Mexico, the Revolution and Beyond: The Casasola Archives 1900–1940
The Mexican Revolution: 1810, 1910, 2010?

Buenas noches. Cualli Yohualli. Estoy en medio de una conferencia yo mismo de quatro días. Entonces mi cerebro está en otro lugar, pero no importa porque este es un parte de lo mismo. I want to tell you, I'm a long‑time journalist, as Lisa mentioned. And, actually, I'm a storyteller. So, rather than give you a prepared speech, I thought I'd give you a few stories.

But, before that, I want to say this... In terms of my connection to Mexico and the revolución, I was born in the Aguascalientes en Mexíco, but I don't really know Aguascalientes until later, as an adult. Because I was taken at four years old to Tijuana and then Los Angeles.

But, I do have a connection, because my other part of my family is from Cuautla and from TEPALCINGO. Chilpancingo. So, my relatives speak Nahuatl. And my relatives live where Zapata is buried in Cuautla. In fact, it wasn't very long, I was in Anenecuilco just a few months ago.

So, I tell you this, because I'm going to tell you a story. You tell me if it's funny. I was going to say, "I'm going to tell you a funny story." Ah. Yeah. So, myself as storyteller is...coming from Mexico as a little kid. I could tell you lots of stories, but I'm going to skip all those. I'm going to tell you the stories later, when I'm a young adult.

You know, when I was a young kid, the word Chicano was not used by Mexicanos. That's just something we didn't do. We talked about La Chicanada, because, to us, the people that hated us were Chicanos.

They didn't call themselves that either, that came later. They were called Mexican‑American or Americans or Spanish or things like that. So, later on, the word Chicano came in and I thought that was good. Because I thought, "Finally, they stopped hating us you know."[laughter] Anyway, that's a sad thing to say, but it's true. 'Cause, where I grew up, everybody looked like me. And everybody hated me, until I learned the language, I guess.

So, here's the story, related more after...when I became part of the Chicano movement. Because, again, that wasn't for me, but I got in there anyway. And the reason, or rather, during that era of, say, late 60s/early 70s, in Los Angeles and probably across the country, there were posters of Zapata everywhere. And I kid you not, this is a true story, the LAPD put out an all points bulletin looking for Zapata. [laughter] They wanted to know who the leader was. [laughter] Anyway, like I said, I didn't mean to be funny, it just is funny.

[laughter]

Anyway, mira, my title is 1810, 1910, and 2010. But, I can tell you... As anybody will tell you, that is so broad, I couldn't begin to scratch any of the three topics. But I will say this, that 1810, as we all know, that was Independence, right? 1910, of course, the Revolución. Now, in Mexico... Whenever I'm in Mexico, everybody I know always says, "Yeah, the next one's 2010." But, to me, to be truthful... Not that I discount it, pero to me, it reminds me of 2012. I don't know if you've been watching the movie... [laughter]

And, I'm not trying to discount it. What I'm simply saying is that whatever I would tell you would be speculation. Romanticism and generalities. And I don't want to talk to you about generalities or things that maybe I have small knowledge of, or limited knowledge. I wanted to actually talk to you about something... In a sense, it departs from what we're talking about here. But, it really doesn't, because if you look at the title of the program, it says, "And beyond." I consider myself beyond, you know. What happened to all the Mexicanos that left? We're here. And we are the beyond. And so, the topic that I wanted to talk to you about. I'm going to scratch something, very brief, but I can't really deal with it. OK? But, I'll scratch.

It wasn't long ago where I was on the street on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, bleeding from a cracked skull, by police in Los Angeles...sheriffs, you know.

Thirty years later, I'm here as a professor. It's a radical change. I don't know that, in the wildest dreams, I would've thought that from facing time in prison... 'Cause I... Some of you remember Alicia Soltero... If not her, you remember Rodney King. So what I did, I photographed the police beating on people, a Mexicano. And I ended up in the hospital with my head cracked and facing a lot of time in prison.

But, of course... You might imagine, just a couple weeks ago, I celebrated 30 years. So, I always say, "I don't care about when it happened. What I care about is when I won." So, I've been celebrating 30 years of victory.

[applause]

So, when I say that I don't want to talk about the past, I want to talk to you about the beyond... It’s the reality... I'm assuming most of you live here or in the general area. So, first I want to talk to you about somebody that we've probably seen in the news lately...Joe Arpaio?

Yeah. To me, that's the Díaz of this country. In other words, that that hate that all of us were trained... That we had about Díaz, to me, I think a lot of us feel the same way about Joe Arpaio.

