10 EXERCISES ON POLITICAL IMAGINATION

Working Draft/June/2002

10 Exercises on Political Imagination

By Guillermo Gómez-Peña

I am an activist performance artist and orphan of two nation/states, Mexico and the US. My art and my literature have granted me the full citizenship denied to me by both countries. Through my writings, performances, video and radio pieces, I have invented my own conceptual country. In my "inverted cartography", Chicanos and U.S. Latinos become the mainstream culture, with Spanglish as the lingua franca, and mono-cultural Anglos become an ever-shrinking minority (Waspbacks or Waspanos) unable to participate in the public life of "my" country because of their unwillingness to learn Spanish, embrace our culture and accept their political responsibilities. In my performances, my colleagues and I often invite "all immigrants and people of color" to enter the theater or the museum first; then "all bilingual people and interracial couples" and finally "all monolingual Anglos." We treat our audiences as "exotic minorities" and temporary foreigners in "our" America. In a nutshell, we assume a fictitious center and push the dominant culture to the margins. Art critics describe this radical epistemology, as "reverse anthropology" and "Chicano cyber-punk art." To me it is just a humorously heightened form of social realism. I believe in the border culture of recycling. The "performance texts" I have chosen to share with the reader have something in common:they all have been recontextualized and inserted into multiple contexts: live performance, radio, video and the Internet.

I.-The Self-Deportation Project *1
(1996)

What if HG Wells had been Chicano? Imagine one of the possible immediate futures in a typical US city, that is to say, a city full of immigrants, people of color, and people who speak other languages...like Spanish. You perceive yourself as an "angry white male," but no one knows about it. Not even your beautiful "Hispanic" wife or your interracial kids. close your eyes and just imagine:

You wake up one day and go to work. You need to stop for gas, but the gas station is closed. (You don't know that all the attendants went back to Old Mexico the day before). You drive around looking for an open gas station until you run out of gas. You call a cab, but there are no cabs because the drivers, mainly Latino, quit the day before.

Somehow you make it to the office to find your colleagues watching TV in total disbelief. A nervous president Clinton is pleading for all unemployed Anglos and African Americans to show up immediately to the closest emergency labor recruitment center. The country is paralyzed. Total Brown-out!The disappeared Latino labor force must be replaced overnight.

At lunch time you discover that most restaurants are closed, duh! Someone explains to you that the chefs and the waiters were all part of an epic self-deportation program. Since you are fairly apolitical, you still don't quite get it. Many stores and hotels are closed-for obvious reasons-, and the banks are going crazy. All across the country, millions of Mexicans, with their suitcases in hand, are lining up at bank counters to withdraw their accounts, on their way back to their homelands.

You begin to worry about your family. You decide to go home, walking of course, cause, remember, your car is parked somewhere in the other side of town without gas. Your Hispanic wife is devastated. Most of her relatives chose to go back to the old country. She is also furious because Juan, the gardener and Maria, the baby sitter are nowhere to be found. She explains she had to stay home to take care of the kids, and missed all of her work appointments. She even had to take the kids to do the shopping which Maria normally does. They stood in an eternal line at the supermarket only to find that there was no fresh produce. According to the supermarket manager, "there were no Mexican truckers to deliver it."

Now your kids are crying because they miss Maria!.
You go to bed in total perplexity, and you dream...in Spanish. Or better said, you have a nightmare in Spanish: You see yourself picking fruit under a criminal sun for 10 hours a day. Your hands covered with a monstrous skin disease produced by pesticides. You wake up sweating.

Next morning, you turn on the TV. A panicked president delivers the bad news: Very few people responded to his desperate call for workers. The unemployed "citizens" were clearly not inspired by the idea of working for minimum wage and no benefits. The nation's tourist, construction, garment and food industries, are all in disarray. San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Jose, Fresno, San Francisco, Phoenix, Tucson, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Denver, San Antonio, Houston, Chicago and a myriad other smaller cities have declared bankruptcy. And so have many national banks. And if this weren't enough, -the president concludes- within days, crops across the country will begin to rot because there's simply no one to pick them. Luckily Mexico has offered to send some emergency food supplies, humanitarian aid, and maybe even some Mexicans." In very broken Spanglish or rather gringoñol, a desperate president Clinton, proceeds to beg the remaining Mexicans to stay: "Queridous amigous: querremos que ustedis recapaciten y nou abandounen sus trajayos mas, les subiremimos el salary y les dareimos muchious benefits y su terjeita verdi instantánea. Por favour."

