The List

"Put 'em on the list" kinder Jay said solemnly. "The list, Jay? Do I really need to go talk to George's parents about getting him up too early on Saturdays?" I asked. "Yes," he responded, "on the list". Okay. George's parents were on the list, along with the asshole parents that made their kids go to church, go to bed early and eat vegetables. George snickered with delight. "I'm gonna go over there, George" I promised. "I know where you live".

I happily skidded through downtown Atlanta on my sister's bike, mine got a flat. It was May Day, rallies, and Georgia has a lot to worry about. We chanted and roamed a bit at the Capitol, then got hungry and well, thirsty. In most cities, downtown is where it's at. In Atlanta, downtown is where yucky people in suits work from 9-5, Monday through Friday and then drive their SUVs to the suburbs, leaving it a ghost town until Monday. The rest of us live a mile or two away from downtown, where normal life continues: restaurants, bars and movies. But the downtown, well, it's dead.

We wandered around. And finally, went to the Underground, an odd tourist attraction that has higher odds of getting mugged and shot than actually enjoying your bad tourist self. We went to a sports bar and ordered some food. It was sunny and nice and seedy, with signs advertising a multitude of things that you couldn't carry into the bar or do in the bathroom. "We got four dollar pitchers of margaritas" our earnest waitress offered us. I was surprised when my sister took her up on it. Good days. Good days in the Underground. Happy May Day.

I sure am going to miss that Osama bin Laden. I was as horrified as the rest of you that day in early autumn, ten years ago. I was shocked when I looked through the window of my La Guardia bound flight when it flew over the smokey pit that used to be the World Trade Center, six weeks after the attack. I bawled my head off at the funeral I was attending for everyone and everything that had happened. I am surprised by how I feel about his death. Believe me, I know this guy was was THE hijo de la gran puta. It is just not everyday that a person, raised in privilege, decides to dedicate his life to a conviction that does not include silk sheets. To start a movement. To put his money where his mouth is. I am impressed by his ability to organize. Would you know how to do it? No, me neither. Obviously, I don't agree with what he agreed with, but I have to respect his conviction and ability to organize multiple countries into a massive movement. He's the Che Guevara of the Arab world. A few slight changes and I would have been cheering for his wild-ass, guerilla army. But he killed us. And wanted to keep killing us. And I am one of us. But I haven't done shit with my life and that guy gave it all up to actively and wholeheartedly pursue what he believed in. It is a lesson to me.

Well, except for the killing of civilians part and freaky religion stuff.

I quickly perused my email, hair still wet and late for work. Alejandro had sent me a message, another Dreamer in trouble, sign the petition. It made me sad. It never ends, does it? It just goes and goes and goes.

And then Governor Nathan Deal signed the law, putting us second only to Arizona for hate laws against immigrants. We're number two!

Cheers.

De colores

"I went to a pig roast this weekend" the second grader responded when asked how he was doing. "I ate PIG".

Well, I eat shit, I thought, as his teacher waved her hand in my face in an act of dismissal and stomped out of my classroom. I forget sometimes how important these elementary school teachers are. That my job is to be their lady in waiting, their babysitter, their maid, whenever they feel like dropping their classes off because they need a break. Silly little me thinking I was a real teacher. And for having a little self respect when I marched my ass down to her classroom and let her know that I wasn't her maid. She told what she really thinks, which was even worse than I would have ever imagined. When she apologized, I told her that I wanted to drop it. She thought I was being gracious, but I wasn't. I know what she thinks and an apology won't fix that, or the fact that half the people I work with share the same impression; that "specials' teachers are not a real teachers, that we work less than they do, that our classes don't matter, that we are only there to make their lives easier. It's a little hard to take. But I don't want to argue about it. I've defended my job enough lately.

"Just trust us" the board representative told the teachers after we refused to sign our contracts. "Well I feel better now!" one of my fellow teachers exclaimed and they signed. Simultaneously, the board announced that they wanted to significantly increase the size of our student population and house the new kids in my classroom. SUCKERS!! Not only would I have more instructional hours added to my packed schedule, I would have to roll around on a cart and visit the various classrooms in order to teach. I began applying for jobs immediately.

