Tales of an American Spic: "Aracelis, My West Side Story."

 

Dear Cely,

I've been writing this letter off and on in my head since I was 23 years old. Since the last time that I saw you in the New York City subway. You were my first girlfriend ever, and at 11 years old you were the best thing that ever happened to me, but I let you down all those years ago and I hurt you. I distanced myself from you without an explanation, and for that I am truly sorry. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to write you and explain why I did what I did, when we were children. My soul has never felt the same since. The following is the way I remember it, and is my sincerest heart felt apology.

I started writing about my life back in 1999, while recovering from a near death five week stay in the hospital. I had lost so much blood due to my Crohn’s disease; the doctors were surprised that I was still alive. I had to get three blood transfusions and an operation. It was touch and go. I was severely anemic and weak, but as sick as I was, I would not let the priest come into my room to give me my last rights. I wasn't ready to die. The only person allowed to pray for me was my mother. For an atheist, I was extremely spiritual, in the sense of having a good heart and always searching for the truth of the universe. As I laid in bed, I had plenty to think about. I decided to write my life story in my journal and entitled it “Tales of an American Spic.” It was something to leave behind in the likelihood that I didn't make it. Something of me would survive. It was my way of living after death, through my writing. After only a few pages into my story, you came up. It was proof of the impact that you've had on my life and the place you've held in my heart.

My family and I moved to Summerfield Street in Ridgewood, back in 1968, when I was 7 years old. We couldn't afford to live in Elmhurst any longer, and the landlord wanted us out. Ridgewood was a more affordable neighborhood to live in, but was just as racist if not more. It was a borderline town with Bushwick Brooklyn, and the white residents living there were especially protective of their neighborhood. They didn't like it when Hispanics or Blacks from Bushwick crossed the borderline, which they agreed was Wyckoff Ave. We were one of the first Latin American families to move into Summerfield Street. I remember getting into a fight around the corner with a white boy on Norman Street. It was the first fight that I ever won and the last time he called me a spic. I ended up with a bloody nose, but it was worth it. After many fights, the kids on the block eventually began to accept us.

By the age of eleven I was an excellent athlete, though you would never know it because I was always the shortest boy my age. Climbing roofs was a popular pastime for the boys of that block. There were only a handful of roofs on the block that we hadn't climbed, including an abandoned warehouse that was structurally condemned and dangerous to climb. The boys on the block always used to choose me first on their teams, because they knew I was good. I was a very fast runner, and would beat the other kids my age in races around the block. I also ran and won relay races in school. I played for the Saint Mathias basketball team at age eleven, and though I was short, I was a very good player, but the sport I played best was baseball. Baseball was my game. I learned by playing stick ball on the streets and sponge ball in the park. I was even a switch hitter, and won a lot of trophies. But as good as I was, I was never as good as my older brother. Everyone loved my older brother, because he was the best baseball player in the whole neighborhood, and I looked up to him, like most younger brothers do. When other boys from the neighborhood would find out that Marco was my brother, they used to say: "Wow, Marco is your brother? You sound just like him. He's a great athlete." I was getting acceptance from the boys in the neighborhood because of my older brother. He was slightly lighter skinned than I was, taller and was obviously better looking. All the girls in the neighborhood had crushes on him.

At eleven years old, my identity was in transformation. My parents named me Hector, but always called me by my middle name, David. No one ever called me Hector. I don’t know why my parents named me Hector, if they were going to call me by my middle name? I was and have always been David in my mind, and it was so embarrassing when the teachers called me Hector, and the kids used to laugh. I hated when the teachers used to take attendance. “Hector?” Reluctantly I would respond: “Here.” I eventually had to tell all my new teachers in all my schools, to please call me David. I was trying so hard to fit in and assimilate to the American dream. David sounded more American than Hector.

For an eleven-year-old growing up in 1972, it was hard to get to where I was. I was starting to change. Not puberty, but something different. I was still a child, but my emotions where starting to get weird. When I used to get into fights with my brothers and sisters or was angry with my parents, I used to lock myself in the bathroom and cry, and not come out for hours. I didn't like people seeing me cry. Especially in public. My emotions were becoming overwhelming and I didn't know why. Inside, I was an emotional wreck, but on the outside, I had to project strength and confidence, or I would lose the respect of the kids in the neighborhood.