Now, you cool down. Its been a hard day que no? You sip your delicious coffee...from Chiapas, and put on your Buena Vista Social Club CD.

II.-Lección De Geografía Finisecular
En Español Para Anglosajones Monolingues

Dear perplexed reader/listener/audience member,
repeat with me out loud:
México es California
Marruecos es Madrid
Pakistan es Londres
Argelia es París
Cambodia es San Francisco
Turquía es Frankfurt
Puerto Rico es Nueva York
Centroamérica es Los Angeles
Honduras es New Orleans
Argentina es París
Beijing es San Francisco
Haití es Nueva York
Nicaragua es Miami
Quebec es Euskadi
Chiapas es Irlanda
Ramallah is East LA
Your house is also mine
Your language mine as well
And your heart will be ours
one of these nights.
Es la fuerza del sur
el Sur en el Norte
el Norte se desangra
el Norte se evapora
por los siglos de los siglos
and suddenly you're homeless
you've lost your land again
estimado anti-paisano
your present dilemma is to wander
in a transient geography de locos
without a flashlight, without a clue
sin visa, ni flota, joder.

III.-The imaginary effects of a Trans-American free trade zone (2001).

In Quebec City, Canada, on April 20,(year?) the heads of 34 governments of North, South, Central America, and the Caribbean met in secret with hundreds of corporations to negotiate the terms for the creation of a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, speculates about its possible repercussions.

Dear reader, I ask you to close your eyes and imagine a fully globalized American continent unified by free trade, "global" media, and communication technologies. It’s 2003, "the year of the stalking fox" according to the Mayan calendar. This Trans-American free trade zone is controlled by 50 macro-corporations with an executive board made up of faceless officers from the World Bank, the WTO, the Pan-Asian Community and of course, the US president. "Governments" function as representatives of the executive board, and politicians as local managers. The official currency is called Ameri-dollar, and the lingua franca is "fusion English," spiced with corporate Spanglish, frangle and cyber-Esperanto.

Corporate republics are popping up everywhere in the blink of an eye. Hong-Kong has relocated to Baja California to constitute the powerful Baja-Kong, the world’s greatest producer of cyber-porn and tourist kitsch. The twin cities of San Diego and TJ/Taiwana have united to form The Mac/quiladora Republic of San Diejuana, the center of an intricate blackmarket spiderweb. The cities of Los Angeles and Tokyo now share a corporate government called Japangeles, which oversees all the financial operations of the Pacific Rim. The old city of San Francisco is now "Chilicon Valley" a Latino Bohemian "entertainment city" co-produced by Sony-Metreon and Dreamworks. Curiously the neighbouring Republik of Berkeley is the only Marxist-Leninist nation left on the globe.

On the Northern East Coast, things aren’t any simpler. The US-Canandian border is an ever fading memory. All the Caribbean
micro-republics, including Nuyo Rico and Cuba York, have merged to form The Great Pan-Carib Nation, sponsored by Goya Products and Telemundo. They willingly accept refugees from Haiti and Miami. Florida and Cuba now share a corporate junta with the cryptic name of "Lenin, Mas Canosa Jr. & Associates." The motto on their flag reads: "Gambling, Tourism & Erotica will set us free."

South of the San Diego-Brownsville canal, the geopolitical changes triggered by the FTAA sound like a Chicano sci-fi B-movie script. The nation/city of Mexico is presently negotiating its independence from V. Fox Entertainment, a merger of Bush, Fox & Associates. The Zona Autonomica Zapatista, a division of MARCOS Oil is separated from the rest of old Mexico by the Tehuantepec Itsmus canal, which in 2002 replaced the quaint Panama Canal, remember?

As the old nation/states topple by their own weight, and get instantly re-shaped into hybrid corporate entities, we witness a logical resurgence of ultranationalist movements. Quebec, the Labrador Penninsula, Montana, Texas, the US Southwest, Yucatan, Puerto Rico and all the Indian Nations are understandably the first ones to secede; followed by Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama, which comprise a loose coalition of New African nationalist states. The new Liberation Armies are in charge of expelling anyone who is unable to show DNA proof of ethnic origin as far back as ten generations.

Atavic fights over matters of nano-sovreignty and bioregional identity resurface with an uncontrollable passion. These quarrels get complicated by disagreements over the exact placement of the new borders. The balkanization of the Americas poses all kinds of challenges to our traditional notions of personal and national identity, community and language. For the moment, everyone seems to be agonizing over the following question: Which language should we use to communicate our mortal disagreements? The official "fusion English" as in this text, or our lingua mater? Simplement, Je ne sais pas, mom cher radioescucha. Any suggestions?