"We have to think about direct action against Nathan Deal while HB87 sits on his desk. Who can find the governor's schedule for the upcoming week?". The meetings against Georgia's hate bill were up to twice a week and included homework. Spreadsheets, phone calls, emails. "I need information from you as soon as possible how increasing the size of the school will effect student achievement in Spanish" my co-worker requested "I need data. We have to stop this thing". More homework, after two or three faculty meetings in the same week. "So, how can we help you with the school wide assembly?" the group of parents asked me at yet another after school meeting. "The props are done. Everything is done. The assembly is less than a week away" I answered. Where the fuck were you while I was busting my ass to make this obligatory thing happen? Alone. Managing the costumed skits, rehearsals, setting up risers, videos, songs and dances of 370 elementary age children, alone. Meetings everyday, immigration, faculty, some days with double headers after school. Little help from the K-5 teachers, no help from parents. Only the other "specials" helped. "What bitches," they said "we'll help you. You can't corral 370 kids by yourself during an assembly".

"De colores...." the fourth grader sang "...y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mí..." I was surprised that I was chocking up. She volunteered to do it, wanted to do it, to promote the assembly. Stood up there with her dad and sang the entire lovely song in Spanish. I felt proud. Their skinny little arms hugged me, circled my neck, my waist, my leg. It's their way of saying "hi" and they do it instinctively. I am proud of them.

I was standing in a parking lot, drunk. The assembly was a bit of a disaster, technical problems, communication errors, but the kids had a blast and the damn thing was over. Parents popped up at the last minute and helped corral the kids during the assembly and one dad even put a suit on and mc-ed the thing for me. And... the Board decided not to add the extra group of kids. No cart for me....I could keep my classroom.

Decisions, decisions.

This is what democracy looks like

"I'm NOT your average man! When I got a jammy in my hand!" I howled with L.L. Cool J, cruising my smokin' hot, just can't kill it '97 Mazda back to my house. Who's gonna knock you out? Well, I'm gonna knock you out. Pues, Momma said knock you out. Who's gonna do it? I'm gonna do it.

"Man, estoy bien" my little Bruce Springsteen kinder kid announced in his steel worker's voice "I got night vision goggles for my birthday, it was awesome".

I tossed and turned. It started during the last days of my vacation while sleeping in the warm mornings of the forbidden tropical wonderland. Work, money, disrespect, what do I care, why do I care. Work, money, disrespect. Images of fifth grade kids with with wintergreen mints sparking in the night in their mouths, something they told me about, something from their overnight field trip, you decorate the butterfly wing, Alec, you decorate butterfly wing, delirium, work, disrespect, MONEY. MONEY. MONEY. Disrespect.

"Buenas tardes. Buscamos firmas en contra de lay ley, saben, la ley como la que tienen en Arizona, la ley en contra de imigrantes..." I worked the crowd at Feria Latina. Folks feared me at first. Gringo lady, talking about immigration laws, asking for signatures. When the words started spilling from my mouth, they got the message. I had my best luck with young, cholo, tattooed men. No one else approached them. I knew they would get me. And they did. You just got to be nice.

"The Underground Railroad ran a registry, at this house in Maryland, you know, they took names, so people could call and find them....their relatives... they could ask if they passed through..." the fifth graders continued with their presentation, and my mind drifted, drifted to Casa del Migrante, the people that called, the registry we kept, so their relatives, you know, their relatives, would know if they passed through..."Sanctuary" the kids said, "they sought Sanctuary". Sanctuary. Such an important word. Sanctuary. I thought of the bad ass Presbyterians, yeah, never thought I'd say that, the bad ass Presbyterians that offered SANCTUARY, yes SANCTUARY, in their churches to Central Americans during the 1980s civil wars. In the United States. Driving, harboring, SANCTUARY. Felonies, jail time, SANCTUARY. You can't leave the state. Felony. SANCTUARY. It is morally correct. God or no God, morally correct. I am so lucky to know them. To know them. To look bad ass Presbyterian in the bad ass eye. It has been my pleasure. And my benefit.

