Growing up in southern Arizona, I was surrounded by cotton fields, ranches, and other farms that employ large amounts of migrant workers. Nowadays, the controversy is illegal immigration. In the past, it was the exploitation of the migrant worker population. I had friends who still didn't eat grapes, I learned about the United Farm Workers in middle school, along with Teatro Campesino. I was surprised to learn, on moving away from that culture, that most people had no idea Campesino exists. Even in San Francisco (Luis Valdez, the founder, is a former Mime Trouper, and Teatro Campesino's home is close to the city). Anyway, growing up in this culture rich with UFW history, si se puede is an incredibly powerful phrase. Stories of the UFW's strikes and protests (like not eating grapes) were my first exposure to the power of unions, the power that people have when they join together to say that things are not ok, and that we do have the power to change them. I was lucky enough to have teachers in middle school that taught Cesar Chavez along with Martin Luther King, Jr., that emphasized the power of Luis Valdez's performances on the back of trucks in the fields to rally the workers, they inspired in me the power of the people, and the power of the arts. Si se puede, for me, is inseparable from those feelings, that change is possible, that the power does still reside in the people if they choose to wield it. That phrase has the power to give me goosebumps, but only when used well. Otherwise, it makes me angry that it's been taken from this tradition.
Which brings me to Obama. He made a speech. Meg made me listen to it. It gave me goosebumps, and made me tear up a little. Clinton has been criticizing Obama from using words, and not actions, recently. Well, she hasn't been using either. It's a campaign, a campaign in which the two primary candidates platforms are startlingly similar, what else is there but words? In a campaign, what else has their ever been but words? And his words bring back that empowerment that the phrase si se puede gave to so many during the UFW era, and to those that know that history, live in that culture. I feel like Obama is reminding us, the people that care, that we still do have the power to change things, that change is actually still possible. He is attempting to repair the damage of the Bush regime, and he hasn't even won an election yet. Policies, wars, tax cuts, aside, the biggest thing Bush has done is make us feel powerless, that we can't stand up to the government we disagree with, that we can't make any change on our own. Obama's rhetoric is beginning to mend that. And that is more powerful, more important than the difference between his and Hillary's health care plans. As Michael Sullivan reminded Mime Troupe audiences this summer in very few words, Obama tells the world: the politicians work for us. We are their bosses. Let's fire the ones we don't like.
And so, I join Obama-rama. Porque, si, se puede.
oh, here's the speech. i stole it from meg's blog. also, thanks megling.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…
they will only grow louder and more dissonant ………..
We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA;
we will remember that there is something happening in America;
that we are not as divided as our politics suggests;
that we are one people;
we are one nation;
and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast;
from sea to shining sea –
Yes. We. Can.
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