<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eltecolote.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/ME-AND-POP-FATHERS-DAY-2019.jpg?resize=960%2C720&quality=89&ssl=1\")
\u201cHay que hacerle frente a esto,\u201d he says, reminding his Salvadoran family that we have no choice but to use our powers of survival \u201cal maximo.\u201d In the language of my mission upbringing, \u201cpull out your best shit, cuz it\u2019s time\u2014and hella necessary.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coming from someone else, Pop\u2019s advice would sound trite, a cliche in an Avengers movie or some other violent and silly spectacle of the child\u2019s play era we must all leave behind. But coming from whatever marrow remains in his bony body, I know he\u2019s reminding me and all of us to prepare for the extreme difficulty that has been and remains the life of many Salvadorans and other peoples of the global south.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pop lived under a fasicst military dictatorship, one of the longest-lasting in the Americas, one I committed a part of my adult life to fighting\u2014and defeating\u2014during one of the bloodiest civil wars of recent memory.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump Administration\u2019s failed response to the COVID-19 crisis means the United States has been Latinoamericanizado, turned into a country of the global south in terms of both the concentration of wealth and its inability to meet its peoples needs. Like my father\u2019s, my marrow is moving my entire body, mind and heart to heed another call to fight, for we should have no doubt that we are already in the fight of our lives.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former union member Pop knows this in his waking and dreaming time. We need to fight to preserve his and our dreams.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My father\u2019s head tilts on his left shoulder when he sleeps in his favorite leather recliner. He spends most of his waking hours sleeping. When he\u2019s awake, he\u2019s waving and looking out at the Excelsior neighborhood street from the window of the home my mom forced him to buy after they moved out of our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":43127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18556],"coauthors":[18560],"class_list":["post-43126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-voices","tag-covid-19-en","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n