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!
Gonzalez’s poem “I Am Joaquin” illustrates what Homi Bhabha calls the “third space of enunciation,” the intersection between cultures where new meaning and representation has arisen. “I Am Joaquin” is primarily written in English but contains Spanish phrases. Gonzalez is appropriating the language of the colonizers in order to express himself. He retains bits of his original language in order to maintain his cultural identity. The poet also internalizes his native people’s history in order to empower himself and his culture: “I rode with Pancho Villa/
ReplyDeletecrude and warm, a tornado at full strength.” The poem contains many examples of paradoxes, which help to illustrate the cultural contradictions that arise when colonization interrupts existing systems and exchange. The poem’s speaker says, “The victor/The vanquished/I have killed/And been killed.” Gonzalez internalizes the strength of his culture yet also experiences feelings of powerlessness as a colonized person.
Gonzales’ Joaquin expresses the confusion that results from the meeting of the colonizer and the colonized in the “third space of enunciation”. The poem begins in Spanish, and while there are a few dispersed Spanish words, the bulk of the poem is written in English. It seems as though Joaquin is speaking of two different colonizers. The first colonization was when the Spanish conquered the Native tribes in Mexico. Of this colonizer,the “Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man and/ beast and all that he could trample”, he mentions that he was both “tyrant and slave”. He also gives a list of people who he “was”:
ReplyDeleteI 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,
…
He seems to see himself as representing all of the tribes, revolutions, and tyrants that comprise Mexican history. He is a mixture of the colonizer and the colonized. From the Spanish, the Mexicans received the Spanish language and Christianity. He says that the Spanish “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”. The Spanish, in drawing themselves and the native Indians into the third space sowed the seeds of their own downfall. The religion taught the natives that they were equal to the Spanish under G-d and they saw “their own worth as human beings”. This is the spirit that led the revolution.
The second colonization refers to the Americans, who in the Mexican-American war annexed Texas, which was Mexican territory. The American culture, whether for Mexicans living in America or due to its cultural hegemony, is Joaquin’s current adversary. He begins the poem discussing how he is “caught up in the whirl of a gringo society, /confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes, /suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society”. While the Americans took their land and have spread their cultural tentacles, the poem itself written in English, they also learned from the Mexicans. “Words like chocolate, avocado, tomato, coyote, ocelot, and tequila originated in Náhuatl [one of the native Mexican languages] and were also acquired in the English language” (http://www.spainexchange.com/guide/MX-language.htm). Gonzales subtly alludes to this exchange by using two of those words listed: “I am the fat political coyote”, “ tequila explosions”. Third space of enunciation. Or maybe ninth space- if you count the double colonization. Wow. It’s no wonder Joaquin is so confused.
-Batya Septimus
In Gonzales’ poem “I am Joaquin,” the speaker accentuates the complicated hybridity of his birth. He asserts, for example, “I toiled on my Earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood / for the Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man… / I was both tyrant and slave.” While he claims a Native American lineage as a descendant of noble tribes such as the Aztecs and Mayans, he does not reject his ties to the Spanish conquistadores who were responsible for oppressing that other half of himself. Joaquin therefore speaks from what Homi Bhabha calls the “third space of enunciation,” his perspective literally embodying the cultural convergence between the colonizer and the colonized. This is represented rhetorically as the poem shifts between Spanish, English, and Native American terms. Gonzales interestingly chooses to begin his poem by repeating the same phrase in two different languages: “Yo soy Joaquin, / perdido en un mundo de confusion: / I am Joaquin, lost in a world of confusion.” He moves uneasily from Spanish to English, which suggests that his “confusion” does not merely concern his mixed lineage but also a problem of linguistics because with respect to his Native American origins both Spanish and English are languages of the oppressor. By the end of the poem, however, Gonzales seems to overcome his doubts and reservations, successfully re-appropriating language and the mixed circumstances of his birth in a deeply empowering way. He proudly exclaims: “I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ. / I SHALL ENDURE! / I WILL ENDURE!” The bold capitalization of his final words demonstrates Joaquin’s confidence in uttering English without being oppressed by the language.
