Funding for Colores was provided in part by New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nelita E Walker Fund for KNMETV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation McCune Charitable Foundation.

New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

And viewers like you.

With wit and humor, Slam poet Gigi Bella Guajardo uses spoken word to challenge ideas of authenticity and redefine what it means to be Mexican American >> Guajardo: I remember my entire six person family gathered around the table for dinner, splitting up tacos, soft and crunchy, an expression of my parent's love, or maybe just all they had to give.

Inspired by African American history, artist Steve Prince transforms printmaking into a powerful communal act that confronts the legacy of slavery while envisioning a more connected future.

It's all ahead on Colores.

>> Guajardo: The mosquito speaks I heard them ask once.

Anyway, why is she alive?

Always -- TACOS AND MISQUITOES >> Faith: Gigi, thank you so much for coming to Colores to talk about your poetry and for doing a couple performances for us, which I'm so excited about.

So to get started, what first drew you to poetry?

>> Guajardo: You know, I was a teenager and I was doing a lot of theater and I remember going to my first poetry slam, and when I realized that everybody was doing original work and it was their own stories, and they were getting up there and being brave and -- just talking about their own lives and experiences I really, really hungered to tell my own story and I wasn't seeing myself in a lot of the art I was participating in so it was kind of just this back road to completely finding myself and finding out about where I come from and why I am who I am and so really, just the just the discovery of all of that, I think, is what drew me to it.

>> Faith: Wow.

And you talked about, like, finding your voice.

What did you find?

>> Guajardo: I think -- I discovered most importantly, you know, kind of my tie to Mexican heritage and lineage and being from New Mexico and having ancestors tied to the land and really, really understanding that cultural part of myself where these stories were coming from and maybe things I didn't understand previously that we're kind of in this new lens.

There's a lot of other things, you know, but I think that is always the tinge on everything.

So if I'm writing about mental health, it█s Mexican mental health.

And I have -- I have a line in a poem I wrote in my new book where I say, “if I love something, doesn't that make it Mexican anyway?” And so -- you know, it's kind of nice to have these different lenses and experience and womanhood, which inherently becomes like Chicana womanhood.

And like I said, like mental health, different things -- to be able to write that poetry, but to have this bigger umbrella of understanding of why I'm saying it the way I say it.

Yeah.

>> Faith: So you'll be performing two poems for us today.

>> Guajardo: Yes.

>> Faith: The first one is deliciously titled, Taco Bell So, can you tell me what that one's all about?

>> Guajardo: Absolutely.

Taco Bell, I think, is my favorite poem I've ever written.

I always say on stage that it is about the holiest thing to me.

The most Mexican thing about me.

I had been having a conversation on the phone with a friend, and we were talking about how people all the time will tell you that it's not real Mexican food.

And if you're a person who grew up eating Mexican food, you obviously know, that Taco Bell is not real Mexican food.

But we were kind of just telling these like strings of jokes about like, what if it was serious -- like, we took it really seriously and we were like, no, it is, it is real to us.

And I kind of followed that -- that through line.

I use humor a lot in my poems to connect and -- it's important to me to also kind of ground things in a conversational, like real, regular people way.

I want poetry to be accessible.

So, you know, I follow the line of jokes.

And what I found at the bottom was this theme of Mexican authenticity and what it means to be a real Mexican, or to have real Mexican food, or what is real Mexican culture in America, especially for someone like me who's a second generation Mexican immigrant, “no sobo” kid with very poor Spanish.

Does that make me less of something?

Because I grew up here and I grew up the way I did.

And in the turn of the poem, I kind of explain why I believe -- it's so Mexican, but it was the thing we ate the most when I was a kid because we were very poor.

My parents were working.

They didn't have time to be at home making -- like, a Sadie's feast, you know, we were eating Taco Bell.

So, to me, that is being a real Mexican.

And I really just like exploring this idea of -- of what that is, what that means.

I hate it when people say that Taco Bell isn't real Mexican food, that it's a disgrace as a Mexican to eat it.

Bastardization of culture and recipe books, a sort of mourning over the fluorescent of the drive-through menu.

It makes me think that they think that I must be stupid.

Like, I go to Taco Bell to reconnect with my ancestors, to take a Diablo bath in my heritage, to hail the cleansing powers of being baptized in the name of the Baja, the blast, and the Holy Spirit.

