tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9367921.post111230099097068832..comments2024-03-26T09:40:00.710-06:00Comments on La Bloga: Poets to PanthersContributing Bloguistas:http://www.blogger.com/profile/13054190814722049711noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9367921.post-1112486202908833852005-04-02T16:56:00.000-07:002005-04-02T16:56:00.000-07:00At CU-Denver I heard Lalo do a read of Stupid Amer...At CU-Denver I heard Lalo do a read of Stupid America in, I think, 1969. It was like ...<BR/><BR/>Remember when we were kids (not like today's kids with $100 sneakers and thumbs calloused from videogaming), and it was the fifties and you were shy talking to girls and you wondered where you were gonna get a quarter to buy a bag of marbles and everybody was out on the playground lined up in formation for Class Day or something, and it was before Vietnam and before we knew the Pledge of Allegiance was to a flag that denied Chicanos so much, and then people all around you started singing the National Anthem? 'Member how singing that made the hairs on the back of your neck rise and you got a flush down your spine?<BR/><BR/>That's what hearing Lalo's Stupid America did, at least to me. I felt the hairs and the flush and had to check my brain that I had actually heard something very Chicano, something that moved me as much, if not more, than back when I was a kid.<BR/><BR/>After I'd checked myself, I realized I was in a moment of history, Chicano history and since then every time I hear the words or even just the title--Lalo's booming of Stupid America! rings in my head again. It became a Chicano national anthem that day, for me. I probably wasn't the only one.<BR/><BR/>Rudy Ch. GarciaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com