IV.-The New Hybrid Tribes
(1993. Revised 1999)

Imagine a French anthropologist, Jaques Fromage du Merde from la Sorbonne, attempting to explain the racial eccentricity of contemporary America to his colleagues back home.

(Neurotic French accent)

"Dear colleagues:
This new society is characterized by mass migrations and bizarre interracial relations. As a result, new hybrid identities are emerging. All Mexican citizens have turned into Chicanos or Mexkimos and all Canadians have become Chicanadians.
Everyone is now a borderígena, meaning a native of the great border region. According to Transnational Geographic Magazine, 70% of the population in the New World Border is undocumented, and up to 90% can be technically considered mesti-mulata , that is the product of at least four racial mixtures. Such is the case of the crazy Chicarricuas, who are the products of Puertorrican-mulatto and Chicano-mestizo parents; and also the innumerable Germanchurians who descend from the union of West Germans and Manchurian Chinese. When a Chicarricua marries a Hasidic Jew their child is called Hasidic vato loco. And when a displaced Belgian marries a Chicano, the offspring is called Belga-chica, which loosely translates as "little winnie". Among the other significantly large half-breed groups are the Anglomalans , the Afro-Croatians and the Jap-talians, many of whom I see here tonight. It's lovely and very, very Post-Colombian, Culombian, may I say, say . . . melting plot.

We've replaced the bankrupt notion of the melting plot with a model that is more germane to the times, that of the menudo chowder. According to this model, most of the ingredients do melt, but some stubborn chunks are condemned merely to float."

VI.-On Censorship
(1995. Revised 2001)

(In the radio version the "censored" parts should be beeped. In the live version they should b e subvocalized. In the published version these parts should be blackened).

Dear reader/listener/audience member,

I politely ask you to close your eyes and imagine a faraway country controlled by far-right politicians in their 70’s who are supported by religious fundamentalists and gun manufacturers…Just imagine
They believe (or rather pretend to believe) that "the liberal media" and experimental art have thoroughly destroyed our social fabric, our moral and family values, and they are determined to restore them at any cost. As part of their great project of "moral restoration" they have decided to carefully scrutinize everything that goes on radio, TV, printed journalism, performance art
including this very (beep). So, from (beep) to sitcoms, and from news (beep) to (beep) programming, they have digital censors which can detect key words that trigger ideological or (beep) difference. Since it is practically impossible to monitor everything,
they have devised a mechanism via which (beep) the syntactic and conceptual coherence of a thought is (beep), especially when dealing with conflicting opin- (beep). So, when it comes to say, sexuality, most explicit words have been (beep). And I mean, just words, such as (beep) or (beep) or (beep).
In politics, things are not that different. In order to ensure that tende-(beep) information does not pollute the minds of true American patriots like you, they have (longer beep) forbidding the use of terminology like (beep) or co-(beep) or even an innocent term like (beep).
In a world such as this, content would be restricted to (beep) and the possibility to make intelligent civic choices would be affecting our funda-(beep) to (long beep).

\
Imagine, what kind of a world would this be?

VII.-Campaigning for the Brown House.
(2000)

Two months before election day,
The Third Party Chicano candidate addresses the Brown House:
(normal voice):
"Dear Chicanos and honorary Chicanos,
The historical mission of the U.S. is to put the world at risk
and then to save it from the very risks they created;
for example, to arm other countries
and then to attack them for being armed;
to provide weapons and drugs to the youth of color
and then to imprison them for using them;
to endanger species and then to raise consciousness
and create programs to save them;
to evict the poor and then punish them for living on the streets;
to turn women and people of color into freaks
& then laugh at us for acting out accordingly.
The historical Mission of the U.S. is very, very peculiar.

I PUT ON DARK GLASSES & BANDANA
(Bold lines are delivered in normal voice as myself /others in stylized Chicano accent as a politician)

Dear audience,
If I were a politician, would you vote for me?
Despite my my outlaw looks, my obvious vices?
Despite my lack of theatrical training?
If this was, say, a presidential campaign
and not a performance art piece,
what would I say? What should I say?
Imaginary political speech #5

\ABRASIVE W/MEGAPHONE

Dear citizens of the millennial barrio,
We are faced with a very serious dilemma:
we have now entered the post-democratic phase
of advanced capitalism,
and there’s simply...no return.
Orale! Parezco Malcolm Mex.