I can almost hear Abuelita█s trembling voice through the drive-through speaker, “Mi hija, remember where you came from?

I remember when I was a little girl rolling out tortillas with my bare hands to make the family recipe for the Crunch Wrap Supreme.

Your grandfather came from Mexico to work the Doritos Locos fields.

They would bring him in for dinner with the ring of the Taco Bell.

Mi hija, it is your destiny to “live más” or not at all.

It is what we dreamed for you.

I built my altar of naked chicken Chalupa and beefy five layer burrito.

Pray the rosary of cinnamon twist and spicy potato soft taco.

Heaven, is dancing in the nacho cheese streets, surrounded by a stream of sauce packets.

When the man at the drive-through window fills the bottom of my bag with an abundance of hot pepper nectar, I know that I have seen God, and then I feel immediately guilty for accepting such a blessing because I deserve nothing in the eyes of God.

I am simply here to worship the glow of the purple glockenspiel, to drop to my knees when the app notifies me of the second coming of Mexican pizza.

Oh holy Messiah, great defender of the tomb.

I will sing your praises until my earthly body is scorched.

Ashes to ashes, Dorito dust to Dorito dust.

Okay, I know I am a Mexican with an unreasonable amount of adoration for the Bell, but when I was a kid, I remember my entire six person family gathered around the table for dinner, splitting up tacos, soft and crunchy, an expression of my parent's love.

Or maybe just all they had to give.

Taco Bell is the most Mexican thing I have ever eaten, because it was the only thing cheap enough to feed all of us.

And isn't that the most Mexican thing ever?

Is our joy not allowed to blossom from the things that give us breath?

Defiance of the America that only wants us capitalism killed?

God bless the $5 box, a Baja blast to float in when my wallet is empty.

But my hot sauce heart is still full of fight.

I do not care if I am not authentic enough for you.

Most authenticity leads to cages at the border of being reduced to that one taco plate.

From that one place, you know the one, where the mariachi band plays.

The only thing authentic enough for you is our suffering.

No, my Mexicana is what I say it is.

It's five Mexican pizzas a week.

It's my mother smile.

It's horchata and marigolds at the Taco Bell Cantina.

I order a yard of frozen Baja blast.

I dance outside of a wedding.

I am more alive than you want me to be.

I “live más.” >> Faith: Why█s it important to explore that idea and define your own identity and traditions?

>> Guajardo: I think it's important because there are so many ideas about who we are that are placed upon us that we don't get to choose.

I speak a lot in my new book about film and television and Mexican representation, and I think there's enough content out in the world where we're portrayed as a lot of different -- ugly stereotypes, things that don't speak with kindness towards our culture or the kinds of people we are truly at our core.

And that's impressed upon us.

And that gives the rest of the world an idea about what they think we are, when really we're just at the drive through, just like them.

So I think it's important for people to understand that we're not a thing of the past, that we're not criminals, that we're not a thing to be, you know, feared or, villainized.

We're just people and our culture and the reality of our culture is a beautiful thing, >> Faith: Right and it comes in many shapes and forms.

>> Guajardo: Exactly.

Yeah.

>> Faith: So the next poem that going to be doing for us is titled Mosquito Mestizo.

And it is written in a very unusual form.

Can you talk a little bit about that and what that poem means?

>> Guajardo: Absolutely.

So, Mosquito Mestizo is a palindrome, which means you can read it backwards and forwards.

And I really wanted to explore academic formal poetry and did a lot of that while I was in New York.

But it can be really -- daunting, especially when you're thinking about language.

As a person who grew up around English and Spanish and has this different grasp of things.

So it's it seems very inaccessible at times and I went to a writing retreat called Pink Door, and I was with all these amazing poets, and we were camping out in upstate New York.

And I had a really hard time writing while I was out there and we were supposed to be writing about nature, which is not really a thing I am familiar with.

I had been getting bit by mosquitoes all week.

[both laughing] And I heard a conversation by the campfire about mosquitoes, and these two girls were just talking about how they should all just be eradicated, and we should just erase them, and the world would be a better place without them and -- I was like, wow, that is how Mexican people are talked about in America sometimes and so I was inspired to write this poem where you read it one way and it's the mosquito talking about feeling small and containing -- blood and what it means to hold blood as a symbolic thing.

And then the other way, it's mestizo Mexican woman talking about how that kind of speak of erasure, lends itself to feeling like you don't belong anywhere and feeling like you don't have a claim, even to your own space and life.