So, they say the older kids don't like to sing, they like chants. What the fuck? I don't want to sing those stupid educational songs either, I just did it because it's elementary school. Fine. I tried to figure out a chant. For days. Finally, it hit me. "Show me what democracy looks like! - This is what democracy looks like!", "Arpaio, escucha, estamos en la lucha!" The rally chants filled my head and soon I was filling in the blanks with target grammar structures. They liked it. Actually, they loved it. Little activists at work. They just don't know it yet.

I hope so. And I'm leaving. But I wish them well. I do. I wish them well.

Hasta la victoria, siempre

I climbed through the boxes and piles of discarded teaching supplies that lined the hallway that leads to my classroom. They were the remnants of my former neighbor and friend's teaching career; the results of her "resignation". It looked like an eviction. The students that sometimes work at the table in the hallway cleared a space and worked in the middle of it all. Every student that entered my classroom had to walk through her discarded possessions in order to go to my class. I had to get out of there.

"The Senate can pass HB87, Georgia's copycat, Arizona-style bill Thursday or Friday, or after they return from vacation, anywhere from Monday the 11th through Thursday the 14th - day 40- the big day, the day when bills must pass or die" explained the lobbyist at my Tuesday night, stop Georgia from hating on immigrants meeting. "Who can be at the Capitol?" he asked, as hands rose in the air.

"Man, we heard EVERYTHING in Health class today" my thirteen year old niece commented, clicking past us in her new high heels and picking up her electric guitar. Open suitcases laid on the floor, bathing suits and sunblock, as the sound of the dryer echoing through the house.

"Either party may, without cause, terminate this Employment Agreement upon 30 days written notice" read our new contracts. "I'm not really comfortable with this" a teacher responded in our impromptu faculty meeting, the third of the week. People were getting agitated. It was the Friday before Spring Break. I had never seen so many teachers in a voluntary faculty meeting on such a day. I was agitated a year ago when I signed the same contract. If you can call it a contract. As a teacher, I'm just used to a little more protection, especially when administrators have been known to be partial, vindictive and petty. "Let's hold our contracts, tell them we won't sign until we get some written concessions" a teacher announced. "Yeah" many seconded. The hair on my arms started standing up. Was I seeing collective bargaining? Here, in the South, without any sort of official labor recognition? Grassroots collective bargaining? Hella better being seeing what I hoped to be seeing. "Okay, it's settled," an emerging leader announced, "we're holding our contracts, all of us".

And so I left. Off I went to the beautiful place that cannot be spoken of. Fly, fly, fly to let my feral self have a long-ass break.

Monday morning, I sat on the floor in a circle of kids, bleary eyed after a Sunday night return flight. "Okay, I have two questions: ¿Cómo estás? and one thing you might like to add about your Spring Break" I instructed the group of eight year olds. "Man, estoy bien. I played mini golf, rode a roller coaster and went to a place that smelled like a public bathroom" one commented. "Yeah, I went to an Albertson's that smelled like that once" another kid seconded as many others voiced their experiences. "I'm mal because I had to go to church and I did not want to" one of my favorite kinders voiced solemnly, later in the day, as I recycled the same question. I knew I liked that kid. "You cut your hair!" another exclaimed "You look like that lady on the Electric Company!". You know what? That is the nicest thing I've heard all day.

Day 40. I stood outside the Capitol, doing my best to chant though I am not a big chanter. A few hundred people had formed. I loved the idea, I had spoken up for it at the Tuesday night meeting. Last hours of the legislature, we will wait until you decide, this is important to us, it affects us. The warm spring air surrounded us in the dimming light. "Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" the crowd answered. "Deal, escucha, estamos en la lucha!" the crowd continued. I ended up sitting down next to a solemn, totally indigenous looking Mexican boy and his abuela. And we waited. People started lighting their candles. It really was a beautiful night. A DJ had come, letting us use his sound system to speak to the crowd. But people wanted to hear music, so he relented, "one song". People started moving immediately with the opening beats of the song and soon, a full blown dance party was occurring on the Capitol steps. "Otra, otra!" the crowd called at the end of the first song. It was lovely and wonderful and made me smile and again appreciate the Latino capacity for joy, even in the worst situations, even when we were dancing on our own graves as the Georgia legislature debated OUR future. It was a beautiful night.

