Ready or not, here they come... New Beginnings

I found this post while looking through drafts I had began writing. This was probably written sometime in 2011.

3.5 years ago I left Philadelphia to come home.  I left because I knew that my life would be here, whether I came back in 2008 or 2015, eventually, my life would be built here, so why not start sooner rather than later.  So a few friends flew out to Philadelphia, packed up a limited edition Ford Taurus, and drove me home.  The actual trip only took 11 days, but 3.5 years later, I still haven't fully arrived.  Parts of me are stuck somewhere between Master Street and Skyline Drive, never having fully left, and never being fully present.  I've chosen not to live in Philadelphia, but I've also chosen not to exist here, which leaves me no where.

When I first got home, I didn't engage with life because I needed a minute to breathe, for my mind, my heart, and my soul to catch up with my body coming home, after 5 years in Davis and 3 years in Philadelphia.  I'm not sure what I was waiting for, but I guess whatever it was never happened because here I am 3.5 years later, with not much that's meaningful to show for my life here.

So here I am... what started as a new years resolution to be more proactive in life, to say "yes" to more things in preparation for my "it" decade in a couple years, has become a sad and sobering realization that there's not a whole lot in my life right now that brings me Life, that brings me to Life.

Over this Easter season, I've thought some about the ideas of death and life.  

So what do I do?
Where do I go to find what I'm looking for?
What am I looking for?
How do I create it?
Where will I discover it?
What if I don't ever find it? or have the courage and strength to create it? or the humility to discover it?
What if I try a million different things and nothing fits together and all of a sudden I'm 60 years old still trying a million different things living this fragmented life? 

What if the crushing realization of being unfulfilled is worse than the emptiness of disengagement?

I know I can't be paralyzed by fear.
I know I must choose my life here.
I know that if I would open my eyes to acknowledge God's presence, that I would realize that God is with me.

C'mon Nui, it's time to start living.

Man, he's good...

"This is the mission entrusted to the church,
a hard mission:
to uproot sins from history,
to uproot sins from the political order,
to uproot sins from the economy,
to uproot sins wherever they are.
What a hard task!

It has to meet conflicts amid so much selfishness,
so much pride,
so much vanity,
so many who have enthroned the reign of sin among us.

The church must suffer for speaking the truth,
for pointing out sin,
for uprooting sin.

No one wants to have a sore spot touched,
and therefore a society with so many sores twitches
when someone has the courage to touch it
and say: "You have to treat that.
You have to get rid of that.
Believe in Christ..."

-- Msr. Oscar Romero

A little self respect please.

I’m not someone who routinely peruses the internet reading blogs, but I came across one the other day that totally enraged me!  An Asian American woman wrote about dating white men, and her intentional avoidance of dating Asian American men.  Now, I understand and completely agree that people should have the freedom to date and marry whoever they choose, and the blogger has every right to hold the position she does, and to date as many “geeky, scrawny, effeminate” white boys that she can fit into her busy schedule.  I’m not here to cram some separatist agenda down people’s throats, or ideas about “keeping blood lines pure” (although I may have unapologetically spewed such rhetoric in the past), but I am here in defense of not only Asian American men, but Asian America’s future. 

Masked behind anger, profanities, disdain, and at times crass descriptions of men and Asian America is the basic argument that the blogger refuses to live in “patriarchy and cultural sexism and a lifestyle I grew up with and want nothing to do with anymore.”  That’s completely fair.  I don’t pretend to know how the blogger was raised, what her family and home life were like, and how those have completely scarred her.  In fact, I will agree with her that there are parts of Asian American culture that are completely screwed up, archaic, and border on, if not mired in, emotional/psychological abuse.  But what I don’t agree with is the willingness to completely turn our backs on Asian American culture in a desperate attempt to assimilate. 

Let’s be clear, the blogger is not asking all Asian American women to completely abandon Asian American men and Asian American culture.  The blogger is merely speaking for herself, as an individual.  (Y’know individualism, the foundation of those White American values the blogger is so completely enamored with that she would throw herself on the floor of the great White kingdom unashamedly begging for admittance.)  For those who, like this blogger have decided that this is how they would like to live their life, I wish you the best.  Eat, drink, and be merry. 

