Chicano Leader Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales 1929-2005: "He Was the Fist. He Stood For Defiance, Resistance"
Friday, April 15th, 2005
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/15/1337236Chicano political and civil rights activist Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales died Tuesday at his home in Denver, Colorado. He was 76 years old. We speak with his friend, columnist Roberto Rodriguez. [includes rush transcript]
Chicano political and civil rights activist Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales died this past Tuesday at his home in Denver, Colorado. He was 76 years old.
Gonzales was an iconic leader in the movement for justice and equality for Mexican-Americans in the Southwest and he is credited with raising the nation's awareness of the plight of urban Chicanos.
In the mid-1960"s he founded an urban civil rights and cultural movement called the Crusade for Justice which advocated Chicano nationalism. During the late sixties and early seventies, he organized walkouts, demonstrations against police brutality and marches against the Vietnam War.
In 1968, Gonzales led a Chicano contingent to the Poor People's March on Washington D.C and issued a "plan of the Barrio" which demanded better housing, education and restitution of pueblo lands. Gonzales was also an organizer of the Annual Chicano Youth Liberation Conference which sought to create unity among Chicano youth.
Gonzales also advocated for increased political representation for Chicanos. In 1972 he was the keynote speaker at the newly formed La Raza Unida Party national convention in El Paso Texas. The party fielded political candidates to run for office in the state.
But perhaps Corky Gonzales is best known for his poem "I am Joaquin/Yo Soy Joaquin." He wrote the epic poem in 1965 and it is one of the most important literary works to emerge from the Chicano movement.
In the poem Gonzales tells of the historic struggles faced by Mexican Americans in the United States.
- Roberto Rodriguez, friend of Corky Gonzales. Along with his wife, Patrisia Gonzales, he writes the syndicated Column of the Americas, distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: Joining us on the phone right now from Minnesota to talk about the life and legacy of Corky Gonzales, is writer and columnist, Roberto Rodriguez. We welcome you to Democracy Now!
ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Good morning, Amy and Juan.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Can you talk about your friend, colleague, Corky Gonzales?
ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Like any mythic hero, it's kind of hard, initially, because we're still in the shock and the mourning. I don't think he is buried until Sunday. So, I mean, keeping that in mind, you know, as I think about Corky, you know, it's -- I guess there's words that swirl around the “I am Joaquin.” You know, I think for a lot of us, we look at it probably as a manifesto, you know, because, I mean, you could also look at it as a poem or something literary, but at the same time it was also a manifesto, but not like political only, but almost a spiritual manifesto, because I think that that poem that Juan mentioned, you know, it talked about how, you know, all -- we all used to call each other different names, like Mexicano, Latino, Chicano, all these different names. And everybody would be fighting about it. And I think that poem was an attempt to unify a people. Now, you know, the unity maybe was more an illusion perhaps, but at another level, you know, I think people felt unified and felt good about that poem. It was no longer, you know, in the streets. It was like people called each other “wetbacks” and “mojados” and “ocho.” You know, that was derisiveness, and this was the opposite. It was an attempt to say, you know, “We are one people.” There's another thing that I should mention, too, about who he was, because I think civil rights would probably not be sufficient, in terms of a leader. I think he -- and I think Juan, of course -- would know this firsthand. You know, I think it was the language of liberation. So, when people spoke of movement in those days, you know, that we were talking about movements around the world, you know, liberation movements, and he was critical in principle in that idea of, in this instance, Aztlan, you know, as something to liberate. Through the years, of course, that has become something different, more, of course, civil rights or human rights, but at the time it was like, you know, hey, you know, why are we being chased out of our ancestral homes? That was the language of the time.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And could you talk a little bit about the Crusade for Justice and its impact on Chicano youth and youth all around the country at that time, and then the rise of Raza Unida and Corky's role in that?
ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ: Sure, I think, you know, the Crusade for Justice, when I was thinking about it, I was saying, you know, I think I had talked earlier about, like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huertas, they represented something very special for us as a people, and we could probably see them as perhaps the heart, you know? He was the fist. That is the Crusade for Justice. It stood for defiance, resistance, and that -- so, in other words, rather than get into specificities of the role, the specific role, of the Crusade, I think that in a bigger sense we can look at it like that's what the Crusade was. That's what it meant to us as a people, that we were no longer going to, you know, sit or stand or kneel with our heads bowed, and, you know, “si, padron,” or “si, senor.” I think the Crusade gave us that impetus that, you know, again hey, we're not going to take it. And I think that's what I think we can learn or remember the Crusade for. You know, the Crusade evolved later into Escuela Tlatelolco. But the earlier era that you are referring to also is the Raza Unida Party, You know, again, very turbulent era, but again it was also in that context of things -- liberatory things, ideas, and I think the Raza Unida Party at that time meant a breaking from the democratic stranglehold of, you know -- the Republicans had wanted nothing to do with us, and the Democrats took us for granted. And so, La Raza Unida Party was supposed to be that alternative. Now again, as you well know, you had these intelligence operations that were heavy-duty, you know, fighting, pitting people against each other, etc., etc., and I think it effectively destroyed not just La Raza Unida Party but many movements throughout the world, in this country, in particular. That's why, again, we can look at his biography and his obituary and see all the accomplishments and controversies and all these things, but in the end, I think he will be seen as a mythic hero, you know, somebody who stood up and, you know, when I say “fist,” I mean, in a sense it's literal. He was a boxer. And I think the idea was like, yes, we can fight back.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What had he been doing in his later years? Clearly, after the high tide of the movement in the 1970s began to ebb, what was he involved in in his later years?
ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ: Well, one thing that is really important to note is that at that time and a little later, also critical work was the relations between the Crusade and the Chicano Movement with the American Indian Movement. That's something that many peoples don't know. You know, and you well know, of course, the relations between Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos and other peoples. One thing that people didn't know perhaps is the relation between Chicanos and AIM, which I think at the time the F.B.I. considered that the greatest threat to national security, the whole idea that Chicanos might one day see themselves as being native. One thing – you know, his history has got -- it's too long to detail, except that something that many people should know perhaps, because in the last, I would say, God, 15 years or so, he had a heart attack, and he crashed, and he was never the same. I remember my wife and I, you know, Patrisia, we went to Tlatelolco, presented and we saw him and met him again. He was no longer the same person from an earlier era. And so, what I want to mention is because this generation probably will only remember, you know, a senor, you know, as a great man who, you know, barely was able to move around, so to speak, and not know the impact he had, you know, in the 1950s as a boxer, as a leader in, you know, the 1960s, 1970s. He was an incredible man. In the last 15 years, he was slowed, so to speak, by those injuries. But I mean, so powerful was his effect from that early era, that I mean, he, I think, will live on always as, you know, Cesar Chavez will live on, and you know, the people remain alive, because their ideas will remain alive.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Roberto Rodriguez. What about Corky Gonzalez suing the Rocky Mountain News in February of 1974, a $30 million libel suit, because of what he felt was their inaccurate representation of people in Crusade?
ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. Well, I could only characterize that as part of the same era where -- and I'm almost hesitating to laugh, because you probably know full well to this day, I mean, that is the principle battle of not simply Chicano movements, but people of color, as well, indigenous movements. Every single day we are mischaracterized. We are censored, you know, and on a good day, you know, we're misrepresented. And that was part of that era. You know, part of the same era, of course, is the whole struggle with Coors. That was – again, this is another generation, but the struggle with media is, God, it's really tragic, maybe tragicomic, but it's never-ending. It's not limited. That's why when people look at Corky, you're not looking at Corky in Denver or Corky in the Crusade, but this is emblematic of the entire nation. I mean, you know, as you’re colleagues of ours, whenever we go anywhere, that's probably the number one complaint that the media is misrepresenting us. They're forcing an identity upon us. They're commercializing us. In his case, of course, you are dealing with other matters and other factors, you know, obviously, all of the intelligence stuff. God, I mean, I don't know. It's almost like I'm looking into a mirror into the future. You know, now, we have the government buying media, manufacturing stories. It's -- I don't know, it's kind of weird. You know, that media always seems to be the spear, you know, of anti-progressive movements, anti-indigenous, anti-Chicano, Puerto Rican, all of these movements, the media is always there at the forefront. I don't know what ever happened to the lawsuit, if he won. You may have. I remember Burt Corona in L.A. won a lawsuit. There was always lawsuits everywhere. There would probably be too many, if people really -- I don't know, I think people sometimes get cynical about the media and just give up on it.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Roberto Rodriguez, we want to thank you very much for being with us as we remember Corky Gonzales, who died at his home in Denver, Colorado, this week. Thank you.
by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
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!
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