Let Their Spirits Dance (20 page)

We were in great spirits as we approached Laguna Park, shouting loud once we saw our destination was near. I heard music blaring, Mexican music, and flamboyant colors, dancers spinning on a stage. People were trying to find a spot on the grass to spread their blankets and food. The crush of so many brown bodies gave me a feeling that I was safe, totally protected. So many of us, thousands…there was nothing they could do to us. We were Aztlán. The power of the ancient world had returned to us, weaving a spell that made us think we were indestructible.

There were tables under trees with information on voting and other community events. People sold soda pop from coolers, but lines were long, and many started moving into the neighborhood to purchase drinks at nearby stores. One lone picnic table was set up under a huge tree with an image of La Virgen de Guadalupe propped up in the center. Photos of Chicanos killed in Vietnam were neatly arranged on the table, covering its entire surface. I reached in my purse and searched for Jesse's picture, a photo of him in his Army uniform. I added it to the rest. The little old lady I had seen en route to the park saw me and smiled.

Someone got on the microphone and said that we should rename Laguna Park Benito Juárez Park, and all the people cheered. Espi and I were ready to sit down on the grass when we heard Rosalio Muñoz introduced as the first speaker. We remained standing. I was close enough to the stage to see Rosalio. I remember he was telling us that we were like babies learning how to walk. “We fall, but we get back up,” he said. “Time is on our side.” He went on about how we couldn't live like familias separadas anymore. We were learning how to unite, how to speak up for what was right, and it was our unity that would make us strong.

“I wonder where Perla and George are?” Espi asked me. We looked at all the families gathered around us. There were hundreds of women there who looked like Perla and children everywhere who resembled Frankie and Fernando.

“They're probably over there,” I said, pointing to the long line that trailed to the door of the bathroom.

Rosalio Muñoz's speech ended with the cry “Viva La Raza!” We all shouted the words together. Then I heard someone over the microphone say, “There's nothing happening back there, please everybody sit down. Everybody sit down. Stay still, por favor.” People were standing up at the west end of the park, then more people started standing up. The man kept repeating the words. “Everybody sit down, please, remain calm. There's nothing happening.” Someone else got on the microphone…“We got women and children here, no queremos pedo.”

I stood on a park bench and looked over the heads of the crowd at a line of sheriff's deputies standing toe to toe with a line of monitors. Behind the deputies, the street was packed with police cars, lights blinking, sirens wailing.

“Oh, my God, Teresa, there's gonna be trouble…big trouble!” Espi said. I heard several men's voices over the microphone shouting, “POLICE HOLD YOUR LINE! HOLD YOUR LINE! HOLD YOUR LINE!” It was a loud chant that rang in my ears over and over again. “HOLD YOUR LINE! HOLD YOUR LINE! HOLD YOUR LINE!” Suddenly, the line of deputies attacked the monitors, beating the men down. The men got up and advanced toward them, some of them picked up rocks and threw them at the officers. Three times I saw the line of deputies advance toward the line of monitors, pressing on them, beating them brutally with their clubs. Then I saw smoke rising between the people. and people gasping, choking, their eyes red, watery. “Tear gas!” somebody shouted. “Run! Run!”

At that point, a great sound erupted from the people. The sound was like that of a terrible storm at sea when the waves of the ocean roar over the shoreline and earth wars with heaven. The sound grew louder and louder until it reached the peak of its momentum, then it turned into a solid, despairing cry, a huge, aching wound with a human voice. I was shouting, too.

I heard gunshots blasting in the distance. Espi and I took off running toward the bathrooms, searching for Perla and the kids. All around me was a great stampede of people, men, women, children. I saw babies crying, lost, unable to find their parents in the terrible confusion. I knew Ricky was one of the men the police had beaten up.

