Art: Antonio Victorin©

Dedicated on this day to the memory of the late
César Chávez
Presente!
(31 March 1927-April 1993)
co-founder and leader of the United Farm Workers of America, and whose activist work on their behalf laid the premise for this poem
San Antonio / 24 April 1993

MAJA PRESS
Juan Cárdenas, Editor
Corpus Christi, Tejas © 1993

Arise, Chicano!

In your migrant's world of hand-to-mouth days,
your children go smileless to a cold bed;
the bare walls rockaby the same wry song,
a ragged dirge, thin as the air...

I have seen you go down
under the shrewd heel of exploit—
your long suns of brutal sweat
with ignoble pittance crowned.
Trapped in the never-ending fields
where you stoop, dreaming of sweeter dawns,
while the mocking whip of slavehood
confiscates your moment of reverie.
Or beneath the stars—offended
by your rude songs of rebellion—
when, at last, you shroud your dreams
and with them, your hymn of hope.

Thus a bitterness in your life:
wherever you turn for solace
there is an embargo.
How to express your anguish
when not even your burning words
are yours, they are borrowed
from the festering barrios of poverty,
and the sadness in your eyes
only reflects the mute pain of your people.

Arise Chicano!—that divine spark within you
surely says—Wash your wounds
and swathe your agonies.
There is no one to succor you.
You must be your own messiah.
88888— Angela de Hoyos ©
888888888San Antonio, Tejas