Mosquito Mestizo a palindrome, a palindrome is a poem that can be read from beginning to end and then again backwards from the last line to the first.

The mosquito speaks.

I heard them ask once anyway, why is she alive?

Always biting, drawing up a plentiful crimson, and suddenly I am the blood, wondering how enough it is longing to prove itself.

Ungrateful skin, wondering if it was supposed to be something else.

Peach-bruised pockmarks.

Faked freckles.

If the blood is stolen from it, maybe the body has an excuse to feel like less.

Really, I am doing them a service to exemplify their emptiness.

I know what it is to be full of a wound█s nectar, small.

Always anticipating my end.

I stopped caring when I realized how expensive my living was.

The mestizo Mexican girl speaks.

When I realized how expensive my living was, I stopped caring small, always anticipating my end.

Full of a wound█s nectar.

I know what it is to be to exemplify their emptiness.

Really, I am doing them service to feel like less.

Maybe the body has an excuse if the blood is stolen from it.

Faked freckles, peach-bruised pockmarks.

Supposed to be something else.

Wondering if it was ungrateful skin, longing to prove itself.

How enough it is.

The blood wondering.

And suddenly I am a plentiful crimson, always biting, drawing up, why is she alive?

I heard them ask once, anyway -- >> Faith: You talked a little bit about making poems accessible.

Why is that also important for -- especially like the Hispanic community?

>> Guajardo: Yeah, there's an amazing poet named Denise Froman who said, they're a Puerto Rican poet.

And they said, “I never want to write a poem.

My mother doesn't understand.” The same thing from the late poet, my mentor and friend, Andrea Gibson, who said, “why write a poem that's about somebody head?” Why do that?

This is art that we should share and -- feel deeply in together.

And that is a feeling for everyone, regardless of your grasp of poetry as a formal thing or language, I think poetry is a feeling.

And I think it lingers in the air.

And it's not about the kind of fancy words you use or whether or not you can read it backwards and forwards, even though that's cool.

You know, I write poetry for -- the people who never finished college, and I write poetry for people who think they maybe could be a poet, but something in them has always told them maybe they can't, because whatever they have to say isn't like, fancy or good enough or whatever it is.

I never studied poetry in school.

I only ever learned it from the amazing artists who were willing to give their time at poetry slams and open mics here, and I was lucky enough to have beautiful friends who were also my teachers.

And I just want to be that to anyone who ever sees me on stage or reads my books.

>> Faith: That's beautiful.

>> Guajardo: Thank you.

>> Faith: So why do you think poetry -- and especially slam poetry feels so necessary in this moment?

>> Guajardo: I mean -- I think that any time you have an opportunity to hear somebody█s voice and perspective that you otherwise wouldn█t, that's an incredibly valuable opportunity.

I█ve had many times that I've been on stage saying something and I can see that someone in the audience doesn't like it, and they've got to stay with me for two more minutes, and they let me finish.

And then we have a conversation afterwards where they say, “yeah, I was really like getting upset about that” or, “something about that didn't sit right with me.” And then, “I heard you, and -- you know, now I'm thinking about that differently.” And I think it has that ability to create those conversations that need to be had for us to understand each other.

And that's something we're desperately in need of in the world right now, I think.

>> Faith: Especially today.

>> Guajardo: Yeah, absolutely.

Stories of the past, hope for the future.

>> Prince: And what I█m going through, there are hundreds of millions of other people are going through the exact same thing.

So how do I make this art that speaks about the history and the truth and the pain and hurt of being a black man growing up in America with my hope is, is that when you encounter me, you're going to appreciate the work, the labor, the intent of what is being expressed through this way of communicating.

This piece is a tribute to my great grandmother.

And as the story goes, she was caught up in indentured servitude, which is basically another form of slavery.

So she paired two of her kids on me for a hoop dress.

So those two extra sets of legs, one of those kids is my grandmother.

Growing up in New Orleans.

It was fantastic.

The food, the rhythms, the music, and I use some of those different things for my artwork.

I have been particularly inspired by the African-American experience from the point of slavery forward.

How can I use art as a conduit to speak about those injustices?

But also, how can I use the artwork to speak about the hope and speak about the future?