I started to like girls by the age of ten, but at eleven I came into being. It wasn't puberty, but awareness of the boy girl connection. On March 14, 1972, West Side Story made its television premier and I was hooked, like a fish hanging from a line, I was hooked on this thing called love. It was the most influential movie in my life. A love story that would be forever engrained in my mind. I was a natural romantic and finally knew what love was. It was also that spring when I heard of Roberta Flack for the very first time. "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was the number one song of the year, and it would be the prelude for what was about to come.

Was I a shark or a jet? Wow! What was my ethnic identity? I had finally grasped the concept of race, ethnicity and identity. Was I ashamed of being Latin American? I had become assimilated to a white American town, without even knowing what Latin American was. I always felt American rather than White American or Hispanic American. I identified with the character ‘Tony’ from the movie because he was caught in the middle of a race war, but felt a strong connection to Bernardo, as well. Most of my friends were Caucasian kids from the neighborhood, and I didn't want to be the odd boy out. They all liked the Jets of course. My blood boiled with a Latin American passion, but I secretly wanted to be, just an American, and deep down I knew that I wasn’t. I felt caught in the middle of my own identity war.  Even though my loyalty was to my Ecuadorian family, I didn't feel Ecuadorian. And as more Latin American families were moving into the neighborhood, I was beginning to question my identity more and more.

The movie West Side Story was my introduction to Love and Identity, and my concept of beauty would soon follow. As pretty as Natalie Wood was in the movie, that’s all she was to me, just pretty. I had no idea what beauty was, until the summer of 1972. When I saw the most beautiful thing, I ever laid eyes on. The day you and your family were moving in. “The first time ever I saw your face.” It all makes sense now, my emotions, love, identity and beauty were transforming me in ways that I could not completely understand back then. I was evolving. It wasn't puberty because that didn't happen until I was thirteen. The only thing that I knew for sure, was that you were the best thing that ever happened to me at the time.

Soon after, I remember seeing you from my window sill. You would look out from your window, and I would imagine the fire escape scene from the movie. When Tony and Maria sang "Tonight." I was a huge day dreamer. I would make up my own day dreams in my head. Usually I would rescue you from danger, or imagine you falling and I helping you up. I don't remember the first time that we met. I just remember us hanging out as friends. I even remember you inviting me to play a board game in your room. We just had a natural friendship. I remember you giving me bicycle rides on your banana seat bike, and holding on to you was like being in heaven. When we used to play "Ringolevio," I used to love catching you and holding on to you while I shouted "Ringolevio, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3!" I liked to free you from the Ringolevio jail. I remember one day we were hanging out in front of your neighbor’s stoop with my little sister Amy. I remember sending her to run a certain distance away from us, and while she went off running, it was my chance to lean over and kiss you on the lips. It was my very first kiss, and a moment that I would never forget.

I don't remember if I asked you to be my girlfriend, or if it was just understood that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but we knew. We started to hold hands in public afterwards. You gave me a black and white picture of yourself that you took in a photo booth. I remember it was your favorite picture of yourself, and I was so proud to carry it in my wallet. I would show it to my family and friends and be so proud to say you were my girlfriend. I don't remember when or where, but I lost it soon after. I didn't have the heart to tell you. It must have fallen out of my wallet during our City bus rides to junior high school in Glendale.

Your brother had a huge influence on me as well. He reminded me of Bernardo in the movie. He was proud of being Puerto Rican and he was protective of his little sister. We never told him that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, just like in the movie. We never held hands in front of him either. He got me thinking more about my ethnic identity and made me question my American identity. The first thing I remember of him is, when the kids on the block asked him what his name was, he would say: Raul. I and the kids on the block mistakenly translated Raul into Ralph. I guess we thought that all Latin American names had English translations. When we were much younger my older sister took it upon herself to translate my little sisters name. Her name was Irma, but my older sister translated it to Amy. I guess it was because Amy sounded more American. When the kids on the block started calling your brother Ralph, he would get furious and say: "My name is Raul! not Ralph.” It taught me a lot about Latin American pride of one’s identity. A couple of years later Raul would call me "Half Pint," a reference to Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie, or he would call me “White boy”, neither of which I liked hearing. Regardless, I had much respect for him and for you, for being sure of your Puerto Rican identity. At that age, I didn’t realize that I was only an American resident with a green card and not a citizen. It would be years before I fully accepted my Ecuadorian heritage, until I met my Grandfather for the first time, and my ex-wife for the first time in the summer of 1978.

