our country 

I have survived the toils and slavery of the fields. 

I have existed 

In the barrios of the city 

In the suburbs of bigotry 

In the mines of social snobbery 

In the prisons of dejection 

In the muck of exploitation 

And 

In the fierce heat of racial hatred. 

And now the trumpet sounds, 

The music of the people stirs the 

Revolution. 

Like a sleeping giant it slowly 

Rears its head 

To the sound of 

Tramping feet 

Clamoring voices 

Mariachi strains 

Fiery tequila explosions 

The smell of chile verde and 

Soft brown eyes of expectation for a 

Better life. 

And in all the fertile farmlands, 

the barren plains, 

the mountain villages, 

smoke-smeared cities, 

we start to MOVE. 

La raza! 

Méjicano! 

Español! 

Latino! 

Chicano! 

Or whatever I call myself, 

I look the same 

I feel the same 

I cry 

And 

Sing the same. 

I am the masses of my people and 

I refuse to be absorbed. 

I am Joaquín. 

The odds are great 

But my spirit is strong, 

My faith unbreakable, 

My blood is pure. 

I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ. 

I SHALL ENDURE! 

I WILL ENDURE!