A DJS Journey

Devastated about what happened in Orlando last night. We are lucky to live in a country where we finally have equal legal rights, but the fight for acceptance and equality did not end with the Supreme Court decision last year. Homophobia continues to be a harmful and dangerous ideology that is taught - yes, taught - and passed on from one generation to the next. It is espoused by politicians in power, it is preached from the pulpit, and it's passed from parents to their children any time they tell them homosexuality is wrong, or think that depictions of gay couples in books or movies are inappropriate for children, or when they teach their kids to "love the sinner but hate the sin." This disguised insult perpetuates the idea that our families are wrong, dirty, and shameful. All for something we had no choice in and for loving someone of the same sex.

  A Letter to Huey P. Newton [1] I’m quite sure people will look upon my attitude and sentiments and look for hypocrisy and hatred in my words. My revolution is born out of love for my people, not hatred for others. -Immortal Technique [2] It should also be understood that the racial sparks that are ignited here in America today could easily turn into a flaming fire abroad, which only means it could engulf all the people of this earth into a giant race war. You can't confine it to one little neighborhood, or one little community, or one little country. -Malcolm X [3] Hello Huey,             Of course, you do not know me personally since you died five years before my birth. Yet, I have no doubt you have known me many times over in your interactions with young men and women eager to learn and engage in the struggle against oppression. I know you because you have earned your place among the ranks of the greatest revolutionaries through your creation of the Black Panth

This J-Term, I took a Hispanic Studies course called The Latino Experience in the US . I took this course because of my environmental studies capstone and  the relation with the US-Mexico Border. I also wanted to take it because of the curiosity I had about the experience of latinx here in the US. Listening and learning from others about what it means to be Latinx is here in the US. Throughout the course we read from different authors, like Gloria Anzaldua, Hector Tobar and Junot Diaz. Their experiences were shared experience, but not homogeneous and that’s what it was all about. How being Latinx in the US is not always the same for everyone, but there are some common things. Languages. Language as the form of identity. This is where Spanglish for me is a form of identity, where Spanglish works as the tool to fully express oneself with others, with my kind, with the world. This is why I wrote this short poem about Spanglish and what it means to me.  Spanglish la lengua