But for those of us who see ourselves as part of a larger Asian American community; for those of us who appreciate who we are, where we’ve come from, and those who have gone before us; for those of us who care about future generations of Asian Americans; and for those of us who can take our eyes off of ourselves for one minute…, for us, we must commit to doing a little hard work.  You see, it’s easy to walk away from things we don’t like.  It’s easy to say “Fuck you, Asian America” and never look back, but what will happen to our identity, our sense of self, our future sons and daughters, and all the beautiful aspects of Asian American culture?  Will it all just become one big amalgamation of whiteness?

Rather than washing our hands of the broken parts of our culture that perpetuate sexism, that unabashedly uses shame and guilt to control people, that frowns on any grade less than A+ and any profession that doesn’t bring in a six figure annual salary, rather than leaving it all behind and throwing the baby out with the bathwater, let’s do a little work. 

Let’s engage with one another.

Let’s promote some change in perspective. 

Let’s have hard conversations. 

Let’s cry a little. 

And when we find ourselves falling into those old patterns, and ways of being, let’s try again, and again, and again.

But let’s also do this in our way, as Asian Americans.  

And maybe, just maybe, our future sons and daughters won't harbor the type of self-loathing that makes them say, "I want nothing to do with where I've come from", but instead carry with them a sense of pride in being who the village raised them to be. 

Babyface has nothing on Jean Vanier

I began re-reading Jean Vanier's "Becoming Human" a while ago, but couldn't get far.  His words on loneliness were so piercing that it was difficult to get through, like seeing my soul posed as a mannequin in the display window at a store and realizing that 60 sets of eyes are looking at this mannequin, and it was naked.

He writes this:
" Loneliness can appear as a faint dis-ease, an inner dissatisfaction, a restlessness in the heart.  Loneliness comes at anytime.  It comes in times of sickness or when friends are absent; it comes during sleepless nights when the heart is heavy, during times of failure at work or in relationships; it comes when we lose trust in ourselves and in others.  In old age, loneliness can rise up and threaten to overwhelm us.  At such times, life can lose its meaning.  Loneliness can feel like death. [...] Loneliness is essential to human nature; it can only be covered over, it can never actually go away.  Loneliness is part of being human, because there is nothing in existence that can completely fulfill the needs of the human heart. Loneliness [...] is essential to our humanity.  Loneliness can become a source of creative energy, the energy that drives us down new paths to create new things or to seek more truth and more justice in the world.
[...] Loneliness is the fundamental force that urges mystics to a deeper union with God.  For such people, loneliness has become intolerable, but instead of slipping into apathy or anger, they use the energy of loneliness to seek God.  It pushes them towards the absolute.
Loneliness can be a force for good.  More frequently however, loneliness shows other, less positive faces.  It can be a source of apathy and depression and even of a desire to die.  It can push us into escapes and addictions in the need to forget our inner pain and emptiness.  This apathy is how loneliness most often shows itself in the elderly and in those with disabilities.  It is the loneliness we find in those who fall into depression, who have lost the sense of meaning in their lives, who are asking the question born of despair:  What is left?
[...] We only cry out when there is hope that someone will hear us.
[...] Such loneliness is born of the most complete and utter depression, from the bottom of the deepest pit in which the human soul can find itself.  The loneliness that engenders depression manifests itself as chaos.  There is no light, no consolation, no touch of peace, and of the joy life brings.  Such loneliness reveals the true meaning of chaos. 
Life no longer flows in recognizable patters.  For the person engulfed in this form of loneliness there is only emptiness, anguish, and inner agitation; there are no yearnings, no desires to be fulfilled, no desire to live.  Such a person feels completely cut off from everyone and everything.  it is a life turned in upon itself.  All order is gone and those in this chaos are unable to relate or listen to others.  Their lives seem to have no meaning.  They live in complete confusion, closed up in themselves. 
Thus loneliness can become such uncontrolled anguish that one can easily slip into the chaos of madness.  To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefore unloveable.  Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain. 
[...] The necessity of human commitment to the evolution of the new, the necessity of accepting constant movement is the key to our humanity and is the only road to becoming truly human.
[...] Are not all our lives a movement from order to disorder, which in turn evolves into a new order?
[...] Throughout our lives there is the disorder created by sickness, accidents, loss of work, loss of friends - all crises that destroy our agendas, security, and carefully laid plans.  Such disorder demands a gradual re-ordering of our lives and the period of transition such a crisis represents is not an easy one to live through.  It is a time of loss, when we have yet to receive something new.  it is a time of grief. 
[...] Our universe is constantly evolving: the old order gives way to a new order and this in its turn crumbles when the next order appears.  Change of one sort or another is the essence of life, so there will always be the loneliness and insecurity that comes with change. When we refuse to accept that loneliness and insecurity are part of life, when we refuse to accept that they are the price of change, we close the door on many possibilities for ourselves. our lives become lessened, we are less than fully human.  If we try to prevent or ignore the movement of life, we may succeed for awhile but, inevitably, there is an explosion; the groundswell of life's constant movement, constant change is too great to resist. 
[...] This means living in a state of a certain insecurity in anguish and loneliness, which at its best, can push us towards the new.  Too much security and the refusal to evolve, to embrace change, leads to a kind of death.  Too much insecurity however, can also mean death.  To be human is to create sufficient order so that we can move on into insecurity and seeming disorder.  In this way, we discover the new."