I was so happy hanging out with you and holding hands at school. I used to get so embarrassed when kids and teachers used to say: "Oh look at Davy and Aracelis, aren't they so cute," or "Davy has a girlfriend." I was so shy, insecure and naturally withdrawn. As embarrassing as those comments were, they didn't faze me, because I liked you so much. But then it was over. As fast as it started it was over, and I didn’t know what happened. Something happened within me that took me years to understand. I started to avoid you and distanced myself from you. I felt so bad and ashamed for what I put you through, all without an explanation. Years later I would tell people that I distance myself from you because I was embarrassed of the comments people made about us. But it was far from the truth. I never thought that anything would cause me to not want to be with you because you were the prettiest girl in school. Something inside of me was telling me to let go, and I didn’t know why. I hope that the following, will give you some sense of closure or peace, for the way that I distanced myself from you, and treated you all those years ago. I've been waiting 43 years for this moment.

As I mentioned before, I was very shy and insecure, and I didn't like anyone to see me cry or think any less of me. I worked hard to get to that place of acceptance from the kids in the neighborhood and from you. I projected what I wanted people to see me as, “normal.” But the truth is that I was a wreck inside. I still wet my bed at the age of eleven. The doctors used to say that I would out grow it. As we got closer and closer, I feared that you would find out. The following year I did out grow it. But that wasn't the reason I distanced myself from you. The real reason was far worse than that. Emotionally I was a step away from losing control, and prayer was what kept me sane. God would protect me and forgive me, I thought. I would include every one of my family members in my prayers before I fell asleep, and you were the only non-family person that I included in my prayers for years.

At the time, I must have reasoned that if I burnt our bridge, it might prevent you from finding out the truth about me. The truth about what was happening to me, during our time together. The truth about what was happening to me since I was 9 years old. It was the one thing that I would prevent anyone from finding out, and the fear that you would find out drove me to the edge. And just like that, I let you go. I was afraid of losing your respect. I was afraid that you would find out that I was being sexually abused at the time that we were together. I didn’t understand why? I didn’t know what sex was, but it was something that I never wanted you to find out about. Please forgive me.

Eleven years later, which seemed like a life-time at the age of 22, I started seeing you in the subway going to and from work. I hadn't seen you for a long time, and you looked absolutely beautiful. Even more beautiful than I could remember. You had grown into an amazing woman. While waiting on the Halsey Street subway platform, I used to let a few ‘LL’ trains go by, so that I could wait for you as you went to and from work. We had nice conversations on the train, but I was still extremely shy, insecure and guarded. The day dreams started to come back, and I would practice how I would ask you out. I had fallen in love with you, and I didn't know how to tell you. I knew that it was only a matter of time before you moved away to Long Island. I felt the pressure to get in control of myself and be a man, and ask you out. All I had to do was man up and tell you how I felt… And then you were gone… and I was devastated.

A year and a half later, I couldn't take the loneliness any more. I was so distraught. I was living in Park Slope with one of my best friends. I used to get drunk and hold a razor blade to my wrist when I was alone, and it was just a matter of time before I used it. And in a desperate attempt for self-preservation, and with a ring in my hand, I went to Ecuador in search for the woman that would become my ex-wife. The girl I met in the summer of 1978 when I was seventeen, but hadn't seen since. The woman that would save my life back then.

I've made peace with what had happened to me as a child, but the peace you have given me by allowing me to write you this letter, is beyond measure. Your husband and your children are lucky to have you. Cely, I am so sorry for the way that I treated you when we were kids, and I hope that someday you can forgive me.

You will be in my heart always.

David Yanez

1984- February 27, 2016

Memories of a recent past pumps the heart faster through the night

I hear poetry in the distance

Far away beyond my ability to make sense

I close my eyes and wait for my limbic brain to settle.

