My History - Mi Historia

A torment of pain transcended the eons of my ethnicity, engraving on the white pyramids of Chichen-Itza my life. Walking the pebbled courtyards and confronting the descendants of my own slaughtered and sacrificed families these bronze skinned children selling Chiclets to visiting world tourists sparked a flash of memory carrying me back to my youth to a dream of a thousand-fold days of humid summers where we swam the cooling green waters of the cenote and watched our mothers washing clothes off the river bank. Every now and then, looking over our shoulders, we sensed an unknown presence long ago embedded in our DNA; dressed in shiny metal clothes, lurking behind bushes, their evil faces, anxious faces, blood soaked faces that gave us fear of visions of a foreboding destiny. At that time of our youth, our laughter clung to these ancient pyramids as gum clings to hair and blood smells waft into nostrils. Next to the Templo de Muerte (Temple of Death), the children sang grieving hymns; their angelic voices rang throughout the valley honoring the victims that had been slaughtered a forever ago. Those cantankerous European specters that won’t die still litter the blood filled paths to our haunt filled history. Anguished, archaic tears mixed with the suffering of today's tears feed an embedded legacy of despair; a legacy that among other things in other places and later times created wonderful things enjoyed today: shiny roaring automobiles, moving pictures in boxes, music on wires flowing incessantly. Their bewildering, cacophonous sounds surely not understood by the architects of these pyramids. But in this land where I was born, these lands deeded to me by my ancestors, lands that are mine, but not mine, lands in which I am equal, but not equal, lands confiscated with impunity by the privileged gun that left our families with sickness, deprivation, hunger and death while men with golden hair lusting after our women, acting intolerantly and reprehensibly carried a lethal hatred towards all of us. Centuries have come and gone, but their abhorrent behavior and venomous hatred is still ingrained in their bosom as in ours... maybe forever. I have yet to comprehend the upbringing of such people. What monstrous devils spewed life into them, taught them the words of a benevolent Jesus Christ, then blessed their horrendous, despicable acts? The length and breadth of their vicious cruelty is inexplicable to me. It has given pause to my sense of mercy and justice enough to choke my ability to put it into human context and explain it to my children.