For a few months now, this book has been like kryptonite, alluring me with it's beauty, yet killing me with it's power.  As I've come back to it, my heart still can't get passed the first chapter from which these excerpts came, so I put Jean back on my shelf, and go to bed, and maybe, just maybe I'll be able to pick it up again tomorrow...

Hospitality

"Hospitality is the ability to pay attention to guests (concentration) and create an empty space where the guests can find their own souls (community). This is a real healing ministry because it takes away the illusion that wholeness can simply be given by one to another. It does not remove the loneliness and pain of the other person but invites him to recognize his loneliness on a level where it can be shared."

  -- Jean Vanier

But what if...??

"you rescue,
you redeem,
you save,
you intervene.
Oh, you rescue,
you redeem
our lives,
our stories."

Well said, Ten Shekel Shirt. 

Awhile ago my boss, Eric, passed away after a 7 year battle with cancer.  I've only known Eric for the last 3.5 years or so, but we worked very closely together in those years.  His passing has left me a little lost to say the least, but 2 of his good friends wrote this beautiful piece about him in the SF Bay Guardian. 

By Roberto Lovato and Jason Ferreira
From the SF Bay Guardian - 8/31/2011

"I'd love to see a garden of flowers there," whispered Eric Quezada a few days before his final breath on Earth. Looking like a Guatemalan Quixote, a lanky Eric pointed to the front of his Bernal Heights home with an index finger whittled down by a cancer he'd been fighting ferociously for seven years.
Days later, about 150 people brought pots packed with daisies, bougainvilleas, lavender, lots of red roses — and a bright bouquet of candles to bear witness to the life and friendship of a man who had planted his gentle way into our thoughts, our actions and—most especially—our hearts. To see the tearful and trembling faces of the diverse crowd — former Salvadoran revolutionaries, African American internationalists, soccer buddies made over a lifetime, immigrant rights advocates, Aztec dancers, Guatemalan family members, long time and recent Mission residents, queer leaders and the (Latino) Man Who Would Be Mayor — was heartbreaking. But at the same time we were all shining forth the beautiful Mission that Eric spent a lifetime steadfastly tending to with love.
A true revolutionary, our friend, our brother, who died Aug. 24 at 45, Eric Quezada, lived and died organizing his community, La Misión.
San Francisco and the wider community lost more than just a housing activist, a former candidate for supervisor, and an extraordinarily effective standard bearer of the left. We lost a husband-father-son-brother, a loyal friend and mentor, and a spiritual-political figure whose sources of beauty only became obvious after he gently touched you.
The son of Carlos and Clara Quezada, two Guatemalan immigrants known to many Mission residents as the dynamic duo that birthed two soccer stars (Eric and older brother Carlos) and owned CQ Bike shop on 24th Street, the very soft-spoken Eric lived to bridge the human and the political.
Traveling as a child between a San Francisco on the verge of the silicon revolution-based gentrification wave and wartime Guatemala, Eric developed early on a sense of the emotional and political circuits connecting movements and people on the insurgent continent of América. He grew up hearing stories of very involved and engaged family members like aunt, Ana Maria Quezada, who was arrested for protesting and organizing in Argentina during the 1978 World Cup, and his parents, who lived through the military coup that ousted democratically-elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. "I remember hearing stories about Arbenz," Eric once told us, adding, "—and how the U.S. sponsored the coup."
Eric's unique vision was also born out of the racism –and the resistance to it-back home in the Bay Area. Eric often talked of how his mother and he once witnessed two police officers harassing several young African American boys in the parking lot of a convenience store. Clara immediately took the officers to task for their racism, refusing to leave until they left the young boys alone. Eric never forgot his immigrant mother's courage, her transcendent lesson: always stand alongside those who face injustice.