We politicians have total disregard for human pain,
for the homeless, the immigrants from the South,
our elders and children,
the artists, the enfermed, the crazy ones like you.
We have gotten used to living without seeing, without sharing.
For the moment all we share is...the moment
No, no, no, that’s a bad phrase.
I’ll try imaginary political speech #7.

I DROP MEGAPHONE & RAISE MY FIST
(Grave voice)

Dear orphans of the nation/state,
We now live...
we now live in a fully borderized world
composed of virtual nations,
transnational pop cultures & hybrid races.
(to an audience member)
Hey, that’s a great line
& all we share is fear & vertigo
fear of the future, of love, disease & loneliness,
of total disenfranchisement.
And vertigo?
The feeling of standing on the edge of a new millennium.
Yessss!!
Pure horror vacui: Y2K, y que,
Apocalypse Mañana!
We feel it in our crotch
& it goes up our spine
& into our throat
& out of our nostrils and eyes
& its fucking unbearable!!!!!
I’m overdoing it, I know,
but I see no other way to make my point.
Wait, there might be another way...a joint!

I LIGHT UP A JOINT & SMOKE IT

(slow voice)
Imaginary political speech #12
Dear generic American citizenry,
If you vote for me
I can assure you that as the first Mexican president of the USA,
I will fulfill your fears and desires like no other politician ever did
& all your stereotypes will come true carnales, uufff!
I’ll open all borders, legalize drugs,
create nude university campuses,
make daily sex mandatory,
make Spanglish the official language,
expropriate all TV stations and hand them over to poets,
abolish the police force & the national guard,
ban all weapons, from handguns to missiles,
& deport Bush back to Texas.
Orale! feels great to imagine…

I TAKE OUT BANDANA & DARK GLASSES

VIII.- Helpful performance tips on how to avoid xenophobia and express solidarity with innocent Arab-Americans after 9/11
(in collaboration with Elaine Katzenberger)

Given the current atmosphere of overwhelming fear and suspicion, with citizen vigilantism on the rise and civil liberties being sacrificed on the altar of "national security," we may encounter the need to protect ourselves and others from the rage of misinformed citizens. We would like to humbly suggest the following performative options:

1.-In order to avoid misled racist attacks, all Arab-Americans should wear a mariachi hat and a Mexican zarape when going out in public.
2.-All Arab-looking Latinos and South Asians should follow suit.
3.-Other "looks" which might be useful to try include a).-The Native
American Dandy --braids, Indian beadwork and a leather vest; b).-The Chicana Matron/Frida Kahlo look --Mexican folk dress with an accompanying "authentic ethnic" hair-do; c).-The Tex-Mex vaquero --Stetson hat, fringed leather jacket and cowboy boots; and/or d).-The Andean street musician --panpipes, Bolivian hat and colorful woven vest.
4.-And for those Anglo or Anglo-looking people who wish to
express solidarity with Arab-Americans and Arab-looking people, we suggest wearing buttons, T-shirts or baseball caps that state, "We are all Arabs."
5.-Arab Americans should call the FBI hotline to report sightings of
suspicious-looking Montana militia or survivalist types, especially in
groups of two or more.
We would also like to politely propose that those who spout xenophobic rhetoric should be held responsible for their words in the following ways:
6.-Those who believe that racism and ethnic profiling are "minor issues" in the face of the tragedy must spend an entire day in public wearing a turban and a fake beard or a Muslim woman's headscarf. This will help aquire both humility and perspective.
7.-Those who insist that Arabs in the US should "go back where they came from" will be asked to name at least five Arab homelands and to find them on a map.
8.- Anyone who states that "those people are fanatics" or "they just don't value life the way we do" will be handed a copy of the Turner Diaries and a photograph of Timothy McVeigh.
9.- Those who believe that "security is more important than civil
liberties," must name exactly which of the amendments to the US Constitution-- known as the Bill of Rights -- they are personally willing to sacrifice.
10. Finally, for all who feel that public dialogue is "inappropriate and divisive" at this time, as in "you're either with us, or you're with them," there will be a simple performative requirement: wrap a blindfold tightly over your eyes (you may not use a flag), plug up your ears, put a patch over your mouth, and practice marching in a straight, unbroken line with others who have done the same.

