[su_label type=”info”]The Devil’s Advocate[/su_label]

Note from the Author: This guest column was originally written for El Tecolote in September of 1984. From the moment of its publication, it created a lot of interest and it was used in various college courses, especially in Raza Studies departments. Because its content is still very true, we decided to reprint it, with some minor additions and corrections.

Carlos Barón

Our Latino America is an erupting volcano, a cataclysm. It has always been that, but today, the number of Latin Americans forced into exile is larger than ever. From Chile to Mexico, men and women have left their homelands, punished because of their ideas, or their poverties.

Much has been written about the negative side of exile. Much has been said, recited, sung and cried about the nostalgia of fatherlands and mother-tongues, the nostalgia of the familiar landscape, or the nostalgia for the particular flavor of that particular fruit that only grows there!

Many times we have either hidden from or been forced to face that overwhelming sadness that overtakes us when we begin to miss what we left behind.

Following the above, I believe that it is convenient to also write in recognition of the positive events that take place in times of forced separation from the diverse countries that witnessed our birth and our growth.

The recognition of the positive in the negative, the sweet within the bitter, is a duty to ourselves, for our mental and political health.

While there is life, there is hope. The majority agrees in that. We also agree that “things will change.” Of course! We share a healthy optimism. We will return. “Ahorita!” Soon, as Mexicans say.

Before we start packing suitcases and begin the trip back to our respective homelands, where the sun shines brighter, the ocean smells better and the people are friendlier, I insist: We have to reflect about the good side of our exiles.

To begin with, the Latin American who lives in San Francisco has greater possibilities to truly understand what it is to be a Latin American. Generally speaking, each one of us knows something about being Salvadorans, or  Mexicans, or Chileans… and knows very little about what it is to be truly Latin American.

We are extremely patriotic and nationalistic, breast-fed in our respective versions of an “official, unadulterated” history, wildly diverse versions that are presented to us in our schools or through the mass media, versions that reek of lies, versions of history that keep our peoples divided. A different story from the one started by Simón Bolívar.

In San Francisco, co-habitating in the midst of a wave of exiles, the Chilean discovers the Chicano, and vice versa. The same happens to the Brazilian with the Nicaraguan and to the Bolivian with the Puerto Rican. It happens to all of us.

In this Californian exile we cannot avoid the inter-relation. Here, the false and the real frontiers disappear and we can discover our common history, in its extra-official version. What Lenin called our “secret histories.”

Here, away from our respective countries and the nationalistic versions of history taught in our schools, it is easier to identify the common enemy and to fathom the possibilities of a common future.

And that, brothers and sisters, is very Bolivarian. That is something which was also known and taught by the Cuban hero José Marti in the 19th century, when he lived 14 years in exile in Tampa, Florida. Or by the also Cuban Camilo Cienfuegos, who lived for a while right across from San Francisco General Hospital, before he led the Cuban revolution in the late 1950s. Or by the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, first Latino American to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1945. She moved to the United States and spent her last years here, far from the narrow-mindedness of her own country.

It is more than learning about “pupusas, burritos, vigorón, yuca, cueca, merecumbé, porotos, frijoles”… or the different meaning of “güagüa.” It is much more than that.

Here, for example, we learn about Lolita Lebrón and Don Pedro Albizu Campos, we make them ours. We learn about Puerto Rico, we incorporate Puerto Rico into our Latin American world (more than the official history does), we become Puerto Ricans.

Here we met, yesterday, that Salvadoran friend who today, back in her country, risks her life daily. We learn from her example. We become Salvadorans.

Here, stereotypes and half-truths, little by little, begin to disappear.

Here, in the very entrails of the monster, submerged in the juices of its contradictions, we can see each other better.

Those lucky enough to return to their homelands should not forget the positive lessons of their exile and should become the spreaders of their experiences, rich in internationalistic spirit, pregnant with a better future.

The Chilean who returns to Chile will discover that she is no less of a Chilean but will also discover that she is more Latin American, less nationalistic, less prejudiced, less ignorant.

If she has not yet discovered it, let her stay exiled a while longer.