FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
FEBRUARY 27, 2004
COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS By Patrisia Gonzales
and Roberto Rodriguez
'Don’t Let All This Die'
(Editor's note: This is a first-person
column by Roberto Rodriguez. –
Following article is a story published on
the Column of the Americas authors)
Last week, within a 24-hour period, three
colleagues unexpectedly passed away. That
shock has taken me back a generation to
when I attended 12 funerals of friends in
18 months. While most died violent
deaths, only one was a gang member.
In a sense, my friends' deaths could've
been predicted: They were all young, and
this is what happens in America's violent
cities. To this day, that sense of
fatigue and those traumatic memories
still haunt me.
Lately, however, it's the artists, poets
and writers in our midst who've also been
dying in virtually similar numbers (we've
listed many in our annual Dia de los
Muertos columns). Most have been in their
40s or early 50s -- virtually the same
generation as my friends, though dying
more than 20 years apart, yet still too
young for Mictlan. There's something
unsettling about the older burying the
younger.
Last week's deaths of our colleagues (two
were longtime friends) were unexpected.
First was Steve Neal, 55, longtime
columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Later, Patrisia and I learned that
veteran El Paso journalist and educator
Robby Farley Kelly Villalobos, 50, had
died the previous day from cancer.
That evening, we spoke to a friend about
Robby's death, about the meaning of life
and death, about her career (El Paso
Times, the El Paso Herald-Post and El
Diario de Juarez), and her recent
marriage. It was so unsettling that we
turned in early.
Restless, I woke up in the middle of the
night only to find several messages
waiting for us, informing us that veteran
Los Angeles Times newsman Frank del Olmo,
55, had suddenly died that afternoon.
All these deaths are numbing and
baffling, because there isn't a similar
number of people in other professions who
are passing away at these early ages.
Except soldiers.
Last year, like many, we both were
literally sickened by the
administration's calculating march to
war. Patrisia called it an allergic
reaction to war. Perhaps that's the
common denominator -- people whose
vocation involves the search for truth.
People in the creative fields are
extremely sensitive to the absence of
truth, especially in times of war. I had
never seen journalists as part of that
creative community. And maybe we're not.
But something inexplicable is going on.
Death often is not rational nor coherent,
and sometimes there's no extractable
meaning. When our close friend and
colleague Cecilio Garcia Camarillo (poet
laureate of Aztlan, who hailed from Texas
and New Mexico) recently passed away,
that was difficult. His son, (Stanford
student) Itzolin Garcia, took his life
several months later; we've yet to make
sense of it.
That's how it feels right now. Robby was
beloved virtually by all of El Paso. Even
closer to home for me is the death of del
Olmo, co-founder of the California
Chicano News Media Association. I've been
part of that CCNMA family since I was
editor of La Gente Newspaper at UCLA in
1975-'76.
Frank's legacy is that he shouldn't yet
have a legacy. Some saw him as destined
to head the Los Angeles Times -- a
newspaper that hasn't always been
responsive to its communities of color.
Ten years after the 1970 killing of
columnist Ruben Salazar (along with Lyn
Ward and Angel Diaz at an anti-Vietnam
war rally in East L.A.), del Olmo became
a Times columnist. Controversial? Of
course. He took controversial positions
and hits from all directions --
particularly from those who still believe
that people of color have no right to
voice their opinions publicly.
Despite that, his influence upon the
Times is immeasurable beyond its sphere
-- a project he dedicated his life to,
improving and making the newspaper
relevant to all. The birth of his
autistic son, Frankie, changed him and
helped raise the consciousness of his
readers about autism. Perhaps his biggest
impact was felt at CCNMA, whose members
have developed and mentored hundreds of
journalists since 1972.
(Full disclosure: I was honored by the
organization in 1986 for defense of the
First Amendment.)
How do we remember those who have passed?
Perhaps by honoring the living. Here, I
leave Frankie's words at the rosary:
"Please don't let all this
die."
To honor del Olmo's memory and his wife's
(Magdalena) wishes, contributions can be
made to the Frank del Olmo Memorial
Scholarship Fund at CCNMA, 3800 S.
Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90037 CCNMA
(http://www.ccnma.org/),
or the Cure Autism Now Foundation, 5455
Wilshire Blvd., Suite 715, Los Angeles,
CA 90036.