“Ricky! Espi, where's Ricky?” Everyone was running in between buses that were parked at one end of the park. Behind us, the police were pushing people up to tall chain-link fences, trapping them—everyone, men, women, babies. I saw an officer hit a boy on the side of the neck with his club. I ran up to the officer. “You fuckin' pig!” I yelled. He
started chasing me, and I fell on the ground. He hit me once on the head, and I saw the world go black. Seconds later, I felt someone helping me up. It was Ricky. His head was split open on one side.

“My God! You're bleeding!” I said to him.

“So are you,” he said. He rushed with me, holding me close as we ran between the parked buses to get out into the street. Laguna Park was a vision out of Hell. The police had overturned all the tables, kicking them down. Papers were blowing all over the place. Sacks of food were crushed underfoot, and here and there I saw shoes, clothes, an empty baby stroller. The table with the altar to La Virgen de Guadalupe lay upside down with the photos of all the Chicano soldiers strewn on the ground.

“Jesse's picture! I have to go get Jesse's picture!” I remembered the little old lady and looked around for her. I couldn't see her anywhere.

“No!” Ricky shouted. “We can't go back there.” By this time, his girlfriend, Faith, was with us, crying, screaming. I looked at her and felt anger. She was white. This wasn't her fight, it was ours.

I saw Espi running toward us. “They threw tear gas into the bathroom! Perla and the kids are hurt. What are they, devils?”

Ricky led us all across the street and into the neighborhood. All around us people were running into houses and yards. Some people were throwing rocks at the police, hiding behind parked cars and buses. Neighbors were turning on their water hoses and letting us wash the tear gas out of our eyes. One lady handed me a towel for the cut on my head. I soaked it in water and held it up to the huge knot I felt at the top of my head. For an instant I felt dizzy. I held the towel tight around the wound until the bleeding stopped. A baby was crawling in the yard, crying as his mother washed him off. I heard the screech of car brakes—a woman had been hit running across the street. Sirens were wailing and more smoke was rising—now from everywhere, black, billowing. The air was filled with the smell of burned tires. Men ran out into the streets, cracking windows of police cars with sticks and rocks. All around me the world was a war zone. This is how Jesse must have felt in Vietnam—helpless, afraid, not knowing when the attack would stop, not knowing if he would live or die.

“Ricky—no!” I shouted as I watched him run back into the park and start fighting with a police officer who had just beaten up a teenage boy. Ricky took the officer's club away from him and hit him several times. Then I watched on in horror as Ricky was jumped by three officers. His body went limp after they put a choke hold on him and cuffed him.
Between the three of them, they picked Ricky's bruised and bleeding body and, swaying under its weight, they threw him into one of the black and white buses I had seen following us all the way to Laguna Park. I shouted from across the street, “You fuckin' assholes…you'll get yours!” One of the officers lifted his club at me from the distance, menacing. “You want some?” he shouted, smiling as he said the words. Espi had her arm around me.

“Teresa, don't!” she shouted. “Let's go!” We took off running down the street with Faith next to us. In front of me, I saw a young man with a torn shirt and a bloodied face. He turned around and yelled at two other guys behind us.

“Matarón a Ruben Salazar!” he said in Spanish.

“What?” I yelled. “What did you say?”

“They killed Ruben Salazar!” he repeated. “They killed Ruben Salazar!”

“Who…who killed him? Where?”

“The cops! The sheriff, over on La Verne at the Silver Dollar Café.”

I spun around and grabbed Espi by the shoulders. “Oh my God, Espi! They killed Ruben Salazar! They killed Ruben Salazar!”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Ruben Salazar…the
L.A. Times
reporter…our voice to the nation! Oh, my God! Let's go, come on!” I was ready to take off running after the three guys. Faith said, “I'll go with you!” I looked at her with a new respect and thought about the little old lady who just that morning had told me that only faith could get us to Heaven…
fe
…that was this girl's name. Faith and I were ready to take off when Espi grabbed my arm again. “What are you, crazy? They'll arrest us. There's nothing we can do!” Just as she said the words I saw the cops grab a man and woman who were running out of a store. They beat them both down with their sticks and hauled them into a police car.

