"A Debt of Gratitude and Personal Reflection on Healing in a Pandemic," by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Today was sentimental for me. I finished my last physical therapy session with my wonderful therapist and now dear friend and colleague, Dr. John Longoria at Texas Orthopedics Sports & Rehabilitation Associates located at Barton Creek where he works as lead therapist.

I had a bad fall in a hotel over the Christmas holidays and broke my arm in two—just below the shoulder in the "neck" of the arm. It was so terribly painful and the recovery, long. 

I kept these news mostly to myself because it felt too personal to share at the time. Plus, since I'm right-handed, I wasn't able to write or type very much at all anyway for a good long while.

I took most of the semester off from my teaching responsibilities at the University of Texas where I work so that I could focus on my healing. I'm very grateful for the support that I got from my Chair, Dr. Victor Saenz and Dean Charles Martinez who granted me my requested leave.

In the context of my many months in physical therapy, the healing process has entailed a lot of working through the pain and stiffness via frequent massages, regular exercise, good nutrition, daily prayers, and disciplined meditation. This experience in the middle of a pandemic that included an epic winter storm, deepened my sense of vulnerability—as well as those of others—forcing me to slow down and assess the significance of all of this in this particular moment in history. 

In general, my condition forced me into greater stillness, reflection, and self-awareness, deepening my partnership with the Divine and in so doing, raising my vibration, and engendering a sense of newness and aliveness that I am learning is taking hold across the planet as we collectively navigate meaning and self love, paradoxically, in the throes of seemingly unending wars, unspeakable violence, endemic fear, environmental devastation, and tumultuous political crises.

The deeper message is one of a common humanity that we as humans, regardless of our differences, can regenerate through the power of love if loving ourselves first is our point of departure. What is so liberating is that viewed in this way, we do not discover our purpose in life, but rather we create it as sparks of Divinity herself. 

And this is potentially achievable for every human being if we will only take that journey to the heart. It's beyond interesting to think that we're socialized into always thinking that our purpose and happiness is always "out there," outside of us, when we don't even know ourselves. After all, we are all always much more than we say we are. And we are all always much more than who we are told we are.

When I think of the battles we are having at the Texas State Legislature right now surrounding so-called "Critical Race Theory"—a catch-all term for anything controversial that threatens white legislators' sensibilities —I am struck by the thought that these legislators do not know themselves. Or to the extent that they do, it is in terms of their belief in their "apartness" from the rest of humanity. (Their  "above-ness," too, right?") 

Do give this some thought: If we are all children of God, Creator, Allah, Wakan Tanka, Jehova, Source, or simply "the Divine," then our collective task and responsibility is to discover that we are "a part of," instead of "apart from," as those in power would have us believe.

Ignorance notwithstanding, I think that what lurks beneath the fear of Critical Race Theory is an unwillingness to relinquish "apartness" as a way of knowing and being in the world. Yet the Golden Rule insists on treating others as we ourselves would like to be treated. Similarly, the Mayans have gifted us with "In Lak' Ech," which means that your are my other me—to include the planet and all living things in a cosmovision that promotes planetary peace, healing, and reconciliation. 

I hope that you find healing and comfort in these words. They certainly feel new and redemptive to me.

Dr. John Longoria, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything! You are a virtuoso! I appreciate your upbeat  attitude, compassion and caring, social justice ethic, and unmatched knowledge of the human body. Your targeted massages, dry needle work, and prescribed exercises followed sensible progressions that culminated in my strength and healing. You were also kind enough not to tell me until past the midway point that a break in the "neck" of the arm is among the worst kind of arm-breaks possible. Your magnanimous assistant, Sully, was a constant source of light and encouragement, making every session something that I looked forward to.

Thanks to my hubby, Emilio Zamora, for taking care of me while taking up the slack, particularly in those initial weeks weeks of trauma and adjustment that multiplied his family and home responsibilities. Being close to our community surrounding the ongoing work of Academia Cuauhtli, our Saturday school, was so incredibly heartening, as well. It was humbling to know that I could step back for awhile without worries, knowing that our community's cultural and linguistic revitalizing work would continue. Now that's sustainability!