* Gonzales & Rodriguez can be reached
at 608-238-3161or XColumn@aol.com
-- PO BOX 5093, Madison, WI
53705. For speaking availability, bios,
publications and other info, call/write
us or visit: http://hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/index.html
* If you would like to see Column
of the Americas in your local newspaper,
please contact our editor, Greg Melvin at
Universal Press Syndicate GMelvin@uexpress.com
or 1-800-255-6734. Column of the Americas
is available at Universal's website every
Saturday at: http://www.uexpress.com/columnoftheamericas/
*****************
Happy and Painful
Milestones for 'Americas' Columnists
By Dave Astor
Editor & Publisher
Published: February 19, 2004
NEW YORK As winter turns to
spring, two Universal Press Syndicate
columnists have three milestones in their
thoughts.
Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales
will mark the 10th birthday of their
"Column of the Americas"
feature during the first week of March.
Later that month, Rodriguez will reach
another, very painful, point in time: the
25th anniversary of being attacked and
severely injured by law-enforcement
officials while working as a
photojournalist. Then, from April 1
through June 30, a UCLA exhibit inspired
by the columnists' research will focus on
a milestone dating back centuries: the
migration by ancestors of Mexico's
indigenous population from what is now
the United States.
The married couple -- who began their
column in 1994 for the now-defunct
Chronicle Features -- write about all
kinds of topics relating to the Americas
and the rest of the world. Among the
subjects: immigration, the importance of
not pitting different peoples of color
against each other, human rights, and
"social healing." That last
topic, said Gonzales, "is something
you rarely read about on the editorial
page."
Gonzales and Rodriguez have also done a
number of columns commenting on the Iraq
quagmire, the Bush-administration
doctrine of "pre-emptive war,"
and the president himself. "Since
2001," they wrote Jan. 30,
"President Bush has attempted to
convert universal outrage over 9/11 into
an extreme right-wing mandate, exploiting
fear in the process."
Their approach is usually serious, but
humor is periodically part of the mix.
"Column of the Americas" also
occasionally contains heartfelt personal
pieces -- such as those by Gonzales about
her experience as a rape victim,
"the art of visiting," and
different kinds of love.
"We've gotten more literary in our
writing," said Gonzales.
Being attacked a quarter century ago is
one thing that helped shape Rodriguez's
strong belief in human rights and
fighting injustice. It also helped lead
him to column-writing as a way to express
his opinions and help channel the anger
he felt for many years. Rodriguez was
working for Lowrider magazine in 1979
when he photographed Los Angeles County
sheriff's deputies assaulting a man
preaching on the street. The deputies
turned on Rodriguez and cracked his
skull. He later won criminal and civil
lawsuits that stretched on for seven
years -- a period in which Rodriguez
recalled being arrested and threatened
many times by police who didn't want him
taking his case to court.
The attack caused some memory loss for
Rodriguez that affects him to this day.
"I was an elephant prior to
1979," he said. "I could recall
anything." Now, if he's interrupted
during a speech, he makes sure he has
good notes to get him back on track. But,
though Rodriguez isn't that comfortable
with speaking and feels it's
"unhealthy" to talk about his
traumatic 1979-86 period, he also thinks
it's necessary. "Most of the people
this happens to are either dead or never
the same," he said. "Or they
don't rise to a professional class and
get into a position to speak out."
The exhibit at UCLA's Young Research
Library includes maps the columnists
found, starting in 1998, that indicate
the indigenous population in Mexico has
roots in U.S. locales such as present-day
Utah.
"We're part of this continent. We've
been here for thousands of years,"
said Rodriguez, who was born in Mexico.
Texas-born Gonzales is of
Kikapu/Comanche/Mexican Indian descent.
Gonzales and Rodriguez -- who are working
on a documentary inspired by the maps --
last spring moved from Texas to
California to teach a course at UCLA on
"Sacred Geography: Going Back to
Where We Came From." They are
scheduled to again teach the course this
summer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison,
where they moved in 2003 to pursue
graduate degrees. Rodriguez, 49, is
earning a Ph.D. in communications, with a
focus on the importance of corn in the
development of civilization in the Americas.
Gonzales, 44, is earning a master's
degree as she focuses on indigenous
birthing methods different from the
"medicalized" deliveries many
women now experience in industrialized
countries.
The columnists have written several books
together and separately. Gonzales
recently received an award for "The
Mud People" (Chusma House) and will
be working on a spoken-word CD of the
book.
Both had daily newspaper backgrounds
before becoming syndicated columnists.
Gonzales was a reporter for The
Philadelphia Inquirer, the Tucson (Ariz.)
Citizen, and the Corpus Christi (Texas)
Caller-Times. Rodriguez has written for
papers such as the Inquirer, La Opinion
in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times,
The WashingtonPost, and USA Today.
* The opening celebration of
the map, codex & chronicles exhibit
at UCLA's Young Research Library will be
April 7. A symposium on the topic of
origins/migrations will be held May
14-15.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Astor (dastor@editorandpublisher.com)
is associate editor for E&P.
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