I end up having this substrate that I made this drawing on, and I took these cutting tools and I cut in their around my positive lines, and then I rolled it up with ink and I put paper on top, and I ran this thing to a press, and I pulled this paper off the block and it was boom.

It was like I was like, oh, I feel it.

And thing is, I knew I could do it again.

So that was really fascinating to me.

[slow instrumental music] >> Prince: I remember when I was in high school, we were looking at different things, dealing with the Egyptian pyramids, and I had asked a question.

I said, what's up with these noses are knocked off of them?

And the teacher told me it was wind erosion.

But when I got to college, I said that same thing or to a college professor there, and he laughed.

And he said, because of the Afrocentric features on the lot of the statues, they were knocked off.

And by one of the people that knocked a lot of them off was Napoleon's army.

So when I found out that history, I was mad at what I wasn't taught, the stuff that was left out of the books.

There's a problem when history is just told from the oppressive.

It is so important that the oppressed has an opportunity to share a different perspective.

My whole life now is to learn the truth, no matter how hard it may be.

If we come in with that kind of mindset, that's where transformation takes place, and that's where we've got to work towards.

I'm a visual artist, but professionally, I'm director of engagement, and I'm a distinguished artist in residence at the Muscarelle Museum at the College of William and Mary.

This exhibition here, it's called 1619, 2019.

The Muscarelle Museum wanted to make sure that we were part of that conversation.

As we look at the 400th anniversary of the first Africans coming to Point Comfort.

So it's comprised of African-American and Native American artists.

We wanted to hear from a lot of contemporary voices and not from one stuff from the past.

Also, in conjunction with this exhibition, I conceived of this idea of creating a project called the Links.

We may think about the chain link motif as it relates to incarceration or slavery, but as a creative, I flip the metaphor of the idea of the link as in relationship to our connections.

And so I facilitated around 30 workshops, and I invited different people to come to the workshops to be involved.

In 1619, 20 and odd negroes, as the text says, landed in Point Comfort.

Every single one of us was affected by that moment.

About 500 different people hailing from about 20 different countries worked on a project.

Each person is going to have an opportunity to do a part of it, and each part is going to come together.

That's going to be reflected on not the individual body, but a reflection of the communal body speaking together in harmony.

I went to Cape Town, South Africa, had a number of people work on the project there.

I went to Durham, North Carolina, and I had people do it there.

We have to look back with sober eyes, not closing it to the hurt or the pain, because guess what?

The hurt and the pain is right now.

It's present.

And so therefore it's a call of one.

It's all to do that work.

And art is one of those ways in which we can make that happen.

We've told people, you can look at the past, you can look at it through a present lens, or you can look at it through the imagined future.

We didn't put any major bounds or parameters on there for you.

We want to see it transform and we want to see a better world for our children's children.

Okay, I want to make sure I lay the foundation in terms of what we're doing.

And so on November 5th, outside of the Wren building, which is the oldest continuous academic building in the United States, we did this whole festival activity that we created about the atrocities associated with 1619, but we also wanted to champion the beauty that was made up through that period.

And the beauty was on display.

[slow piano] We had Hermine Penson, who is a professor at Women Mary and also a poet.

>> Penson: Arise now it's time to begin the dance of days to come.

>> Prince: She poured a libation for all those lost souls right there.

Consecrate that whole event.

We had a lot of African drummers, a group called The Day Program out of Hampton.

We had African dancers along with them.

We put all these puzzle pieces back together, and then we rolled it up and inked all these blocks up.

Hopefully we know the links is not about the limitations of slavery that took away people's humanity, but we know these links basically define who we are and how we all are all connected.

So what you're going to see right now, we're about to get prepared to do one of the prints.

We put them on to the ground, we put paper on top, we put blankets on top of that.

We put a board on top of that.

And then I drove an industrial steamroller across it, and we created these prints.

This is the power of many working together in harmony to create a new linkage and get us to move forward together.

[up-tempo beat and clapping] >> Prince: Fire!

Awesome!

The links have begun.

The links have begun.

I know that I'm only one voice.

And I know that I also have a responsibility.

In the time that I'm here to do what I got to do.

I work with this vigor and this expressiveness.

Now, I know one day I may not have this energy.

But right now I'm coming at you.

I'm not going to back down.

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is everywhere, watch Now on your favorite NMPBS platforms Funding for Colores!

was provided in part by New Mexico PBS, Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation, McCune Charitable Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

And viewers like you.