“See!” Espi yelled. “We're next!”

Across the street, Espi spotted Perla running toward the car with Frankie in her arms and Fernando at her side. George wasn't with her. We both shouted her name. Perla stopped and waved for us to cross the street. “Get over here, all of you! Get in the car!” she yelled. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes red from the tear gas. Both boys were in hysterics, their eyes huge, red sores.

“I'm not going,” Faith said. She took off running back to the park. I was ready to follow her, but Espi held on to my arm. “Don't do it,
Teresa! There's nothing we can do.” Perla kept shouting at the top of her lungs for us to get into the car.

We ran across the street and got into the car. I held Frankie in my arms while Espi held on to Fernando. Perla drove like a madwoman, down Whittier, then she cut through the neighborhood because Whittier was blocked by cars, people looting, smoke and fires. I glanced back at the park and thought about the overturned table with La Virgen's altar on it and Jesse's picture trampled to the ground.

“Let me go back and get Jesse's picture!” I cried. Perla didn't answer me. She drove the car, jerking and screeching through stop signs and in between cars and buses to get us home.

 

• M
ONTHS LATER
, newspeople investigating the Chicano Moratorium March and the murder of Ruben Salazar came up with evidence that the L.A. Sheriff's Department and judges hearing the case were unwilling to accept. News reports related that sheriff's deputies claimed they were chasing a burglar who had robbed the Green Mill Liquor Store the day of the march. Their story was that the burglar disappeared into the crowd gathered at Laguna Park, and that they had the right to pursue him. The owner of the liquor store later said he never made a call to the police, nor had he experienced a burglary. Sheriff's deputies also never explained their aggressive stance toward an unarmed crowd that included hundreds of women and children. They also never explained why they were out in high numbers that day, armed with clubs, tear gas, and buses for loading up protesters.

It was common knowledge among many in the Chicano community that Ruben Salazar had been on the police hit list for months. People closest to Ruben Salazar related that he knew his life was in danger, and that he had received several death threats before his murder. Salazar's coworkers said that he cleaned out his desk the morning of the moratorium march, as if he was never coming back. Salazar's sympathy for the protesters had grown as Chicano leaders pointed out the fact that Chicano youth were drafted to the war in numbers that were largely out of proportion to their actual population, and that once drafted, Chicano youth were most likely to serve in the front lines. Salazar's voice grew in importance, and the Latino population began to count on him to report their side of the story, which also involved numerous acts of police brutality.

It was at this point that sheriff's deputies took action. They chose the day of the Chicano Moratorium March, as they would be able to hide their actions under the disguise of keeping protesters in line and quelling riots. The Silver Dollar Café, where Salazar was killed, was nowhere near Laguna Park. It was about a mile and a half from the park, and the story from the police was that they were chasing a gunman who had disappeared into the café. A gunman was never discovered in the Silver Dollar Café, nor did the police give adequate warning before firing a tear gas projectile into the crowded café, which was aimed directly at Salazar. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the device used that day was only used in cases when a criminal was firing from behind a barricade and police needed to destroy the barricade to apprehend or kill a dangerous criminal. The projectile beheaded Ruben Salazar, and his life ended tragically, while police outside the café hid the truth from the media for hours.

Ruben Salazar, the Chicano community's voice to the nation, was never heard again, and many years later, city officials renamed Laguna Park Ruben Salazar Park in an attempt to balance the scales of justice and end death's bitter memory.

A
rriving at Gallup, New Mexico, we get off at a convenience store that doubles as a gas station and souvenir shop. The kids use their own money to buy juice and doughnuts, gummy bears, sunflower seeds, and whatever else they figure they haven't eaten yet. The men are outside filling up the gas tanks. Mom is intrigued with the Zuñi jewelry. It is silver and turquoise stone worked into fragile necklaces, bracelets, and rings. I'm amazed at the delicacy of the designs. It's all marvelous. A skinny white man with Indian tattoos on his arms tells me he's the owner. He makes a sales pitch, $400 instead of $600 for a necklace fit for a queen—well, what do you say? I say no, not because I don't want to buy it, but because I want to buy from the Indian merchants, not the white middleman. We're in honest country, country that dips abruptly into canyons and cuts into the horizon with jagged mountain peaks. It matters that what I buy is real. I want smudges on the silver made by brown, sweaty fingers, not polished objects sitting under glass cabinets in a souvenir shop.

