Page 88 of And Still Her Voice
“They didn’t believe Gloria when she said we would leave, but we did.”
“What about Ruben?” I asked.
“They need him. We need him there. He’s our go-between.”
“Yeah, he seems like a super good guy.”
“Wait, are you crushin’ on him?” Teddie asked.
“Hells bells, no. He’s way into you.”
“Fine by me. Besides, why would you, when you’ve got your pick of rock stars. I heard that you performed with Santana up in San Francisco. Did you hook up with him? My dad told me we could be cousins because he’s from the same part of Mexico,” Teddie said.
“We’ve said hi in passing.”
“He played at Woodstock, too, right?” Teddie asked.
“Yeah, but I cut out before they ever came on stage.”
“You’re so lucky, chingona. If I had half your talent and your looks, I’d use it to get the message out.”
“What do you mean ‘my looks’?”
“You’re güera. White. You’ve got a foot in the door. They’ll listen to you.”
“Not really. I’m still just a girl. I can’t say anything.”
“But it’s also about what you don’t say. When’s your next concert?”
“Next month downtown at the Olympic Auditorium. Speaking of gifts, prima, I’ll get you tickets. Santana won’t be there but you can come back stage. I’m going to stick around for the show and then the band’s heading back to New York.”
“Can’t wait,” Teddie said. “So now let’s talk about the plan for what’s happening at tomorrow’s march. I’ll bet you haven’t marched before?”
“I did up in San Francisco a couple years ago, to protest the war and women’s rights, and civil rights. Even some Black Berets marched along with us. That’s where I heard Coretta Scott King speak.”
“Mira no mas,” Teddie said, arching an impressed eyebrow. “Well, since we left the Brown Berets, we formed a new group of Chicana activists, who want to push for women’s rights, better working conditions, and still protest against police brutality. But our place is not in the kitchen making coffee and sweeping the floors. It’s not having to get pinned down in the bedroom, either. The group is named Las Adelitas de Aztlan after female soldiers who fought in the Mexican Revolution. Fifty years ago. Imagine that. Some things never change. Like us, they did everything from cooking to cleaning, but they also fought in the front lines with real rifles. And now we want to take our place in the front lines.”
“You’re going to shoot real guns?”
“No, but we do have real bullets.” She laughed nervously. “Tomorrow we’ll march and demand our rights as Las Adelitas de Aztlan!”
“Cousin, hopefully, you can make a difference and in the next fifty years, this will all just be ancient history to tell the grandkids.”
***
On a street corner in East Los Angeles with a backdrop of palm trees and rain clouds, I recognized some of the men from the coffee shop. A crowd had gathered to listen to a young man shout into a loudspeaker. I didn’t recognize him.
The physical killing off of ourpeople through the war in Vietnam while we are dyingis twice the rate of all other soldiers of Vietnam.We are protesting against the discriminatory draft laws that givedeferments to all the Anglo middle-class people of thiscountry and make the heaviest burden of the war fallon the Mexicanos. So we are here today saying: ‘YaBasta!’
The Brown Berets lined up to lead the march down the boulevard and the Adelitas followed behind with at least 3,000 other men, women, and children. I pulled the hood up on my raincoat and stood behind my cousin ready to march under the group’s banner, holding a white cross, representing Freddy. Some of the other girls also carried crosses. I held the silver-framed photo of my cousin that I eventually slipped under my coat to protect it from the rain. One of the girls wore a couple of bullet-filled bandoliers slung sash-style across her shoulders and chest. The sound of drums beat as the leader marched in step, shouting, “Chicano!” and the protestors replied, “Power!” shielding themselves from the rain, which came pouring down, with umbrellas, sheets of plastic, and all sorts of head coverings, including berets and even giant sombreros. Police on the sidelines and at the ready stayed dry in their cars. As the thunder cracked overhead we crossed under an overpass and came through the other side. Still, we kept marching in the driving rain, holding up soggy signs, the letters dripping, but the message clear:Que Viva La Raza, queviva vida . . .
The march had started off peacefully and ended that way.
I came away overwhelmed. I came away changed. By the end of the march, I felt a unity with that side of me that wasn’t white. I understood that here in the United States there was also a struggle for social justice. I understood that man had been destroying our Raza in Vietnam, Raza in the jails, the schools, the factories, the fields . . . it had to stop. It was up to the Raza, up to us.
“Bring them home!” I shouted with my family. “Hell no. We won’t go. Que viva la Raza, que viva vida . . .”
I felt muy orgullosa marching with my Chicana cousin, my Chicano family.
