By Greg Moses
To try to remember a dream. What could such an effort be worth? In
the end one would only have a memory of a dream to show for it. And so
what? Could the time taken to remember a dream be better spent
forgetting it?
So we forget our dreams right away. Up in the morning and after it
— after something anything more solid than a memory of a dream could
be.
But something curious happens to memories and dreams when locked
into thick prison walls. In prison, dreams never dare to escape. Humans
spirits deprived of any spiritual refreshment from paint chipped blocks
and bars will have their fountains, so up through the night come the
dreams.
In the spiritual landscape of the order of things, prisons
therefore are a society’s dream reservoirs. If the walls aren’t built
thick enough, dreams would come flooding out like a tsunami and drown
every bullshit idea in the way. That’s why we have so many thick prison
walls in America.
According to statistics released on Sunday (why Sunday?) the USA
once again ranks top in the world for the dream dams we call prisons.
More than 2.1 million folks jammed into a system that includes federal
prisons (139 percent full); state prisons (116 percent full); and jails
(94 percent full). Nearly 100,000 of those prisoners serve time in
prisons that have been privatized to make some profit which just goes
to show you there is nothing that money will refuse to buy.
In the dream of April 16 that we copy below, Ramsey Muniz is visited
by memory of ancient land, imaginary kingdom Aztlan, where the Aztec
dance unconquered, and every step they take is upon land they never
have to apologize for walking.
We read the dream of Ramsey Muniz in the context of April 11, when
Harvard Professor of Divinty David Carrasco, as the 19th Annual Americo
Paredes Lecturer speaking to a full house in the Santa Rita Room on
Guadalupe St. showed slides of some of the dreams of Aztlan painted during 16th Century land negotiations. As the dreams of Muniz remind us, those negotiations are still under way:
‘We are One’
Enclosed are words received in a dream…
4/17/05
10:45 PM
Mi Citlalmina y mi gente de Aztlan:
As I shared with you on the telephone, I had
a dream – was it a dream, or was it reality of life
and heart, which only seeks justice, love, and the
freedom of all humanity? It is written in our ancient
Mexicano history that dreams, visions, and appearances
of our ancient council of elders would be recorded
for our future. The writings, dreams, and visions
were all so powerful and connected to nature, that
even modern day scholars cannot comprehend. From
the beginning of our creation we have been in tune
with universal nature, stars, moon, sun, and Mother
Earth.
During the last eleven years confined in the
prisons of America, as a Mexicano political prisoner
in exile, I have prayed extensively in the steel,
cold darkness of oppression – not for myself, but for
a symbol, a sign, a message of enlightenment of hearts
in order to share the journey and direction that we
must take as a race, as a people, in order to obtain
justice, liberation, and in due time, land.
Before I proceed any further, I will share with everyone in
Aztlan and the Holy Land of Mexico that on
April 16, 2005, I awoke from a dream within the midst
of our ancient past. Immediately I sat on the chair
next to my writing table, and wrote an entire
page — with such foresight — then returned to
bed and immediately fell asleep. When I awoke in
the morning, after more than thirty minutes, I
glanced at the page that I had written. I will share
the first part of what came from my dreams:
Cultura/Nuestra Cultura Espiritual Primero
"The Mexicano cultural ancient beginning and/or its
creation will eternally and ultimately bequeath the
manifestation of us to fulfill our spiritual prophesy
of once more becoming one. Nosotros somos uno. This
is the beginning of our ancient cultural Mexicano
spiritual mandate for the 21st century."Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muniz)
April 16, 2005
U.S.P. Leavenworth
"Nosotros somos uno" is a phrase that should
become part of our daily lives, conversations,
participation, and at the end of the night it should
be a part of our spiritual message to Topan (heaven).
We are one! Regardless of where we find ourselves
this very night, we are all one! To be one from
within thousands of miles going south, east, west
or north is power.
Oppression in our past has managed
to divide our people and eventually conquer all
schools of thought or philosophies, providing
a scheme of labeling us with different names
and brands. It is for these reasons that America
has labeled our people into the 21st century.
American now wishes for all of us to become
Hispanics or Latinos for the sole purpose of
becoming different from our Mexicano sisters and
brothers who have journeyed from the Holy Land
of Mexico into the United State of America. We
should embrace our sisters and brothers who have
given their lives by the thousands in the hot
deserts and in the strong currents of the Rio
Grande River, rather than separating them from
our own heritage and generations.
To argue that we are different is to permit oppression by those who wish to divide and conquer our lives with
false illusions, and control the lives of nuestra
gente in general. For the last thirty years or
more, we have embraced and shared with the masses
of nuestra raza in the barrios, our communities,
our schools, and in state and federal prisons our
cultural revolution in all Aztlan.
The United States has been in wars and/or conflicts in all
the world for the last thirty years. During that
period of time, our sisters and brothers came like
never before in our history into America. They
crossed the borders after 9/11, and homeland security
came into existence. After several census taken
of our raza, they became alarmed by the number of
Mexicanos who came to join the pursuit of justice
and liberation. We will no longer be the minority
in the Southwest of the United States. We will
become the majority and will continue to grow
in numbers. It is written that we will never
stop growing in numbers until the land also
becomes a part of us.
Vigilantes, conservative groups and others have become so alarmed of the number of raza crossing the borders that now
they too guard the borders, which will be crossed
by our people.
The dream and its relationship to the human
crisis at the borders clearly reveals that we
Mexicanos must begin to express how proud we are
to be Mexicanos once more after many hundreds of
years of oppression and imprisonment. We were
one from the beginning of our creation. We must
reach into our cultural past as if were only
yesterday. Our teachings, our philosophies,
our ideals, and our spirituality must all relate
to nuestra cultura.
The time has come to make a
definite commitment to the life of our Mexicano
cultura. A race and/or nation without cultura
will never come into existence. The more that
we reach for nuestra cultura Mexicana the more
spiritual our hearts and minds will become. To
all of our raza in Aztlan I share the following
words of wisdom:
We want only to show you something
we have seen and tell you something
we have heard…that here and there
in the world and now and then in ourselves
is a new spiritual Mexicano creation…Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muñiz)
Yes, without question or doubt, throughout
all Aztlan there is a new spiritual Mexicano
creation. We will now become what we were from
the beginning – a free race, a free nation, a
free land.
Immigration will become the national issue
which United States politicians will use to
blame for all negative results in America. Our
sisters and brothers will be trea
ted as if they
were responsible for the oppression of America.
We must immediately take the political position
that our sisters and brothers from the Holy Land
of Mexico, who find themselves in the United
States, be granted full amnesty.
We will take a strong political position against the
United States trying to pass oppressive procedures
against nuestra raza on the issue of immigration.
Besides, if we were to study history in terms of
to who was here first, we would win immediately.
Our sisters and brothers from the Holy Land will
be blamed for all economical and financial
downfalls. But at the end it doesn’t matter,
because we have more compassion in our hearts
for humanity.
We are one! We must be proud of who
we are. Our history is one of pride, heart,
and intelligence. We must let the world know who
we are, and that we are proud to be Mexicanos. As
a group we must also begin to communicate directly
with other Mexicanos who are in tune with our
cultura and historia.
No longer will our raza hold their heads down
in shame. No longer will we be afraid or fear the
sacrifice for liberation. We will no longer be oppressed.
In exile,
Tezcatlipoca
Mexicano political prisoner
Note: letter from Ramsey Muniz conveyed via email April 24 from Irma L. Muniz.
Texas Civil Rights Review 