The man at the cash register is Indian. “Hey,” he says to me, “aren't you the family from Phoenix, Arizona, traveling to the Vietnam Wall?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“I saw your story last night on TV. That was great. I mean all that money. The government is a big screw-up. It always makes me happy
when the government loses money.” He leans close to me. “Listen, I got the best Indian jewelry around.” He slips me a business card that reads
Leroy's Indian Jewelry
.

“You must be Leroy.”

“Yep, and you must be Teresa. I remembered your name from the news report. I'm telling you, Teresa, I've got authentic stuff. My own grandfather makes it, and he saves the best pieces for family and friends. Call me, or e-mail.”

“You've got computers on the reservation?”

He laughs. “I live here in Gallup,” he says. “But yeah, I got a computer here and one over there, too. Business is business.” He looks over at the white guy, and says out loud, “Anything else you folks need? The Wall is days away, you know. Hey, Byron, this is the family I saw on TV last night. They're headed for the Vietnam Wall.”

Byron is showing Manuel and Priscilla some jewelry. “What family?” he asks.

“He never watches TV,” Leroy explains. “Vodka, that's his company. Look, there's my wife,” he says pointing to a middle-aged woman walking toward us. “Lovely, isn't she?” He lowers his voice and says, “Hey, hon, show these people what real Indian jewelry looks like.” She raises up her sleeves and shows off her bracelets.

“Gorgeous!” I tell her.

“This is the family we saw on TV last night, hon.”

The woman's eyes light up. “This is my lucky day! I've got a nephew on the Wall, Benjamin Rush, but his Indian name is Gathering Eagle Feathers. You won't see his Indian name on the Wall, though. Touch his name for me, please?” She presses my hand into hers, and holds it tight. “Benjamin Rush,” she whispers in my ear, “Don't forget, OK? Touch his name.”

“I'll remember,” I tell her.

I check out with a cup of coffee and a pack of gum. I put Leroy's business card in my purse, and wonder if Michael knows anything about our story being shown on TV.

Gates passes me by carrying a white paper bag. “Something for Erica,” he explains. “A dream catcher. To tell you the truth, I wish that woman would dream more, and leave me alone. But she's good to me, too, Teresa,” he adds. “It's me that messes up her mind. Hey, you think they got nightmare catchers? I need one of those!”

“You have nightmares, Gates?”

“Yep, sure do!”

“About Vietnam?”

“Those are the main ones!” he tells me.

“After thirty years?”

“After thirty years. Time hasn't taken that away.”

“I wonder if Jesse had nightmares in Vietnam.”

“Believe me, Teresa, he did. We all did.”

I notice Willy listening to our conversation.

“Do you have nightmares, too?” I ask him.

“Oh, yeah, once in a while, I still have one of those nightmares. I've got them all categorized by now. I guess it's not over till it's over, as the saying goes. Maybe this trip to the Wall will put an end to them.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Gates says, and walks away.

As I make my way out of the store with Mom and Irene, I notice people staring at us. They ask about the Internet address Michael pasted on the van's windows. Already Michael is getting responses from men who say they were there in '68, '69, '66, on and on. The war lasted so long there was always somebody there. Families are sending messages—
touch my son's name for me—my husband's—my cousin's—my boyfriend's—don't forget my neighbor's, he was only nineteen. I was there when they told his mother
.

Michael is sitting in the van working on the laptop. “Look, Tía! I've got over a hundred messages already, and the trip just started.”

