Q’ Viva Día De Los Muertos

Eres piel moreno, that cancion was da shit

Brown is beautiful except if you’re too brown inside or out

Besides I’m peddled vows that “I don’t see people in terms of color so sit”

I think to myself “ain’t that some bull shit,” so I shout

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

The living dead run the streets por la madrugada

preyed upon by the balla balla saving up for his Miata

Whatever happened to the boy who had no fada?

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

I drive the streets and think, “Oh what a man am I”

Ay there’s the rub… that’s some guy named Shakespeare

The rub… LOL… rubba dub dub I once was told they clean meth in a tub

Many rubs later I’d be reviled or revered for being an aztlan queer

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

The envious live their lives and cheat on their wives

vowing to chase the American dream; “Life is but a dream”

You’re feeling sleepy, the technocrat hypnotists prioritize our lives

Those oppressed in their waking lives dare not dream so they scream

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

I pray to El Santo Niño

with dirty thoughts of some vato named Nino

singing “I’m too sexii for this shirt.”

Scared?… then go to church while I do my dirt.

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

They stone me as a damned cultural Catholic

they stoned my pa a lazy no good spic

maybe what I need is an ol’ fashion ass kick

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

A life lived on one’s rodillas, says Pancho Villa, isn’t worth our time mi raza

still we mimic the powers that be and take our turn preaching del bully pulpit

shouting over the huddled bottom who whisper to one another, “Ain’t dat some bullshit?”

Slumbering nightmares and waking dreams of tamales q’ no son de pura masa

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

La Llorona del Longoria Affair haunts the vaulted halls of Yale so we yell

“LA LUCHA SIGUE, SIGUE!!! ZAPATA VIVE, VIVE!!!”

“Wait a cotton picking minute, all is well at Yale so please don’t yell.

P.S. you beaners smell,” dice el gringo guey.

 

q’ viva día de los muertos

 

Assimilation conquered away mis antepasados culture-of-poverty fears

neo-social Darwinists of today whisper sweet nothings in their ears

a sacred procession of hitos march hacia la pinta, violating rears

too many beers begets sixty years and tattood tears.

 

q’viva día de los muertos

 

Mateo Montoya is a Xicano originally from Cheyenne, WY, now living in Salt Lake. He “grew-up” in L.A., earned a B.A. in International Studies (Latin American focus), and currently researches patrilineal genealogy, urban education, philosophy of education, whiteness theory, post-colonial theory, semiotics, educational psychology and sociology of urban education –preparing him for further research on how hegemonic institutions disparately impact the socialization and racialization of urban youth of color. He blogs at http://xicanosblog.tumblr.com/