"Eric is a continuum," fellow organizer and beloved compañera, Lorena Melgarejo, said. "His beliefs, his commitment didn't stop in public. They are deep in how he thought about life. As a dad, as a friend, as a lover- that's who he was," said Lorena.
After Eric told her when they first met that he didn't want to burden her with his cancer, Lorena responded: "You have no right to stop your life, you can't close the door to life!" After that, they were never apart. Embracing life, one filled with no regrets, they fell in love immediately. A few years later, upon the arrival of their beautiful daughter Ixchel, Lorena reminded the larger-than-life, activist father that, "You can't put your personal life on hold because there'll always be an event, a meeting or some crisis in the world."

As was obvious to anyone who really got to know him, one of Eric's primary connectors to that wider, crisis-filled world of politics and culture was something seemingly apolitical: soccer.
"His politics were like his soccer playing," explained Eric's uncle, Edgar, who formed an important part of the Sagastume soccer dynasty in late 20th century San Francisco. "When Eric played, he was cool, but tenacious, hard working. He trained meticulously and never gave up. Eric was fond of saying how he "learned about the politics in different countries—Croatia, Greece, Mexico, El Salvador, England, all kinds—from playing in the San Francisco (soccer) leagues. You learned international relations and neighborhood politics at the same time."
Such a schooling made Eric a ferocious ally of Central American revolutionary movements including the URNG in Guatemala, Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the FMLN in El Salvador. These same commitments also served him well as a leader in the Venceremos Brigade to Cuba, where he met Fidel Castro, famously causing the Cuban leader to become nostalgic when asked about his memories of meeting Malcolm X in Harlem. Later, in 2002, he met with Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. They talked about everything from 21st century socialism to baseball. Beaming with the pride that only a lifelong—not fair weather—fan can display, Eric swore that Chávez was a huge fan of the San Francisco Giants.
The eclectic internationalism Eric envisioned and embodied was always two-way. He always strived towards reciprocity. Through Grassroots Global Justice and his work at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre (Brazil), Eric sought to bring to the international stage the struggles of working class San Franciscans: day laborers, the homeless, people with HIV, and undocumented immigrants.
Eric's journey reflected that of his mentor and dear friend, the legendary Bill Sorro (who himself died of cancer four years ago this very week). Both Bill and Eric were revolutionaries largely unsatisfied with the traditional rhetoric and disarming anger of the left. "We don't struggle because we hate, we do so because we love. Yes, we may hate oppression but in the end we are fighting for something, we fight out of a place of love." Eric never wavered in this.
Eric was a jazz man. A saxophone player, he believed in the art of improvisation and experimentation. At a time when the left was floundering, Eric brought a musical spirit to the necessary work of strengthening dialogue, analysis, and education in the community. He co-founded the Center for Political Education (San Francisco's equivalent of the legendary Brecht Forum), which has served since 1998 as a catalyst for more effective organizing and as a space to build bridges.
Eric understood the centrality of compassionate bridge-building to political success. And like one of his heroes, Monseñor Oscar Romero, he will in his death rise again in his people. For Oscar Grande, a young community organizer with PODER, a Mission-based Latino environmental and economic justice organization, "Eric was instrumental in bringing radical politics and a visionary spirit to Mission politics," said Grande.
Eric's involvement in city politics was less about winning elections and electoral power than about the process of teaching the community how to deal with the powers that be. "He was about 'let's re-write the laws and get rid of the bums at City Hall so we can get the things our community needs: housing, open space and recreation opportunities at the material level,'" Grande said. But, according to Grande, who describes Eric as an "older bro/mentor," Eric's greatest contribution was spiritual.