“Here's another name to add to the list,” I tell him. “Benjamin Rush. The lady inside the store is his aunt. Her husband saw us on TV last night. Do you know anything about that?”

“Here's your answer,” Michael says. He points to the screen on the laptop. I peer at the screen and notice it's a message from Holly Stevens.

“What does she say?”

“She sent a press release throughout the nation to hundreds of television stations. We're big news now, Tía!” I look around at a few strangers talking to Paul, Donna, Manuel, Priscilla, Gates, Willy, and Susie.

“Hey, Dad! Take a look at this. Holly Stevens sent our story everywhere!” Paul walks over to the van with Donna.

“
Dad
?” I whisper to Donna. “Did you hear that, Donna? Michael just called Paul
Dad
.”

Donna smiles. “Sounds good! Michael and Paul have been talking since Paul defended him in Flagstaff.”

“She what?” Paul asks.

“Our story, Dad. Don't you remember the reporter?”

“The one you fell in love with,” Donna says.

“Come on, babe, you know I only love you. What did the redhead do?” Paul asks.

“She sent out a press release on us!”

“I'll be damned.”

“I thought you didn't want publicity, Paul.” He turns and looks at me.

“A little publicity never hurt anybody.”

“Now you're talking my language!”

“I can teach you how to get into our web site, Dad,” Michael says. I watch as Paul listens to directions on how to get onto the Internet.

“They're finally talking,” Donna says. “Something's working.”

“I haven't heard Michael call Paul
Dad
for years,” I tell her.

“It's about time,” Donna says.

Manuel and Priscilla walk out of the souvenir shop together, and Priscilla is showing off a necklace Manuel bought her.

“Lots of other things are working, too,” I tell Donna. We laugh together.

I notice that people treat the old Guadalupanas with respect. They understand old women in this part of the country, las Doñas, the age of wisdom. They understand not leaving them behind, bringing them with us like our ancestors did, traveling with everyone we know to reach a place we don't know anything about. Maybe that's why our ancestors traveled together. They huddled together, walking behind the hummingbird war god Huitzilopochtli all the way to Tenochitlán where they saw the eagle on a nopal with a serpent in its peak. It was there they settled together, always together at the mercy of the sun, moon, rain, of Huitzilopochtli himself, who turned on them and exacted human hearts so that he could be born anew each day in the heavens. He was the sun, dying each evening, fighting with the stars and moon in the day. Don Florencío said his own people were afraid of Huitzilopochtli and pined after Quetzalcoatl, the white, bearded god. When Quetzalcoatl appeared, looking like Cortés, they wept because he was a murderer, too. That's the story of blood and gore that shamed the history of the Aztecs. I'm wondering about the stories that shame the history of America, that lead us from one endless trek to another, chasing power and dominion, leaving our hearts in foreign lands, righting other peoples' wrongs while forgetting our own.

 

• W
E ROLL INTO
A
LBUQUERQUE
late that afternoon, and stop at Old Town to get our bearings. I feel we've traveled through a time tunnel back to the 1600s, the time of the Spaniards and Pueblo Indians. Los patrones from Spain took the land from the Indians, killed their leaders, known as caciques, and tried to destroy their gods, only to be treated in the same manner a century later by white pioneers. San Felipe de Neri, sitting in the center of Old Town, is one of the churches the Spanish built over two hundred years ago. In the distant sky appear the purple slopes of the Jemez and Manzano mountain ranges. New Mexico, the “Land of Enchantment.” Now I know why. San Felipe de Neri captures the Spaniards' preoccupation for creating churches that rise above ordinary adobe buildings and small shops, to point man toward Heaven. Every plaza announces to the world that God is the center of the universe. He is at the heart of mankind's highest hopes and most terrible longings.

Enormous shade trees, lining the courtyard around San Felipe de Neri, are home to hundreds of birds that chirp and sing from dawn to dusk. A sign at the church door tells tourists they are entering a sacred place. Respect is demanded. Sunday masses have ended, and the church is quiet. I look over a church bulletin that advertises a celebration for St. Charles Lawanga and the Uganda Martyrs at St. Thomas Church in Rio Rancho.