X.-Millenial Doubts.
(2001)

Dear reader/listener/audience:
I’m feeling a bit insecure & introspective tonight.
I just turned 46
& I wonder if I’m still asking the right questions
or am I merely repeating myself?
Am I going far enough, or should I go further?
North? But the North does not exist,
South? Should I go back to Mexico for good?
Regresar en español a las entrañas de mi madre?
Que bello pensamiento.
But the Mexican nation-state is collapsing as I speak
so stricto sensu, Mexico en español no longer exists
'cause everyday
Mexico & the U.S.
look more & more like one another
& less & less like you & I
which means, "we" are no longer foreigners to one another.
Follow my logic?
Therefore, as orphans of two nation-states
we’ve got no government or flag to defend.
We’ve only got one another
which sounds quite romantic,
I mean, politically speaking,
but it’s a philosophical nightmare.
I mean, if neither the North nor the South
are viable options anymore,
where should I go? East? EST?
Should I go deeper into my global psyche
& become a Chicano buddhist?
Or should I cross the digital divide west
& join the art technologist cadre?
How?
Alter my identity through body enhancement techniques,
laser surgery, prosthetic implants,
& become the Mexica Orlan?
A glow-in-the-dark transgenic mojado?
Or a trans-ethnic cyborg, perhaps?
A Ricky Martin with brains?
That’s a strange thought.
Maybe I should donate my body
to the MIT artificial intelligence department
so they can implant computer nacho chips in my *&^%^76%78
or a very, very sentimental robotic bleeding heart?
What about a chipotle-squirting techno-jalapeño phallus
to blind the migra when crossing over?
Or an "intelligent" tongue…activated by tech-eela?
You know, imaginary technology
for those without access to the real one.

No, I got to get me a "real" job, a 9 to 5 job.
But the question is, doing what?
Hey, I can teach "Chiconics" at a university!
"What’s up esos, chinguen a sus profesores.
Saquen la mota y el chemo.
Forever, Aztlan nation."

How about posing as a model for a computer ad:
"El Mexterminator thinks different, y que?"
Or posing as a wholesome eccentric for a Ben & Jerry's poster?
I could conduct self-realization seminars for Latino dot-commers:
"Come to terms with your inner Chihuahua."
Or "Find your inner Aztec."
Or "The pito within."
Or "How to camouflage your ethnicity to get a better job."
It’s tough to find a useful task for a performance artist nowadays.
In the year of the mainstream bizarre & revolution-as-style
what does it mean to be "radical"?
What does "radical behavior" mean after Howard Stern,
Jerry Springer, fellatio in the White House, 6-year-old killers,
a First World Banana Republic tampering with electoral ballots,
a dysfunctional alcoholic running the so-called "free world"
as if he were directing an Spagetti Western in the wrong set?
I ask myself rhetorically,
what else is there to "transgress"?
Who can artists shock, challenge, or enlighten?
Can we start all over again?
Can we?

X.-Freefalling Toward A Borderless Future
(1992. Revised 1997)

I see
I see
I see a whole generation
free falling toward a borderless future
incredible mixtures beyond sci fi:
cholo-punks, cyber-Mayans
Irish concheros, Benneton Zapatistas,
Gringofarians, Buttho rappers, Hopi rockers...
I see them all
wandering around
a continent without a name,
the forgotten paisanos
howling corridos in Fresno & Amarillo
the Mixteco pilgrims heading North toward British Columbia
the Australian surfers waiting for the big wave at Valparaiso
the polyglot Papagos waiting for the sign to return
the Salvadorans coming North to forget
the New Yorkers going South to remember
the stubborn Europeans in search of the last island
Zumpango, Cozumel, Martinique
I see them all
wandering around
a continent without a name
el TJ transvestite translating Nuyorican versos in Univision
the howling L.A. junkie bashing NAFTA with a bullhorn
El Warrior for Gringostroika scolding the 1st World on MTV
Cholo warriors pointing their camcorders at the cops
Aids warriors reminding us all of the true priorities in life
Lacandonian shamans exorcising multi-nationals at dawn
yuppie tribes paralyzed by guilt & fear
grunge rockeros on the edge of a cliff
all passing through Califas
en-route to other selves
& other geographies
(I speak in tongues)
standing on the map of my political desires
I toast to a borderless future
with...
our Alaskan hair
our Canadian head
our US torso
our Mexican genitalia
our Central American cojones
our Caribbean vulva
our South American legs
our Patagonian feet
our Antartic nails
jumping borders at ease
jumping borders with pleasure
amen, hey man