 We are a voice that screams tearing the silence of conformity. We are a voice that screams revealing our talents, our talents, immigrants' talents. Contributions to progress, peace, innovation, solidarity. Like a magenta flower, an aphrodisiac, we seduce with ideas. This perfume wraps us in bright elixir. Swaying opinions, swaying opinions with a maddening scent. We are a voice that screams memories brought with our baggage from other lands. Flower petals hidden between pages of a book. Letters turned dried up in flakes on worn out paper. The stamp of her day of days, her holy communion. Prayer book with blessed stamp of guardian angel with wings spread protecting the little children. We are a voice that screams revealing not crime, not how we can, not how we can... Are you trying to tell me something? Okay, not screams that tell us how we want to kill somebody, how we want to steal from somebody, how we don't like to work. No. We are a voice that screams revealing our talents, contributions to progress, peace, innovation, solidarity. We are a voice that screams tearing the silence of conformity. Thank you. And I love San Francisco. It was my first city when I came to the United States. And people asked me if I came because of terrorism, because of Senator Luminoso wanted to kill me. No. My father loved the United States of America. He admired the United States of America and sent his beloved daughter here to study. It didn't work that way. Within a year of arriving in the United States of America in San Francisco, I was married and made my home here. I have been here ever since and I travel back and I visit. My father was very disappointed. But today, oh, I want to share with you. So the years passed, family, home, education, et cetera. And my father and mother both admired education immensely. You have to learn this, you have to learn that, you have to do this, you have to do that. I did it. Years later, many, like when my children had grown, my daughter was coming out of San Francisco State when I started in San Francisco State. And I, why? Why are you doing this? You are an excellent interpreter. You make a good living. Why are you doing this? Because my parents, who will never know this because they are already dead, is what they wanted for me. So that's what I did. And now coming back to San Francisco. Claiming the night, sounds, colors, stream of lights, like silk blows out to seed in the night. North Beach, Columbus, and Broadway, Pacific Avenue, the sunset, the Castro, La Mission, and even the Embarcadero, with its faraway stars stretching out over the bay, to the blue monkey, sweet inspiration, sacred grounds, and Cafe La Bohème. And she's been among them, among the silk scarves at dawn, searching for dreamers and bohemians in Chinatown, North Beach, Columbus, and Broadway, Pacific Avenue, and out in La Mission, and even the Embarcadero, mastering every adversity as she goes claiming the night for herself. Thank you. I love you, I love you. I'll remember your applause when I'm out there trying to get some the right sentence of how to, all of a sudden I can't remember how to type mama. Okay, Pacifica, Pacifica, California, is the upcoming city of the Bay Area. Come visit us. I conduct an open mic the second Saturday of every month, and we do crazy things. We dance, we sing, we read a poem, we read short stories, we read somebody's letter that we have been keeping for about 20 years. It's fun. It's a lot of fun. It's not just poetry again. No, it is fun. It is a lot of fun. Pacifica, a day in a million. That day at the beach in Pacifica, California, she's been telling everyone it was a day in a million. The sun descended a silk scar with orange, gold, purple stripes, covered the sand and the sky, reflected on us, picked up the colors and spread them all around. When we looked at the bonfire, they had bonfires places then. When we looked at the bonfires, there were also, the colors were there also. And on the cliffs and bouncing off each other's eyes, hands, hair, in the back of our jackets, on the legs of blue jeans when we took a walk on the beach. Our feet sinking in a softness, finding treasures. And this is true, that we were with another couple and the lady actually found a watch that worked, a stream of beads and ancient shells as she walked. She really did. That day at the beach, she's telling everyone it was a day in a million in Pacifica, California. The sun descended a silk scar with orange, gold, purple stripes, covered the beach and the sky, reflected on us, on the remnants of, on the wood pile, coolers, brown bags, holding tomorrow's lunch and ecology-mandate garbage. Overhouses, hiding behind the night shadows, the cement ring on the beach. Finally, the horizon gathered a scarf and threw it to the other side of the world. That day at the