(October 11, 2002)

       Thirty years ago tonight, in a desperate search for a voice, our community found a home on Beacon Hill and renamed it El Centro de la Raza (The Center for People of All Races).

Thirty years later, we feel compelled to reflect and share with you the deeper meaning of the lessons learned, and the values forged as a result of these last three decades of struggle.

Yes... the three-month occupation of the building was difficult, chaotic, and intense, but our voice was heeded with the first of several five-year leases. Now we own the one-square block.

If some of us thought then that the occupation was the hard part, reality quickly set in.

We struggled mightily to learn the mysteries of infrastructure to maintain and acquire resources in a sharply hostile environment. Simultaneously and without respite, we painfully sought our identity as a distinct ethnicity as Chicanos, Mexicanos and Latinos and at the same time analyze and define our role as a social, economic and political force.

We debated incessantly the role of Black, Indian, Asian, Arab and White people in the building and in the survival of our new organization.

All the time we studied and studied and studied and when we were done, we studied some more.

All the time we debated and debated and debated and when we were done, we debated some more.

All the time we clarified and defined, and analyzed and well...

All the time we worked and.. .worked some more... and sometimes we partied.

And we looked feverishly for books, speeches, letters, movies, pamphlets and poems that we could never find in regular places such as bookstores, libraries, universities and community centers.

And then we looked for, and found, women, men, and young people and children that we never saw in regular places such as our schools and churches, and government offices and asked them a million questions and they would always tell us the truth.

And we religiously read the regular newspapers and argued passionately with them and we learned they were not interested in the truth, so... hard as it was, we learned to read between the lines.

We then worked without rest and found a way to go to the fields of Delano and Yakima and Las Cruces, and the Mescalero Apache Reservation and Wounded Knee and South Central Los Angeles, and the CARRIBEAN! And also, the killing fields of Central America, Asia, Africa and we even went to the “old” Soviet Union, all the while, like ants, “fixing up” El Centro and hugging everyone who came.

So.. .does it mean we know all the truths? No, but it does mean that if we work hard enough, we’ll know where to find them.

And we know that unless you know the truth about racist oppression it can easily drive you mad.

And we also know that if we as an historically oppressed peo pie don’t know where we’ve been, we cannot know where we’re at, much less where we’re going.

We know that it is so much easier to fight than to work together but much more beautiful to do the latter.

We also know that words like Democracy, Freedom, Justice and Human Rights cannot be defined and imposed by the greedy nor the privileged nor by one country or set of countries.

We know positively that the truth frees the mind, the body, the heart, the spirit, the soul and that it fuels the most beautiful and natural of all sentiments such as courage, self worth, dignity and LOVE. And we know that armed with these, we will never sacrifice the moral imperative for “practical” considerations.

And we think we learned above all.. .that building unity amongst the people is the hardest task a human being can assume. (If you don’t believe us, ask all the martyrs who gave their lives to achieve it.)

But it is also the most beautiful thing one can do with one’s life.

So then, with all this said, have we in our 30 years changed the course of history?

No.. .maybe a little bit.

But we do know that we have worked incessantly to create the conditions for these younger generations here tonight to learn these truths so that they, too, can have a chance at changing history and never have to live in “spiritual slavery.”