“There's an African American community around here,” I tell Gates.

“I'm not African American.”

“Oh, really. What are you, then?” Gates looks at me, but doesn't answer.

Our cars are parked along the sidewalk, and the kids run into a grassy area across the street with a gazebo in its center. My mother walks unsteadily into the church with Irene at her side. We dip our fingers into small basins of holy water and make the sign of the cross, letting drops of water linger on our foreheads. The two old women pull lace veils out of their purses, even though I insist they don't have to wear veils anymore. I walk in behind them, adjusting my long steps to their short ones. We're walking over a centuries-old pathway in the footsteps of others who have crossed the wooden threshold and walked up to the ornate altar with statues of saints dressed in real robes. Candles flicker in dim corners, illuminating saints I know nothing about. The Guadalupanas join two old women in the pews. The four of them look like quadruplets. They finish saying a rosary. Their prayers are blunt echoes rising into the beams of the ceiling. There is nothing more consuming than sacred silence. It's space charged with energy, heaven touching earth. The old women are
part of it all, the stillness, the statues, the candles, the smell of incense, the chants. I drop to the floor on my knees, conscious of everyone else behind me, sitting in the pews. Priscilla, Paul, Donna, Willy, Susie, Gates, Manuel, and the kids are waiting for me to finish, and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing in the first place. I ask God please to get us to the Wall, ask Him, then tell Him in the next sentence. I can't decide if I'm ordering Him to get us there or pleading with Him for mercy. I look back at Mom who motions me over.

“Doña Rebecca tells me there is a chapel to La Virgen de Guadalupe close by.” She points to one of the old women from New Mexico sitting next to her.

“Your mother should visit there. I see she's a Guadalupana. So am I.”

“It's not far, mija. We want to visit there.”

“Mom, we have to pick up Chris. I'll call him up as soon as I can. We don't have much time.” Mom's eyes are tired, right in the center of her pupils where light should be shining, there is filmy liquid.

“Mom, are you OK?” I reach over and feel her forehead.

“Ya, mija. What are you so worried about? God wouldn't kill me in church! We have to pay our respects to La Virgen.”

“What's wrong with Mom?” Priscilla is standing next to me.

“Nothing. She wants to go to some chapel that she says is close by.”

“So now we're gonna stop at every church in this nation? We'll never get to D.C.”

“Just this one, mija.” Mom looks up at Priscilla. The boys, Lisa, and Lilly are walking behind the altar rail.

“Ok, kids,” Priscilla says. “Let's go!”

“Keep your voice down,” I tell her. “Didn't you read the sign?” Priscilla doesn't answer. She helps Mom get up and looks worried as she stares intently at Mom's face.

“She looks weak, Teresa.”

“I know. I'll hurry and get in touch with Chris, so we can get to our rooms.” We talk over Mom's head the way we used to, lying on either side of her when we were kids. Paul is waiting at the entrance.

“What's wrong with Mom?”

“Nothing, mijo,” Mom answers. “All of you stop worrying. Can't you feel the power in this place? If I could take this power with me, I'd run all the way to the Wall and never get tired. Que no, Irene, like in the old days.”

“I would run right behind you, cree lo!” Irene says.

Around the corner from San Felipe de Neri is La Capilla de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, an adobe structure with its door wide open. The chapel is simple, depicting the beauty of poverty. Flowers decorate a picture of La Virgen and there is a wooden kneeler for prayer. Light filters in from small, rectangular windows illuminating sayings on the walls. Michael reads the words out loud…
The zeal for your house has eaten me up…Love me and you will earn my love…My soul has desired thee in the night, in the morn will I watch for thee
.

Everyone crowds into the chapel, standing so close we brush shoulders. Willy is busy taking pictures. He's become our official photographer. I'm glad for that, he's got the fanciest camera.