My temporal lobe teams with activity of what was.

Memories of a recent past pumps the heart faster through the night.

Flashes of her features still make occasional appearances in and out of focus.

Not just hers but occasionally all the women I ever loved.

Why do we forget the things that mean nothing to us?

And remember the things we long to forget.

The sound of my heartbeat keeps me up at night

Forget her she’s gone, they’ve all gone away.

Just empty my mind here as I lay.

Focus on the sound of nothing at all.

Stop clinging to my desires can’t you just forget?

Empty the mind of what was or could have been.

Just sleep and rest and soon the memories will subside.

Why do we forget the things that mean nothing to us?

And remember the things we long to forget.

The darkness is filled with the lights in my head.

Sounds and memories in and out of existence

Quantum workings of the mind gone wrong

Concentrate on nothing don’t think at all.

Sleep don’t think, sleep don’t think

The brightness overwhelms me deep in the night

The hours go by, I toss and turn

No end in sight no sleep at all.

Why do we forget the things that mean nothing to us?

And remember the things we long to forget.

I hear poetry in the distance...

Don’t think... Don’t think...

Closer and closer...There’s poetry in my mind...

Don’t think... Don’t think...

Don’t think of her...

David Yanez

6-27-09

Eventually every artist has to decide whether they want to succeed in the "Artworld," or contribute to the real world. Only one of these worlds exist.

 - David Yanez -

"ART"

  

When the artist can be the flower,

When the artist can be the bird,

When the artist can be the insect,

And display their artwork as if it was born of their body;

When the artist truly understands how nature creates,

How nature communicates with creative intent,

When they understand the history of intent

In a world full of kill or be killed,

Then they will know what is:

The art of survival.

Creative communication,

Creative expression,

Creative thinking,

Not art, but the art of survival.

By what measure do we call the ready made art,

While what nature has already made goes unnoticed?

Creativity existed long before the birth of art.

Art is but the human extension of a creative evolutionary process.

Art is the child of creativity, born through the blood

Of every living creature that has ever existed.

It is the creative arm of Natural selection,

Creative selection to be more precise.

Human art is but a child,

Evolving and learning, while trying to impress its mother.

Creative communication,

Creative expression,

Creative thinking,

Not art, but the art of survival.

When humans understood their environment,

When we understood the culture of the animals,

When we understood 'why' the beauty of the flowers,

Reflecting critically upon the world around us,

When we decided that we also needed this culture

That gives animals identity and binds their groups and species,

When we decided to sing, dance and be colorful,

A spiritual awakening and bonds of culture,

When we finally understood how nature survives,

This is when art was born.

This is when Humans were born.

David Yanez

12-12-16

Look To The Past

Acrylic and Graphite on Paper

40" x 52"

2014

Dear Marguerite,

     Please forgive me for making this letter part of my art.

I know no other way of showing you how much you meant

to me. You 've always been a part of me. My art is my mind,

my heart, my pain, my memories, it's what I smell, hear,

think and cry about. To exclude you from my art would be

like ripping out a piece of my brain or heart. Your part of

me Marguerite, you've been so for half my life. I can’t let

you go with out trying for the last time. I promise you this

will be the last time I try. I don‘t want you to hate me.

I'm not insane, nor am I ashamed of asking you for your

friendship one last time.

     I don't have many friends and the ones I do have know me

as a good, kind, emotional man, who would always be there

for them. You were my first true friend Marguerite, and I let

you slip away from me, because I was too young to realize

my faults. My shyness and insecurities didn’t know how to tell

you how important you were to me, and when I last saw you I

was devastated. I hated myself for being such a coward. I told

you that I would keep in touch, but my insecurity was too

overwhelming. You meant so much to me, that I thought I

wasn’t good enough to be your friend. Could you ever forgive

me my dear old friend, for not taking your hand in friendship

when it was offered to me again eleven years ago?