"There are fewer and fewer schools of politics, places where you learn how to do politics," said Grande. "Most of those that are still around in the Latino community are about deal-making, cozying up to the politicians. Eric offered an alternative. The spiritual and the political were always there. Those other fools started from the top-down. Eric started from the bottom up." This was a key principle of the Mission Anti-displacement Coalition that Eric was instrumental in establishing.
During the last five years of his life, Eric's bottom-up, interconnecting philosophy was realized at Dolores Street Community Services, a housing and community advocacy organization. For Wendy Phillips, longtime friend of Eric and DSCS Interim Executive Director, Eric was instrumental in securing real housing and other resources for different groups and in connecting DSCS and the Mission to immigrant rights, LGBT rights, and other struggles of our time.
"I think helping create MAC was a huge accomplishment of his because it stopped the massive wave of gentrifying capital entering the Mission. He and MAC mobilized hundreds of people to resist and show the board of supervisors and Mayor that the Mission wasn't going to go down without a fight." Their efforts resulted in a community rezoning process that has prioritized the creation of affordable housing in the Mission.
Phillips also noted that, while at DSCS, Eric also spearheaded the creation of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network, a network of thirteen organizations that provide free legal services for immigrants, and, of course, advocacy. As if describing his soccer-inspired cosmopolitanism, she said, "Before it became obvious to most, Eric sensed that things were getting really bad on immigration and decided to create SFILEN, which unites Latino organizations, African organizations, Arab organizations, and Asian organizations in an effort to defend immigrants citywide."
Eric's defense of — and offensives in — La Mision continues to reverberate in and beyond his beloved neighborhood. "My campaign is really reigniting and reasserting the movement that Eric Quezada helped to build and grow," said John Avalos, a serious contender in the upcoming Mayor's race. Avalos, who has dedicated his campaign to Eric and his family, believes that Eric best symbolizes the continuation of the "movement of the people to build power against the downtown forces of gentrification and create livable neighborhoods where people can live with dignity."
Eric Quezada spent his last days accompanied by loved ones. Along with Lorena, Ixchel and his mother, Eric was tended to and accompanied at his bedside by soccer buddies, family members, his closest personal and political friends, all of whom joined him in taking in the soothing sounds of his favorite music: guitarist friends playing boleros and bossa nova, CD's of Los Lobos and Jorge Drexler, whose song "Todo Se Transforma," (nothing is lost, everything is transformed) gave solace to Eric until his final breath. From the vantage point of our present heartbreak, it gives the rest of us hope.
In the lingo of the Latino and Latin American musical and political movements that informed Eric's thought and action and his life in La Mision, "El Compañero Eric Quezada murio conspirando," Comrade Eric Quezada died conspiring.
While in English the word "conspire" means to "make secret plans jointly to commit an unlawful or harmful act," in political Spanish the word has an almost opposite meaning. Conspirar is closer to the Latin roots that combine con, meaning "together," and spirare, the word for "breathing" and the origin of the word, "spirit."
In this way, Eric conspired for a better world. After his last breath, he has left us a great spirit. We love you, carnal. Compañero Eric Quezada PRESENTE! La Lucha Continua!!!