And, at 10pm, HB 87 passed. Georgia became a state of hate.

Wild Things

I sat in the rally planning meeting feeling like a fly on the wall as the preparations continued. "No one can sell anything" one of the organizers explained. "Tell that to the palatero man!" someone called out. People started to giggle, reminiscing about the palatero man who mysteriously popped up at a rally to sell his little Mexican popsicles, weaving his jingling cart through the chanting crowd. My mind wandered to Phoenix. I had gone to Arizona from Tijuana for a rally and was stunned by the shear quantity of Mexican food that appeared during the march: elote, paletas - all right there in a pueblo vs. Arpaio rally in Phoenix. It did seem funny. So quick thinking. Entrepreneurial.

I watched Alec try to feed Momo her bird-food birthday cake. She ignored it. His ipod started a new song. "This will bring them alive," Alec commented "they like the MC5". I didn't know our birds liked the MC5.

I watched the strange image on the ultrasound machine, as if I would be able to see with my untrained eye the thing they were looking for. I guess most people see babies in a situation like this, but they, well, we were monitoring an ominous, threatening thing that was definitely not a fetus. They had dragged me back in to see if it "had changed". I mentally started counting up the sick days I have acquired in the short time I've been at my new school, all while staring at the image on the screen. Maybe eight? What if this thing had transformed itself into what everyone feared in the last six months? Eight paid days off wouldn't be enough. I started getting pissed at my job again, pissed that they rejected the thirty odd days I had stock piled in my first four years of teaching, pissed at them for opting out of a law that everyone else has to follow. What if I need the days, what if....."The doctor says you're good. No more six month check ups. We'll send you a notice". I grabbed my clothes and got out of there.

My eyes wandered to the cats. The rest of the dinner party guests continued talking, but my eyes were locked on the eyes of one of the many feral cats my friend has taken in. You can tell how tame each is by their eyes. This one was not too tame. I liked looking into its wild eyes.

The advent of spring and a cycle of antibiotics to kill the devil flu has brought me back to the land of the living. My light is beginning to shine. I run out of school minutes after the kids and have been working the kind of short work week that critics of teachers claim believe we always work. I like it.

The wild bird continues to nest on the porch, spring has sprung, the world keeps rotating and many things just can't be tamed.

Fly, fly, fly

"You know, I always wanted to be a cop. Not like a normal cop, like the FBI or DEA or something. Just want to cause a ruckus in the street" Alejandro told me over lunch at a diner in an almost rural area outside of Atlanta. I laughed. And felt uncomfortable for doing so. If that was some white kid's ambition, or even a black one's, I'd tell him to go for it. But Alejandro, well, it's out of the question. Fuck your dreams, fuck your ambition and fuck your contributions to our country. You can do nasty work that we need and that no one wants to do and run from the law while you do it. And there is not a damn thing I can do about it.

I looked at the now filled bird's nest that has been sitting on my front porch since last August. A huge full moon hung in the sky. I didn't think about much, not about the people walking or the activity of full moon nights. The bird went crazy, it flew out of its nest and circled the ceiling, pounding its wings in panic. I felt terrible.

I went to the Confederacy again on a little driving day trip through the Andersonville concentration camp, Americus and beautiful Plains, GA - home of J.C. It doesn't take long to hit the Confederacy, just drive south of Atlanta about twenty minutes and you will start to see it. The old state flag, you know, the one that's indistinguishable from the Confederate rebel flag, statues of black folks with huge teeth and lips eating watermelon, all the markings and fixings of the Confederate States of America. It's all right there. We stopped in to a small restaurant and got some barbecue in Andersonville. The woman tending the shop was freakishly nice and friendly. As I ate my sandwich, my eyes scanned the walls of rebel flags and racist symbols, all the while exchanging pleasantries with this more than pleasant woman. A black couple perused the items for sale. Were they doing the same thing we were doing, trying to act like everything was okay in this bizarre state of utter bigotry, out of fear, fear of what, not accepting them for what they are or fear of outright confrontation? Is that what they were doing too?