     I've been torn apart for the past seventeen years, since we

first said goodbye. You have no idea how hard I tried to forget

you, to rid your memories from my mind, but no matter how

much I tried, I always remembered a little promise I made to

myself seventeen years ago, that there would always be a small

space in my heart, reserved especially for you, until the day I

die. And in that tiny little space is seventeen years of hope, and

waiting, and fear, and loneliness, and pain, that keeps me from

reaching in and ripping it out. Over the years that tiny little

space began to take over the rest of my body. First my heart,

then my mind, and now my body. My body is sick now, my mind

is weak, and my heart has given up hope, and as more and

more blood leaves my body, I feel that small little promise

leaving with it, and it's hard Marguerite, it's hard to hold on

to it, because it means the world to me, and no amount of pain

or illness can ever take it away from me. It’ll be with me till

the day I die.

     My heart has taken over my mind. My mind is fading away.

and all I can see is black, and red, my wrists, my mother

crying, my wife Alba in pain, and my Linda begging for my

forgiveness, but before my eyes close. I want to hear the voice

that kept me alive all these years, and I want her to say.

"Dave, It’s alright I'm here, thanks for loving me, remember

my secret language. I 'II see you in the next life," but then 

I awake, into the nightmare of reality, were pain runs

through my veins, and my veins cry out for relief. But my love

for life is strong, because there is no other; no Gods, no Souls

no ever after, just the universe, with all it's wonders and

injustices, and everyday is a struggle, between pain and no

pain. Between love and insanity, between a seventeen year old

boy, and the man he would become, between a husband and his

wife. Between a friend and his best friend, between you and I.

     I 'm sorry for writing you this letter Marguerite. If I didn’t

my mind would have lost, and my body would have slowly

faded away. I loved you Marguerite. I've loved you for half my

life. You 'II be with me always. Have a beautiful life.

I’ll always be there for you,

David Yanez 

3-11-96  (This letter was never actually mailed for obvious reasons)

Magic

Magic is chaos in the void,

A ripple in the void,

The vibrating void magically appears,

And transforms itself into everything that exists.

An evolutionary process.

That which comes together

Keeps on vibrating.

                  

That which vibrates exists.

Energy is vibrations or movement of the void,

No longer a void but a vibrating void.

No longer a void but existence.

Imagine spinning energy into a string,

Then spinning that string into a ball

A ball of energy.

A Quantum knot.

This is what matter is.

The universe spins this string

And weaves the web of existence.

The dictionaries have it all wrong.

Magic is not supernatural or the manipulating of reality.

It is natural and the transformation of reality.

It is nature unfolding.

It's happening all around us.

Magicians are not humans that pull rabbits out of a hat,

Nature itself is the magician.

Science is not the antonym of magic,

But the study of and investigation of that which is not understood.

It is, the study of the magician.

"Nature"…

David Yanez

2-17-13

Magic

Archival Pigment Print on Canvas

26" x 37"

2014

The Tango of Yin and Yang: A Dance Between Two Lovers

The Universe is beyond reason

Beyond a unified theory of everything

It defies scientific certainty

It eludes string theory, M-theory

And most certainly eluded Einstein

The Universe is beyond faith

Beyond religion

It defies the certainty of a God creator

It eludes the Bible, the Torah and the Koran

And most certainly eluded the Buddha

It is unpredictable yet self-organizing

Unintelligent yet gives rise to intelligence

It evolved from that which was not

Into that which is and will be

To experience is the goal

Coming together is its means

Complexity is the key

Unification is its strength

It lives through every atom

It lives through every star

It lives through every conceivable form and mind

It lives to experience what you take for granted

It lives, through you and it lives through me

It is a battle of the opposites

Between existence and non-existence

Born of one another

In a dance of being and non-being

Destruction and creation

It is the tango of Yin and Yang

A dance between two lovers

A dance of love and passion

The eternal infinite primordial couple

Moving they are the Tao

Together give birth to ten thousand beings

To live, to love, to be loved

To dance in the face of destruction

To create in the face of hopelessness

To come together in the face of insurmountable odds

To experience the Tango of Yin and Yang

This thing you call existence

David Yanez

8-28-2011

"The Tango Of Yin and Yang: A Dance Between Two Lovers" 

Acrylic on Canvas  

54" x 72"

2014

"We Are The Universe"

I am the light and the dark.

Creation and destruction.

Both being and nonbeing.

Both life and death.