Thanks to our daughters, Clara and Luz, and Anthony, Luz' boyfriend, who we have come to love and appreciate as part of our family. Having you, as well as our grand children, Feliciano and Mia Luna, ever present throughout these many months of the pandemic made it all not just bearable, but magical and fun. 💗

In Lak' Ech

Tu eres mi otro yo

You are my other me

If the Dead Could Speak...My Reflections on the June 28, 1914 Assassination of the Duke of Serbia

My second and final re-posting that reflects on World World I.  Our K-12 Ethnic Studies and Mexican American Studies classrooms could make good use of this important contribution made by Dr. Emilio Zamora.  

It could also be the most amazing field trip to be able to take our youth to France to learn in a personal way like Emilio and I did, about WWI and our communities' wartime sacrifice for democracy and freedom.

Enjoy! 

-Angela Valenzuela

This day 98 years ago on June 28, 1914, the Duke of Serbia Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg, were killed in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, leading to a chain of events that served as a catalyst for the first World War. Staggering numbers of Americans, including many from Texas, lost their lives. 

Today, my husband, UT History Professor Emilio Zamora and I visited the graves at the largest American cemetery in Europe located at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon and honored the memory of individuals like Simón Gonzales from Martindale, Texas, and so many others that gave their lives in the Allied Cause against Germany—and as captured in the singular, very graphic and moving WWI Diary written by former school teacher from Realitos in South Texas, José de la Luz Sáenz. 

Austria-Hungary commemorative postage stamp

Luz Sáenz joined the war effort with the specific intention of paying the ultimate sacrifice in order to be able to return to the U.S. and make the specific claim for civil rights for Mexican Americans back home in the U.S. 

Amazingly, Luz Sáenz not only survived the great war but also produced this fascinating and exceptionally written war diary that is a very detailed and unblinking, day-to-day account of what he experienced as an American soldier.  (Note: Emilio translated it into English and interpreted it and Luz Saenz' life and contributions in an opening chapter.)

Luz Sáenz ended up returning to the U.S. and becoming one of the founders of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), that today is the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organizations in the country.  I myself am a member of LULAC and have been so for many years.  Looking backwards through time, we might easily say that his strategy for inclusion worked, making him in so many ways a precursor to the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement.

Located northeast of Paris and otherwise termed "The Western Front," the The Meuse-Argonne Cemetery located roughly where the Meuse-Argonne Offensive took place is where we visited today. I came to appreciate in a tangible way just how important this specific offensive was to the ultimate defeat of Germany despite it's incalculable toll within and across time—indeed generationally, in particular, for the French, British, and so many others that experienced the brunt of this war. 

It was moving to see the headstones of the 14,246 fallen that were never repatriated to the United States.  It was similarly moving to traverse the towns, hills, and rivers where so many fought bravely, shed blood, and lost their lives. 

We located the grave of individuals like Simón Gonzales of Martindale, Texas, who was a good friend of Jose de la Luz Saenz and according to his recounting of his personal story, was well liked by all but sadly fought courageously but lost his life. 

For some unknown reason, Simón Gonzales' body was never repatriated to the U.S.  Of course the bodies of so many others remained as you can see from this image that doesn't even come close to capturing the thousands that lay silent and to some extent "unmissed and unremembered" there today.  And this despite the literally thousands of American bodies returned home upon request by their families. What we do know is that this issue of repatriated bodies was a hotly debated issue since it also made sense for some for them to simply remain on the sacred ground for which they fought so hard. More research on all of this needs to nevertheless be done in order to know why specific individuals like Simón Gonzales lay silently on the bucolic slopes of this cemetery, "Americain." 

Perhaps most striking and interesting for me was to contemplate on this day, the 98-year anniversary of "the shot heard round the world"—the killing of the Duke of Serbia—that even in France where the stakes were exceedingly high has subsided into the deep recesses of memory to the point of little, if any, noticeable recollection of this momentous event on such a day like today.

If the dead could speak, my guess is that they would ask us for their sacrifice to have meant something to us and for us.  Of course, we all know at some level what it meant, however, I think that they would have liked for it to have been a more personal memory or thought process regarding the war that Luz Saenz and others hoped would end all wars.... 

I can certainly say that reading Emilio's book and coming here—and doing both simultaneously today—resurrected a painful, albeit collective, memory that brought healing to a wound that I myself didn't quite know I had.