ReplyDeleteRodolfo Gonzales’ poem, “I am Joaquin,” emerges as a product of what Homi Bhabha terms the “third space of enunciation.” It begins with the lines, “Yo soy Joaquin,/ perdido en un mundo de confusión:/ I am Joaquin, lost in a world of confusion.” By repeating the same phrase, first in Spanish and then in English, Gonzales juxtaposes two disparate cultures and demonstrates how they merge in the identity of the speaker. When Joaquin declares, “I look at myself,” the portrait we are presented with is fragmented, complex, and essentially hybrid. He consistently raises paradoxes, embodying himself in the persona of both his heroes and their enemies. As readers we are supposed to recognize that these contradictions and inconsistencies in character are what necessarily make up Joaquin’s identity—They are a product of the interactions between the colonizer and the colonized. In this way, Joaquin demonstrates how he assumes the position and perspective of his people as well as their oppressors: “I am the sword and flame of Cortes the despot/ And I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec civilization.” Joaquin reveals in these lines that the violence of the colonizer and the spirit of the colonized are both elements of his identity. Finally, through the powerful ending of the poem, “I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ./ I SHALL ENDURE!/ I WILL ENDURE!” Gonzales conveys how Joaquin has been able to transform his hybrid identity into a weapon to struggle against his oppressors. As an Aztec prince he is paying homage to his tradition, and as a Christian Christ he is relying on the religion of the colonizer to fight for the freedom and essential humanity of his people. The transition from “I SHALL” to “I WILL ENDURE” further emphasizes his determination to resist subjugation.
ReplyDeleteGonzales poem "I Am Joaquin" introduces Joaquin in the beginning, Joaquin is confused and lives in the third space of enunciation. He has two sides to deal with, The Mexican life and the American life. Joaquin looks back at his people, and parents how they struggle to live in a society that took their land from them and try to take their culture. Joaquin is also confuse because he thinks to himself how can he live in a country that had battles with his motherland. "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", Joaquin's third space rejects his parents and brothers and accepts his new way of life. Joaquin accepts the american way of living and becoming a leader. While living in a third space , Joaquin still has scars from his people who fought for their country. At the end of the poem Joaquin doesnt know how to describe him self as a "Mexican American", he says," we start to MOVE. La raza! Méjicano! Español! Latino! Chicano! Or whatever I call myself". Joaquin stays in his third space of confusion.
ReplyDeleteIn Gonzales’ poem , the lines “I Am Joaquin” is primarily written in English but contains Spanish phrases. It contains couple of example sof paradoxes which depicts the contradiction of the culture. The speaker says, “The victor/The vanquished/I have killed/And been killed, ” attributing the strength of his culture yet he also experiences emotions of being powerless as a a person whi is colonized."Third space of enunciation" with the lines, “Yo soy Joaquin,/ perdido en un mundo de confusión:/ I am Joaquin, lost in a world of confusion.” Joaquin repeats the same phrase first in spanish and then in english showing two different cultures taht also blend with the speaker's identity. He also raises multiple paradoxes embodying himself in the persona of his heroes and as well as their enemies. From this , we are supoosed to recognize that from all these paradoxes or contradictions, this is what really makes up the ideantity of Joaquin. It is simply the result of interactions between colonizer and the colonized. We see that there is also shift between Spanish, English, and Native American. In the ending of the poem, the speaker says, “I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ. / I SHALL ENDURE! / I WILL ENDURE!” In this I agee with Sharon saying that it is simply conveying transformation of Joaquin's hybrid identity in a strong weapon which he can use in struggling againist the ones who are oppressors.
ReplyDeleteGonzales’s “I am Joaquin” demonstrates a clear illustration of third space enunciation. Joaquin includes various cultures during his speech to express his feelings of unhappiness. For example, Joaquin mentions,
ReplyDelete“I am Cuauhtemoc,
I am the Maya prince
I am Nezahualcoyotl
I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec…”
Not only does the third space enunciation illustrate a connection between the different cultures, it as if Joaquin adopts several persona’s. In the beginning Joaquin mentions that he feels confused in society. This third space enunciation helps him identify with others, and adopt the role of being something/someone other than himself.
This is a poem that exists in English and Spanish. We can see that how it’s hard to maintain two cultures. If you are growing between two or more than two cultures, it is very hard to keep just one. Usually many children have same problems as Gonzales’s had it. This poem is also expressing the author’s feeling of not being able to maintain one of the two cultural totally. He is totally confused about his identity. He is not sure who he really is, “I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.” He is not happy what he is.
