Dual-ethnic thoughts at Narducci's Latin Cultural Revolution - By N.L. Belardes

Damas talks to artist Marisela Oropeza
Her Chicana art has rich themes of Feminine male imagery and music

There’s so much more culture and history I would learn in my own city of Bakersfield if I just understood more of the language of my own heritage. I listen to Latino radio here and there, dabble in the language, but I admit, I am far on the fringe of understanding Spanish. What I read about Latino culture must be in English. Exposure to language and big groups of people and Latino culture is like walking into a candy store without your senses turned on. I see images around me. But I don’t know what anything tastes or smells like. It’s a kind of cultural blindness and if forces me to be away from people as well (or them from me).

As a dual ethnic Chicano artist I don’t look like I’m Mexican-American at all. I can’t speak Spanish, though I understand a little and by looking at words I can somewhat tell what I’m reading if I have some time to sit and concentrate. I don’t really have friends, just acquaintances mostly, though many people read this website and think they know me. That’s wrong. Read my artwork, my novels, then you might start to know me. It’s like claiming you know Mento Buru without listening to their music.

“Oh yeah, I know them. They’re a band.”

Whatever. Go read my book if you want to get to know me or cheer for me.

It’s kind of weird. It’s not like I get invited to people’s homes even though I may have written about people, give them hugs in public, stood up for a major cultural cause, or only have small or long conversations. Is that the boon of a disheveled writer? To be a hermit of sorts, off in a corner and just observing culture taking place? To be the intelligent weirdo in the group people whisper about? Or is it a problem with being dual ethnic, having grown up thinking I was white even though my father had extremely dark skin. It was his own doing. He told his own kids, “You’re white.”

Why?

I was at Narducci’s last night and I saw a sense of family. Sure, I kind of thought I belonged. I was asked to read a poem. I took photos. I had a few little conversations that weren’t about me. I was asking people about themselves, about their art and music. So they talked. No one asked me anything about me. I was a lurker in a room with a camera. But what was I to the people in the room?

Maybe people think they have me all figured out, so they don’t ask questions in return. Maybe it’s the dual ethnic ‘white guy’ stand-offishness I get because I am Chicano, but my language doesn’t show it, my looks don’t show it, and my writing doesn’t always emulate the Chicano side, unless people read Thick White Crust, the most Chicano piece of fiction ever to come out of Bakersfield.

Maybe people think I wear my culture on my sleeve to show off. Fuck that. I embrace who I am and if people don’t like that I say I’m Chicano they can shove whatever prejudiced thought they have up their ass.

Yeah, I’m a rebel. So what?

The family that really touched me last night that I observed and gained an instant respect for was the family of Chelito Miranda, and her sons Damas of LIKHY2 and Jesus (Chuy) of Reckless Guns. At one point Chelita brought in a book from all her youthful success while a musician in Mexico. She lives in Bakersfield now, but when she was younger, she entertained with the most well-known musicians that graced the cities of Mexico in the 70s and early 80s. The book was filled with articles, fliers and photos. I could tell she was proud of her distant youth. Yet she seemed humble, almost embarrassed to show strangers such personal information. She was in touch with her cultural past and present and even sang a few songs and performed on the guitar with a back-up musician. I was touched by one of the cumbias she strummed. Her son Damas filmed her performance, while her other son, Jesus had performed some rocking songs earlier. He’s definitely a Slash of Guns and Roses fan with his big frizzed rocker hair and intricate guitar-lick metal riff style and cool poses.


Chuy gets ready to rock, Slash style. Yes, he can shred.


Damas talks about his mother's history


The young Chelito Miranda


Still beautiful and her songs are magical

I felt their strong sense of family, even though last night in the end, I felt out of place. Sure, I was supposed to give a poem. But then I wasn’t even told when I wasn’t giving it. I was ignored. That happens I guess. It’s a dual ethnic issue. A few cheers for the writer… but poem written for the occasion, left out… Was someone afraid I wasn’t going to stay if they didn’t tell me? I walked out because I wasn’t given the simple respect of being told, “We’re not presenting poems tonight after all.”

Was it really because five minutes on a stage during a 4-hour+ evening was too much time? Or are there deeper, dual ethnic issues in a Bakersfield that wants media coverage, but won’t support in return if someone looks white, but who wants to provide cultural imagery?

As I walked out I was spotted and told, “Hey the atmosphere wasn’t right,” or some bullshit like that.

Atmosphere? What?

Like I need an atmosphere to grab a microphone and inspire a group of people. I’m an artist. I can create an atmosphere with words and speech. It’s the tiny gift God gave me. He didn’t give me a lot, but it’s enough for me to survive and to be able to say, “Hey, God gave me something…”

I headed outside of Narduccis. I saw Chelito and made a point of telling her that her music was wonderful. I gave a bow, almost as if I had to show a deep respect for such a musical mother having been among such youthful culture exploring their own music and art. For a brief moment I imagined what her home must be like: the smell of food, the people and cultural language and maybe a TV blaring… I imagine colors and music and flowers. I could see photos on walls of a family that stretched into a distant cultural past that far exceeded one tiny room on one forgotten night of music, art, and shunned poetry. I could see cars in a driveway and stares out of a kitchen window, and children and cousins, and smiles.

I was reminded of my own poem, a Chicano poem, another forgotten blurb about our mythical valley of history and present, of dreams and ideas, longing and pride. The poem goes hand in hand with my Chicano novel, Thick White Crust:

There’s an immigrant in all of us, waiting…
There’s a ghost slipping down my esophagus I can’t swallow.
Red lights mean bravery goes wrong in rancid gunfire and death,
While green lights are your H20 sparkling firefly dust.

There’s an immigrant standing above the Central Valley
He’s a giant. Orange and lemon blossoms grow from his beard.
He sips the shadows of rivers.
His arms are covered by a thick white crust of bones.
Peppermint rain drips from his lips.
Scars of bones line his belly.

He lays down, slips beneath the valley soil.
He’s the god from where every dusty sprig grows.
Now you walk down your urban streets, fix your make-up,
Pull up your boxers, kiss your mother, say “Hello” to Mary,
Creep for baby Jesus, gang bang race down East side Narducci Streets.
You leave an echo of yourself in the giant’s arms.
And you live life all the way home.

As I turned away and headed for the parking lot I was suddenly more aware of my dual ethnicism. The darkness of the parking lot seemed darker; my friend Matildakay who I’ve known since the 7th grade suddenly seemed a distant moon. The giant of my poem rumbled under my feet, blinking in a moment of awareness deep beneath the valley floor. It was a toxic moment as I was aware of having a poem shunned, and reminded of my own brown-skinned father who might have simply been embarrassed if he were to ever tell his white-skinned kids they were Chicano, Latino, or Mexican.

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Saturday, August 19, 2006. You can leave your response.