And he's as real as Díaz, as any other military, dicta...whatever. To us, Joe Arpaio represents the same thing. And so, it's a tragedy. I was talking to somebody earlier today, they were saying, "How is he allowed to do what he does?" He's the Bull Connor of our era.

Bull Connor challenged the federal government. I voted for Obama and I have total respect for him, but I think he's wimpy, if you ask me. Whether we're talking war or whether we're talking about human rights. I think a lot of us expected a little bit more.

Now, he did defang Arpaio. I don't know if everybody knows...he operates under the kinds of 287 (g) agreements. That was taken from him.

But, what do you think Arpaio did the same day that the federal government stripped him of his 287 (g) powers? Which allows the sheriffs or the police to act like migra... He says, "I don't care what the federal government says, I'm going to do more raids." And he did. And he continues to raid to this day.

So, when I say this, it's because I don't want us to be thinking romantic or romanticism about something long ago. This is what we're living today. OK? Arpaio.

I have the honor of... I don't know if I should call it "the honor". I was privileged to be able to take my students to the federal courthouse this semester. I know several of my students are actually here in the classroom, in the auditorium here. And, I took them to Operation Streamline.

Raise your hand if you know what it is... No, I'm sorry, if you've been to Operation Streamline. Mira. OK. But, if I ask you, "How many of you have seen movies about the Mexican Revolution?" Everybody's going to raise their hand.

If you want to see something that will... I guarantee you, will rip your stomach apart... You will not... It's something that's painful. I told my students about this and I don't know if they believed me.

But, I said, "Let's go." So we went and I remember about two or three students came out crying, it hadn't even finished, you know. And I have to thank the Mexican Consulate porque nos habló, después, habló con los estudiantes sobre lo que pasaba.

So, let me tell you what happens in Operation Streamline. Some of us or most of us here are old enough to remember Apartheid in South Africa, right? Not even in Apartheid South Africa did they have a legal system, a judicial system, that's happening right here down the street.

You walk in to that courtroom and everybody on the left...on this side...all Mexicanos, all shorter than I am, all brown, all shackled with their...handcuffed to the wrist, to the waist, to the ankles.

And I asked my students, "Who gets shackled that way, in this society?" We all know the answer...the worst prisoners, the most dangerous prisoners. And that's how they're treating our hermanos y hermanas... más son hermanos, son hombres los que están en la mejoría, pero Mexicanos, más del sur, y también de Guatemala.

Every single day, 70‑80 Mexicanos are tried in one hour. Every single one of them convicted. I'm telling you, not even in South Africa did they have a kanga... I always tell my students, "It's a kangaroo court and I apologize to the kangaroos."

It's really tragic. So, I can see that most of you did not go. I really want to challenge you to go to the courtroom every day at 1:30 and I can guarantee your stomach will turn, because it's Apartheid, literal Apartheid. Again, everybody on the left, all brown, Mexicanos. In the front, maybe two or three women, may be four. And the lawyers in the middle and the guests... They allow about 15 guests every day.

Anyway, I don't know that I could have ever imagined that I would witness something like that. Remember what I told you when I was on the ground bleeding? I went to two trials.

The first trial lasted about nine months. That is, I had to go through all these court proceedings. My second one, I filed a lawsuit... They accused me of trying to kill four police officers with camera. [laughter]

Yeah. It wasn't funny then, but, of course, it's funny now. Right. But, I almost spent 20 years in prison... I almost died, actually. The second trial, I took them to court. But, I had to wait seven years. So, seven and a half years total. How many days do you think my trial was, my second one? Thirty‑six days, just for me.

And that's why, when I go into that Operation Streamline and see 80 people tried in one hour. I go, that is not justice, that's not a judicial system. And we're financing that... Us here, as tax payers, we're doing that. If you're not out there protesting, that means we're financing that.

You know why they're doing that? It's not just that they're bad. It's profitable. All the people that are convicted... Or, you know, they have a fancy term. They probably don't claim they're being convicted. But, all the people that are found ah... Again, they'll use a fancy term, but I'll say convicted.

Everyone convicted, those that are sent to a detention center or jail, go to a private prison. Thirteen million dollars a month, somebody told me... Now it's 17 million dollars a month to a private prison. If that shouldn't be cause for a revolution, I don't know what is.

We're making profit off of people's misery. And these are people that are what? Here just to work. A trabajar. Since when did that create the most dangerous prisoners in this country? It's ridiculous.

But, you know, I'm going to end with one last one. One more reality of here in Tucson. Which I think is even more extreme than that. Because it reminds me of, not only the revolutions that we're talking about... About 300 years of oppression and the Spaniards or the Zapatistas and on and on.