ReplyDeleteRodolfo Corky Gonzales’s ‘I am Joaquin’ is a poem that is doing many things at once. It’s an impassioned rant against a system of institutionalized exclusion that leaves Mexican Americans materially poor; an owning of several disparate ancestral and racial identities; and a declaration of the new identity resulting from this cultural and racial miscegenation. By using the first person “I am” as a kind of refrain, Gonzales is casting a wide net of inclusion over several Mexican revolutionary figures, ancient poets, philosophers and saints, as well as symbols of identity, war and nationalism. In this way, he is naming the political philosophies, civilizations and historical events that inform his sense of self. He acknowledges from the first lines his “confusion,” and the confusion of his identity, which he articulates by claiming to be both Spanish tyrant and Indigenous slave, as well as when he writes, “I ride with the revolutionists/ Against myself” and “I have killed/ and been killed.” By the end of the poem he has found a language in which to meld all the floating contradictory ingredients. La Raza, Chicano, Mestizo all refer to the dual Mexican/American and Indigenous/European mixtures. In the final lines of the poem, he declares that he is both Aztec prince and Christian Christ, with the following assertion that despite all these contradictions and dualities, his intent is to endure.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like Joaquin is a descendent of both the nation that the colonizers came from and the colonized. He wants to rebuild the identity that was taken away from the colonized but also acknowledges links to the Spaniards who aided the natives during wars. The encounters between the natives and the Spaniards bring a history of winning and losing battles, courageous stands, victory and defeat; the autonomous empire and the rebuilding tribe.
ReplyDeleteThroughout Gonzalez's Poem "I am Joaquin", there is a mix of feelings and thoughts in Joaquin's mind. Joaquin is often confused and is in the third space of enunincation. He speaks "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." He finds himself in a situation where he is forced to deny a part of his family's culture for he has to reject his parents. However, he is shameful for he knows it's wrong and a part of him does not wish to. He has "has been killed..and killed" for there are so many cultural battles he has to face. He is faced with mixed emotions as he fights for his historical roots as well as acknowledge his present/environment. He is forced to be in this third space of enuninciation and fight many battles.
ReplyDeleteGonzales’ “I am Joaquin” utilizes the third space of enunciation and this is evident simply in its poetic construct – a lengthy, historical, empirical take which cites his ongoing inner struggle with identity. This third space, or cultural other, is a product of the speaker’s cultural history. The speaker’s ancient native culture is heralded in greatness and the arrival of colonizers is depicted with divided feelings of injustice and adoptive cultural pride. The speaker proclaims that he is the great rulers of the past, “Cuauhtemoc” and “Nezahualcóyotl,” as their spirit live on in him. He speaks of the pillage and strife his people have encountered as a direct result of the appearance of colonizers, yet embraces their culture as is noted in his “change” of “language.” He speaks bitterly of the battles of modern leaders, of social inequality, of its effects on his own family as a result of being conquered “under the heels of lustful Europeans.” Yet, he ends the poem with “I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ/I SHALL ENDURE!” which shows that he cannot help but embrace the factors of a past that have resulted in his existence and the shaping of his identity.
ReplyDelete“I am Joaquin” by Gonzales really sums up all that was mentioned earlier in the previous forms. Remember, it is not about the story but how the story is told. Here, it is a great example of personal narrative within a poem. This is the story about a character who is lost but recovers in the end. As stated in the poem:
ReplyDeletePoor in money,
Arrogant with pride,
Bold with machismo,
Rich in courage
And
Wealthy in spirit and faith.
My knees are caked with mud.
Later on the same character with no hope recovers and learns to move on by pointing to a time when this happened and how it has impacted him as a person. As stated in the poem:
My land is lost
And stolen,
My culture has been raped.
He is lost because of what has happened with his people and that killed him inside to have the country raped is like allowing a blood relative such as a sister or mother to be raped in front of other people and feeling helpless as a result.
Poet mentions changing of situation with changing of language which menas chagging of culture, changing of history and creating a forged image for the natives to live by :
Changed our language
And plagiarized our deeds
The character learns to get up and reflect. Finding peace with oneself as a result of nationalism that breeds within.
The odds are great
But my spirit is strong,
My faith unbreakable,
My blood is pure.
Reassuring oneself to move on because of faith.
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!