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

My reflection on "Tea party bills targeting immigrant tuition, sanctuary cities die" by Tom Benning

It's clear that Texas Tea Partiers and the Republican Party Platform notwithstanding, the Republican Party in Texas wants to grand stand against "illegal immigration" but not actually do anything about it.  As we all know, anti-immigrant rhetoric makes for good pablum for those running for elective office.  It also allows them to reconcile their politics with the inescapable reality of a massive Mexican/Mexican American/Latino demographic.

I do want to give credit though to both our great legislative leadership and very well organized and powerful statewide movement against these proposals.  The vast majority of those involved of course are the constituency that was created out of HB1403 out-of-state tuition waiver bill itself passed in 2001 session when Rick Perry, a republican, was governor.

To wit, here is a list of pertinent Twitter handles and hashtags:

Handles:
@TexasDreamers
@UnitedWeDream
@TX_Legislature
@TexasHB1403
@KeepHB1403

Hashtags:
#TxDREAMers
#KeepHB1403
#DREAMerAlumni

I often think that these legislative proposals are intended to harm and disparage us as a Mexican/Mexican American/Latin@ community in Texas as a subtle or not-so-subtle form of psychological warfare.  These proposals foster an enormous amount of anxiety, anger, and frustration among so many of us that have to face up to the vitriol.  

However, I increasingly sense that they are also intended to keep us as a community in a defensive, and thusly, a reactive posture.  While our youth and community would certainly not possess the organizing skills that they have as a result of their having to perpetually defend themselves against these proposals, I suspect that they may be a strategy for political containment—that is, they absorb the attention and therefore contain the activism of our community within a specific policy arena to the neglect of other vital policy arenas.

I dream for the day—that I trust shall come—when we can shift our attention and sophisticated movement tools, know-how, and energy to other arenas of public policy like public education, higher education, criminal justice, energy resources, environmental regulation, human service, etc. that are sorely in need of voice, presence, and action for a community that is simultaneously profoundly affected by the work of these committees and largely not present—indeed relatively voiceless on matters of such great importance, or at least so in any way that comes close to their participation in all the anti-immigration battles.  This is not a criticism, just an observation and a hypothesis.

All told, we need to see these other arenas of policy similarly as part and parcel to the broader agenda of disenfranchising Latin@s, African Americans, and the already underprivileged, in general.  After all, undereducated people do not vote to the same degree as educated ones do. 

What is encouraging though are the strategic alliances and networks that we have formed over time and the passion for justice that they inspire.

-Angela

Tea party bills targeting immigrant tuition, sanctuary cities die

By TOM BENNING Follow @tombenning tbenning@dallasnews.com

Austin Bureau

Published: 27 May 2015 10:43 PM

Updated: 28 May 2015 09:59 PM

Related

 

 

AUSTIN — Bills offered by tea party Republicans to target illegal immigration appear to have died quietly, after stirring up some of the most emotional and intense debate of the 140-day legislative session.
Barring some last-ditch maneuvering, a proposal to repeal a law that allows some students who are in the country illegally to pay in-state college tuition is done. The same goes for an effort to crack down on “sanctuary city” policies.
Also going nowhere is a measure to create an interstate border security compact that would seek ways for Texas to enforce federal immigration laws.
None of the measures even got as much as a hearing in the House State Affairs Committee, led by Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana. And in the Senate, only the border compact was debated; it passed, but died in the House at a key deadline late Tuesday.
Republicans are poised to succeed in providing a major border security boost — spending $800 million on it over the next two years. But the Legislature’s more conservative members couldn’t get enough traction to force the issue on more contentious policy.
“We just don’t have the time in 140 days to deal with the big-ticket issues and also pander to a small percentage of movement conservatives,” Rep. Jason Villalba, a Dallas Republican who opposes such proposals, said last month.
The Senate gave final approval Tuesday to a border security bill that helps solidify the state police’s presence at the Texas-Mexico border. If the House accepts the Senate’s changes, it will head to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who has indicated he’ll sign it.
Many Republicans view the other immigration measures as unnecessary and harmful to their efforts to win over Hispanic voters. Others, having heard from the GOP base, say the state needs to cut off “magnets” to illegal immigration as a key part of border security.
“It’s just bad policy that rewards illegal immigration in perpetuity,” Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, said last month, explaining why she wrote the bill to repeal the in-state tuition program.
It appears that divide will linger unresolved for at least two more years.
On Twitter:
 @tombenning