The other one is about the Superintendent of Schools here in Arizona. Some of you are probably familiar with him: Tom Horne.

Yeah. Tom Horne, the reason I say he reminds me of the old days, is because there's an indigenous expression, lo aprendí en Mexíco, que dicen, and I'll say it in English... Well, may be I'll translate...

“They came for our souls, but they didn't know where to look.” Así es como, bueno lo digo in español también... Creo que salé en una pelicula, se—como... Es una pelicula que salé casi como diez años. Que venirán por nuestras almas, pero no supieron en donde buscar. That's Tom Horne.

You know what he says... And he's at it every single day. Just recently, he released a study saying that students in Raza Studies do not do better than the other students in Arizona in TUSD. And it's absolutely false. Raza Studies are so successful. That's why they're trying to get rid of it. They are the top of the line students.

Tom Horne knows this. Do you know what his response is? He says, "I don't care how high they score." The problem with Raza Studies is it is outside of Western Civilization. [laughter]

That's why... I wrote a column about that. I said, "Oh, it reminds me of Gandhi when they asked him, "What do you think of Western Civilization? He said, "It would be a great idea.""

But, think about it. The core of Raza Studies is indigeniety. It is who we are, what we live. Not just what we eat. I'll get off on another topic so I wont.

But, the idea that Raza Studies and that indigeniety, the maíz, Maíz Civilization, it would be illegal to teach here in Arizona, the maíz. Can you imagine that? They're saying it's okay. American Indian Studies is okay, but not Raza Studies. Because, Raza Studies, the foundation is Mesoamerica or, como digo yo, Maíz America. No?

Think about it, he says, "Western Civilization the roots are Greece and Rome. Greco‑Roman roots. That's the roots of Western Civilization. That's acceptable to teach here." OK, hold on. I don't know how many Geography majors are here. But, where is Greece and Rome?

I think that's in the Mediterranean? Yeah. But, sometime from here, from Teotihuacán, from Tijuanaco. Anything from the Americas, from here, that's been here for thousands of years, that's not part of Western Civilization.

And again, I go back to Gandhi... In a way, he's right. Because we are not part of that genocide culture that imposed... They kicked out Jews. They kicked out Moors. They burned women. They created inquisitions. We're not part of that.

But, we never surrendered, the West to anybody from Europe. We should check the globe. Are we... Who's in the West? I think that when we talk about revolution, you cannot ignore 1994, the Zapatistas.

The Zapatistas rose up for a reason. I think we all know that. We think about NAFTA, but it was maíz. It was maíz. Article 27 revoked, millions of people coming.

It's all about the maíz. The maíz is coming because of NAFTA, from here. But, they're not really sending maíz. I was talking to a compañera here, they're not sending maíz to the south. That's genetic modification. They're sending monster corn. That's not the real corn. And that's really what's... Why do you think people would... Why would people stake their lives? Why would people revolt? It isn't just because of the little thing you eat. Because, all the culture of this continent starts, begins with maíz. I was taught by my elders, all this.

And I can tell you this, I was part... I have a documentary called, “Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan.” And I went all over the continent looking for elders to tell me the stories and they did.

And some of them are outside waiting for me. And I'll apologize, because I have to go, I can't abandon them. But I can tell you this and I hope this makes sense to you...

At the very, very end, I was finishing my dissertation... 'Cause my dissertation in Wisconsin was called " Centeotzintli ‑ Sacred Maíz: A Seven Thousand Year Ceremonial Discourse."

And I was finishing it up and my father tells me... My father had a heart attack and an aneurism and he's got Alzheimer's... But, he can remember everything from 80 years ago.

But not, like, 10 minutes ago. And he asked me, "Hijo, que estás haciendo?" I tell him, "I'm finishing my dissertation." And he goes, "What's it about?" And I was like, "It's all the stories you told me when I was a little kid." [laughs]

I go, "But, now I'm not doing the Aztecas migration, I'm talking about el origen de maíz." I'm going to skip the bigger story, because I think we're out of time.

But, I did want to tell you this... When my father started to tell me... He actually told me, "Pero sabes tu y tus hermanos no conoceren en el maíz, ni el frijol." He said, "Pero lo comieron."

And so, when he told me... I said, "Papa, es el... That's my dissertation." I always feel indigenous peoples, if we don't plant, if we don't do ceremony, and if we don't eat it... That's what my dissertation's about. And that... He started telling me about how his father taught him, and how his father had taught him. And I said, "That's a ceremonial discourse."

And so this is what I leave you with. Whether it makes sense to you or not, it makes sense to me. After looking in the entire continent for elders, I found them in my own home. Thank you.