Photo Credit: Donna DeCesare

Your Questions   1 | 2

6 Questions

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Question: If you see no borders, do you consider yourself a citizen of the world? Or does being an American mean something to you? Is it a part of your identity?

Luis: First and foremost, I am an inhabitant of this world, therefore I have an essential relationship to this world — to do all I can to help it remain whole and healthy for all. But I also have to live within the margins of our present-day political and social realities. I may not like the borders. I may envision a different world, for good reason. But I still have to live and negotiate my way inside these realities. I have a passport. I am vested here. I have been raised and taught here. I don't isolate myself or pretend these things don't matter to me.

When the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 happened, I was devastated like most everyone else. Not just because it was an American tragedy, which it most certainly was. But because it was a great affront and travesty to all humanity. I didn't wrap myself around the American flag — but I saw how important it was to help bring us closer together as human beings with a shared future. To find the commonality of purpose, aim and interest we all have for true justice, equity and peace for all.

While I think our vast resources, along with the world's, should have been used to find the people responsible for this tragedy and bring them to the court of world justice to answer for it, I don't believe this meant toppling other governments, getting rid of or compromising our civil liberties, preparing wars around the world, particularly against Iraq, and for more killings.

I should also point out that on that day, when close to 3,000 people were slaughtered at the World Trade Center, some 16,000 children around the world died of hunger. So there are many tragedies, most of which we can do something about, although we pretend those childrens' lives have less importance than the dear people who were murdered by terrorism that day. This is what I mean by expanding our vision, our field of concern, our humanity, to a fuller and deeper, more encompassing, engagement with others and the earth.

Question: I know that in the past you were involved in the Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War. What's your take on today's looming war with Iraq? How are the challenges different for an anti-war movement today than in the 70s?

Luis: The United States is the number one military power in the world. Iraq is number 12. We have most of the world's wealth and resources, at least disproportionate to our population. Iraq is one of the countries — most of which are in Africa — that needs U.N. food assistance. While I am concerned that Iraq may have weapons of mass destruction (a concern that I have about the U.S., Britain, Russia, China, France, India and Pakistan), I'm truly convinced going to war will only exacerbate these concerns. There are times when war is necessary, when rogue nations or peoples have to be stopped (no doubt Hitler's Germany and the other Axis powers). But Vietnam and other wars of intervention (including in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Panama, the Philippines, Colombia, and others) didn't have the same basis. The world is not better for it despite all our efforts — if a case could be made for that, I might reconsider my point here.

Oil is the number one reason Iraq is of strategic importance. While Saddam Hussein is a murderous dictator — and there are many others in the world — he also happens to be a major obstacle to the U.S.'s domination and control of Iraq's vast oil deposits. I won't sacrifice my children or anyone else's for these deposits that, again, directly benefit a minority in the oil business, including members of President Bush's family and some cabinet members. If we can imagine other energy sources, we won't need to depend on oil and/or Hussein.

This is where borders and "national interests" become perverted and wrong. The challenges for those against war today are extensive — it appears that most of the media and politicians and a growing number of Americans, have staked their prosperity and future on such wars. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out — we'll not find the safety and peace and prosperity we think we're getting as a result of our intractability (as proven by our previous acts, all of which are continuing along similar planes and patterns). In alcoholic and drug recovery programs there is a saying that "insanity" is defined as doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results. By this definition our leaders, and the millions who don't question them, are insane.

Question: Your point about borders disconnecting cultures is a valid one, but what about borders that create cultures? The same U.S.-Mexico border which has separated the indigenous peoples of the Americas has also formed its own culture, with its own music, art, literature and dialect. As you reflect that border culture through your writing, and as you celebrate it through your bookstore/gallery/performance space, how can you consider borders to be completely without merit? And from a community organizing standpoint, isn't it sometimes useful/empowering to bring a group together to define itself in defiance of something else?

Luis: These are a great and challenging set of questions. Thank you. Based on our history of colonialism, dissection, and fragmentation, both in Mexico and in the United States, many Mexicanos and Chicanos have had to define themselves in "defiance" of something else. Of necessity, no doubt. But still, one can see how mutated and distorted this can be in relationship to our larger social and human responsibilities and realities. Some have become so narrow in their definition that they have "closed ranks," rather than free themselves up to their great human capacities while still maintaining strong ties to history, traditions, realities, ancestors, teachings, and futures.

I don't define myself as an indigenous or Chicano artist and revolutionary solely in relation to what I'm against — although this is a major aspect. Yes, because of the border, we've had to form our own cultures — we are culture-forming animals. Tia Chucha's Café Cultural does embrace and acknowledge the Mexican/Chicano/Central American peoples who need such a bookstore-café-art gallery-performance space in their midst, but this is not against any white, black, Asian or other Latino who come and partake in our bounty of culture and song. We live the concept of "no borders" while acknowledging that borders have helped mother us into our present circumstances. We're all here now — what imaginative and mythological and social forces can we tap into so that the exploitative or oppressive conditions no longer govern our lives and dreams? That's my challenge to all — to go back to our vital beginnings, to our universal births as cognitive beings, something I believe our present-day crises and conflicts are crying out for, as we give birth to new hopes, new meanings, new relationships and a more humane and balanced future.

Want to read more? Check out Luis's answers to P.O.V.'s 6 questions, the same 6 we asked all of the featured guests.