Both the good and the evil.

Some call me the void

While others call me the cosmos.

I am the Yin and the Yang

The Tao or the Way

I am Brahman, Yahweh, Allah and the Christ.

I am the light of the world

Both Nirvana and Samsara

I am the fear one feels when the darkness it befalls.

Or the rise of the dawn when new hope takes hold.

I am both enlightenment and ignorance.

You can see me in the mirror

When you look into your eyes.

I am the universe.

It is what you are.

We are the universe

How you perceive both the light and the dark,

Determines how you define and express them.

In the end, the dark can never consume the light,

Nor the light the dark.

We are the primordial opposites.

We are the universe.

David Yanez

12-17-13

We Are The Universe

Archival Pigment Print on Canvas

18" x 36" 

2014

"Bleeding Hearts"

I am a bleeding heart,
From the lands of bleeding hearts,

From the heart that bleeds,

From the lands Columbus bled.

I am from the lands where the Incas, the Mayas and the Aztecs bled.

The lands that Reagan bled,

The lands that bleed still,

In memory of the blood that was shed.

I am from the lands south of the Navajo, the Cherokee, and the Sioux.

The lands that Jackson bled,

The lands that bleed still,

In memory of the blood that was shed.

I am a bleeding heart liberal,

From the lands of bleeding hearts.

I am Mestizo.

I am Latin American. 

David Yanez

7-15-16

Corazones Sangrantes / Bleeding Hearts

Archival Pigment Print on Canvas

40" x 36"

2015

Tales Of An American Spic: "I Was A Three Year Old Spic."

It was the summer of 1964 a couple of weeks before my third birthday. I was sitting outside on the stoop, day dreaming about my upcoming birthday, and wishing for a toy rifle. I was so young and innocent, oblivious to the struggle that life was. Oblivious to the hatred that surrounded me in Queens New York. Not fully aware of myself nor of my role in this world. Not fully conscious. My genetically inherited personality traits were showing by now. I was extremely shy, and attached to my mother. I was afraid of being alone, scared of the dark, and would cry uncontrollably for my mother in her absence. I was too young to know the difference between black and white, them versus us, we from them. The only thing I cared about was my family and my upcoming birthday.

We immigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador, just two months earlier. In the company of my Mother, two brothers and my sister. We left behind our beloved Grandparents and all the aunts, uncles and cousins we adored. My Mother had never been separated from her family before, but knew that she had to be strong and do what was best for her children. 

My Father had already made the sacrifice of leaving his wife and kids behind a year earlier while he searched for a new life for us in a foreign land, the United States of America. It was a time long before I can remember. 

As the whole family gathered in the airport to bid us farewell, my mother recalls the tears running down their faces. My Grandfather stood strong as always, as we flew away to a land beyond the clouds, a land where dreams do come true. It was such a sad and painful goodbye for everyone, but as traumatic as this separation was, it wasn't enough to be my first memory. I had forgotten the life I left behind, my Grandparents, the mountains, and the happiness. I didn't even remember the airplane ride. Nothing, not even a memory before that day on the stoop. Not even the days in-between the stoop and my birthday. It was my third birthday that would be the beginning of time for me. The day I would come into this world. The day I always believed I was born. The day I became aware. 

I looked so happy sitting there. Thinking about the one thing that would make me the happiest kid on earth, a toy rifle. I didn't even realize I was in a new country, America. I was in The American Dream. That's what my parents wanted. My father immigrated upon my mothers request, after she wrote a letter to my Uncle who was already in America. Asking him to claim my father, so that he could find a good job, and take his family out of poverty. 