I remember moving to the South. I was ten. It was the first time I heard the words "War of Northern Aggression" instead of the commonly used term: The Civil War. Even at ten I was confused, were they pissed about something? Were they actually still worrying about this? As I walked around the acreage at Andersonville and read about the filth and scum that killed nearly 13,000 people in seven months, the voice of my tenth grade history teacher filled my ears. "Sherman was a war criminal! He burned from Atlanta to the sea!" No sir, Andersonville was a war crime and I'm glad someone burned this bitch to the sea.

"Ching ching!" went the staple gun as my sister and I ran around the neighborhood quickly posting flyers against Georgia's looming, Arizona copycat immigration bills. "Hi!" I said and waved at one of my students and his mother, then slyly turned and stapled another flyer to a pole. The trip around the neighborhood businesses was pretty telling. "No," one shopkeeper answered as we asked him if he would post one of our rally flyers in his window "nothing political." I had seen his jaw tighten when I said the words "anti-immigration bills" No, I just want folks' money. No convictions, I'd sell to anyone. Dude, it's money. And I felt an equal amount of joy when I told a neighborhood restaurant owner about E-verify provisions in the bill, while eying his Hispanic cooks in the back. "Put it in the front window, I'll get you some tape" he instructed, then talked my ear off for fifteen minutes about how wrong this bill is. Tell me, mister, tell me. I love to hear it.

Though the full moon didn't strike me like it normally does, I did feel the feral side of me start to rise. Eight more weeks of school. That's it. Eight weeks. And then Arizona, Tijuana....I felt the feral side rise in Egypt and I can feel it rising up again, shining and glowing and rising.

This little light of mine

I watched the man with the dark mark on his forehead yell into the camera on television. I remember those guys from Egypt. They get that mark from praying, praying hard.

They want him back in court. At the detention center. I'm worried. "I'm worried too" Alejandro said in his email. I can't go. I have to work, I just called in sick last week and contracts are about to come out. I'm worried. He shouldn't go down there alone, but even if he comes with an army they won't be able to stop the state from taking him back if they want him.

I still wear the friendship bracelets my students in Tijuana made me before I left. They are starting to fray, disintegrate. Everything is.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!" the music teacher sang with the kids during our morning meeting. I was surprised when tears sprung into my eyes. I want my light to shine. "All around the world, I'm gonna let it shine!" they continued. My light feels sick and weak and tired. I want to let it shine, but it's dim and struggling.

"So, have you been involved in advocacy?" the church lady asked me at the pro-immigration meeting. "Yeah, sure, I've been pretty involved in some things for the last few years, mainly in Arizona and Tijuana" I answered. "You should join our group!" she went on. "Yeah, okay, because I'm pretty worried about the legislation that is happening in Georgia" I answered. "Just send us an email telling us why you want to join and we will read it to the members and decide if you can." she answered. "Are you kidding? Why are you so exclusive? Don't you realize that immigrants could really use some friends right now?" I responded. "We don't want the enemy to find us" she answered, wide eyed. Give me a fucking break. While you hide from the "enemy" no one else can find you either and a bunch of fat rednecks continue making Juan Crow laws against brown folks. Just so you know. Keep watching out.

I wrote the little sentences and questioned why I bothered. I like what I do during the summers in Arizona and my solo activities on behalf of immigrants here in Atlanta. I do not like the "advocate" community in Atlanta. There's a lot of hierarchy and competition and sitting around talking and a huge amount of inaction, served with a giant side of self promotion. It's different than what I have experienced in Arizona and California and even Tijuana. It doesn't feel like the immigration situation is being changed much, but folks certainly are aggrandizing themselves. It's embarrassing to watch.

"Whadya gonna do next year?" one of my teacher friends from the school asked me over beers. "I don't know. Thinkin' of really going feral," I answered, knowing she was one of the few people that would get that.

"I'm gonna let it shine"