In only a year, he saved enough money to claim his wife and four kids. Eventually he would save enough money to claim his two sisters as well. The sacrifice my parents made in order to give me a better life would not be understood until my third birthday. My birthday was a great success. All the people I loved were there for me, along with some new people. I blew out the candles and got my wish. My eyes lit up as I pulled away the wrapping paper. I was indeed in a land where dreams come true, America. It wasn't the blowing out of the candles, nor the unwrapping of my beautiful rifle, but what follows is the moment I entered this world, my first memory, the instant I became aware, no memories before, except for that moment on the stoop. Space, time, and consciousness came into being for me. Soon it would all make sense. This is how I remember it: 

"Pow Pow, Pow Pow" I shouted, as I chased my adorable three year old neighbor across the yard. We were so young and innocent. She was the Indian and I was the Cowboy. "Pow Pow, Pow Pow." Running and laughing, smiling and giggling. Oblivious to everything but our game. Run little Indian run... I was so happy. It was my birthday and I finally got my toy rifle. I also had a beautiful new friend, actually she was my first friend. What more could a three year old boy want. I was on cloud nine, the American Dream. I can still hear her laughter. It drowned out all other sounds, the birds, the cars, the people. Her laughter filled me with such joy. "Pow Pow, Pow Pow." Run little Indian, run little neighbor, run my little friend, laugh my little friend. 

As we ran across the yard I noticed an angry looking figure rushing towards us. As he got closer and closer I began to tremble. My heartbeat doubled, my body began to freeze, as his eyes locked on to mine. I could not move. I was so scared, everything was moving in slow motion. Tears running down my face, my body unable to move, unable to hear myself cry, shivering with fear. What’s happening? Powerless to stop this force of nature, my destiny, my future. Suddenly I was alone. Stuck in a realm meant only for me. Stuck with a monster, or was it a man. Surrounded by this black void of nothingness with only the sound of my heartbeat pounding against this darkness, this evil, as it ripped the rifle from my hands and said: 

“Don’t you ever point a gun at my sister again you Fucking Spic!" As he bashed my toy rifle over the swing set. My toy rifle, he's breaking my rifle into pieces. 

“I don’t ever want you playing with those Fucking Spics again!” He said, as he dragged his little sister home, my friend, my beautiful little Indian. Goodbye my friend.

David Yanez

5-13-15

Archival Pigment Print

32" x  46"

Copyright David Yanez 2015

Tales Of An American Spic: "The American Dream."

 

Let me take you back to a time when Latinos, and Hispanics officially did not exist in the United States. While many of you identify with being Latino or Hispanic, and feel a cultural connection with most people of Latin American descent, this broader feeling of unity between Latin Americans, is a fairly new phenomenon. The word Hispanic wasn't officially adopted by the United States until 1970, and the word Latino not until 1997. Before that, for most New Yorkers of the time, we were either Spanish, Porto Ricans, Mexicans, or my favorite "Fucking Spic's."

 

It was a time when Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Ridgewood Queens were mostly white neighborhoods. A time when Spanish Harlem was heading for decay, and Bushwick soon to follow. In 1964 my family and I, were one of the first groups of Ecuadorians to immigrate into New York. Before 1965, national quotas on immigrants favored European immigration rather than Latin American immigration. After 1965, with changes to immigration law, it became easier for Latin Americans to emigrate to the United States, but for us there were no Ecuadorian neighborhoods to live in. It was either live in the ghetto, or live in a nice white New York neighborhood.

 

We were the first wave of South American immigrants in New York and the United States. The first wave to go into the trenches. The first wave to be cut down, again and again. The first wave to move into the nicer white neighborhoods. My parents, and your parents wanted the American Dream, and they wanted it for there children. They didn't want to live in a ghetto. They were just as poor as most Latin Americans at the time, but that didn’t scare my parents. They wanted the American Dream, even if it meant working twice as hard, and enduring the pain of watching their children suffer the humiliation of discrimination, hatred and physical abuse, at the hands of the many racist New Yorkers of the time. They would push their limits and the limits of their children, in order to give their children a better life.

 

Believe it or not, there was a time when I only spoke Spanish. A time when I learned English strictly from watching TV. A time when I didn't even know that I knew English. Until a day in Kindergarten, after not saying a word for weeks, I asked the boy next to me to please pass me the crayon. He yelled out for the whole class to hear: "He spoke, he spoke." Until that day, I only spoke Spanish to my family. You see, I was afraid of speaking English and going to school, afraid of going outside to play. It was a time when we would go out shopping, and all the people would stare at us. I can still hear their whispers: “Look at the Spics. Make sure they don’t steal anything.” It didn’t matter that my mother was a beautiful Caucasian woman, or that we were innocent and harmless children, because as soon as my parents spoke, they knew, they always knew, they knew that we were spics.

We were the Latin Americans that were singled out, cursed at, spat upon, beat up, and humiliated. And the worst part of it was, that we couldn’t turn back, we couldn’t show fear, we couldn’t let them see us cry. It was our dignity that was at stake. It was your dignity that was at stake. We held back our tears and forced ourselves upon White Americans so that one day your children could live anywhere they want, and not have the word spic branded on their foreheads and burned into their hearts.

 

Which brings me to my point. How dare you? My fellow Latin Americans, and North Americans of Latin American descent. Accuse me of not being Latino or Hispanic enough. Of neglecting my Latino or Ecuadorian culture. You teased me as a child and called me a white boy behind my back, and over the years this has hurt me a great deal.

 

How dare you assume that I didn’t suffer racism as much as you. We had to survive in the white mans territory. It was a time when Elementary School was a war zone, and most of the Latin American and Black students were bused in from neighboring Bushwick. Most of these kids did of course experience discrimination while they were in school and in the white neighborhoods of Ridgewood and Glendale Queens, but when the three o’clock bell rang they went back to their neighborhoods, back to play with their friends. They didn’t have to deal with discrimination until the next school day. Some of you may remember the rocks they used to throw at your school buses when they would arrive at school. Scary, wasn’t it? Now imagine having to go through that everyday and all day as a child.

 

My brothers, sisters and I, had to constantly endure the stares, the name calling, the whispering behind our backs, and yes, the bloody noses. Everyone wanted to beat up a fucking spic. We were the little soldiers of the civil rights era. We experienced the front line. We have the scars from the battleground. The bloody noses from the enemy. We have the flashbacks that only war can leave. And in our minds the enemies were not the whites, but the bigots and their children. And when the three o’clock bell rang, I knew what to expect. I was a six year old child and I knew that it was time to get beat up.

We suffered the humiliation, the fear, the emotional scaring and the pain of not belonging. We had to humble ourselves, excuse ourselves, avoid eye contact. We had to be smarter in school to gain their respect. We had to push ourselves physically harder in order to defend ourselves. We could never lose a fight because it would show weakness. We had to endure more pain, be more humble, be more forgiving, because once we fought them we had to live with them, and eventually forgive them. That’s what my mother taught us, to forgive those who make us cry. We were just children and unaware that we were paving the future, so that you and your children wouldn't have to go through what we went through.

We fought the battle, so that you may prosper here today. We are the reason you can walk into a white neighborhood today and not be attacked instantly. We are the reason you can buy a house in almost any neighborhood today. We are the reason your children don't come home with bloody noses and mental scars of abuse. We're the ones. We were first contact with the whites in these neighborhoods. We forced ourselves upon them, showed them our ways, made them see us as ordinary people. We educated white Americans, by befriending them, by playing with their children, by gaining their trust. That is why I must apologize to my white American friends for using the word: White. Not all white Americans were bigots. I've made dear and lasting friends with many.

I am, Ecuadorian and Latin American I've always been so. Don't ever accuse me of not being Latino enough. I can't dance Salsa, because most of my friends listened to rock and roll. And when more and more of my own kind moved into the neighborhood, I tried to befriend you, but we were as different as night and day. You embraced your Latin American heritage, or the country of your origin. You were sure of your identity, proud of your culture and traditions. You danced like a true Latin American and spoke Spanish fluently. But what was I? What had I become? I had been assimilated. I had been accepted. I was one of them, yet I wasn't. I was one of you, yet I wasn’t. I had no identity. I had spent all my childhood fighting and defending myself, in order to gain white Americans respect, and when I finally got it, my own people mocked me.

 

I still speak Spanish, not as fluent as you, but I haven't forgotten. I don't dance as well

as you, but I sure do try. I'm the one who had the word 'Spic' branded on my forehead and burnt into my heart when I was only three years old. I was a spic long before they started calling us Latino or Hispanic. I am Mestizo, meaning mixed. I am Ecuadorian and Latin American. I am also a United States citizen and proud to be. But most of all, I am someone that believes in the American Dream. Not just for Americans, but a dream that can be realized all across the World.

 

 

David Yanez

5-12-2015