beach, she's been telling everyone it was a day in a million. Thank you. Now I'm taking you to another part of the world. It has nothing to do with the ocean. It has nothing to do with shells. It is the top of the world. This is what you picture. Eighth marble of the world. The ancient summit. To visit you, we scaly-mounted, six-sugging, six-sugging, up, up, up, down, down, down, down, up, up, up. The train was actually six-sugging and actually going up. You know that, huh? Actually going up on different movements. It was driven by steam and then it would stop and who didn't know that it was supposed to stop would go, oh, what happened? Where are we? What happened? And it was that the train was going to supply itself with the steam, with most steam, and then it would go up again. Patient, patient, pain, graceful. The mountain standing on its toes from the bottom of the earth supports a steaming, roaring monsters out of breath built by men that, trying the impossible, made an accomplice of nature, digging the surface to make it climb. Six-sug, six-sug, the train complained, smogged, moaned, burred, will sustain with queso fresco, manjar blanco, alfajores, chisha de jora. It falls backwards, advances, advances, advances. Finally, the ancient summit, eighth marble of the world, city, fortress, temple, more imposing its stones, its sanctuaries, its roads and trails than you imagine, heathen for centuries under emerald vegetation, last full of dew and of sun-kissed fog, of moon, stars, birds, seductive songs, more strone, majestic than on any small or large screen. More potentious, miraculous, and in photos of the National Geographic, yellow pages, cafe latte stained through the years, consumed by my desire to visit you. Now, there you are, regaling me with your beauty, a stable reverence on your fertile soil. No, nothing prepared me for this, your majestic presence. Machu Picchu, I have arrived at last, arrived, arrived! Machu Picchu, thank you. And I take you to another place of the world. Magic, magic, Havana, Cuba, magic. Trampets, trumpets, guitars, smiles, blue skies, lime and green, a silver blue ocean of gentle waves, white sand at Santa Maria, magical. Cocos, taxis, how much? Where you going, Chica, Havana Vieja? For you, one dollar, across town, for you, one dollar, Chica, magical. International Film Festival, with Ramos de Fuego, burst it out of the screen, enveloping our senses. International Jazz Festival, that united under the stars, knows from the United States, ritmo caliente, with sounds from Canada, Japan, Cuba, magical. Figueroa's apartment, transforming to a photographer's art gallery, where Che Guevara, in black and white, by corda alive and well, on 17th Street, between K and L, in Havana, Cuba, magical. The oral tradition is on, very much alive in Havana, at Eluron Azul, where a man, when I go like this, you say green. Oh, please. Green! Ah, that's it, good, good, good. Where a man mesmerizes us, telling a story full of body language, racial expression, intonation, rich in emotions, he tells us, once upon a time there was a man who was looking for a house. When he found it, he knocked on the door. Come on, you can do. You can do better, you can do. Once upon a time there was a man who was looking for a house. When he found it, he knocked on the door that was opened by a woman. And on and on, then a 90-year-old girl tells a story, then a woman, then another man, magical. As we walked down the streets of Havana, we buy juicy tasty papayas, plantains, at the corner stand of 18th with K, where we sat on the low wall of the house across the way, and ate it with our, tearing it with our fingers, magical. Your people, well done, brown, black skin, glistens in the sun, the same under the moonlight, magical. And the trumpets blare, and the guitar's moon, and the singer cries, at el gato muerto. I cross the park under the full moon, where we dance until four in the morning. I close my eyes, and see your mulatto smile, while the breeze caresses my naked, tan legs, and playfully works its way at my skirt. And the singer cries near el malecón, six blocks from the arts and crafts market in Havana, in Havana, Cuba. Thank you. And now I take you to my adored, beloved city, Miraflores, a district of Lima, Peru, South America. I come down to the coast that has the seducing curves of my morena, who sings tamales, tamales calientitos to the streets of my city on Saturday nights. And the voice of my cholo, with his eagle big nose, is skin the color of mine, brown. My Inca whistles at my door sharpens my knives and scissors, big and small, Miraflores. I come down to the coast to blue, green eyes, European, full bearded Europeans, the cafe latte skin of my criollas and criollos to the flat streets that roll down to the ocean, the corn of La Picaronera, the Callejón's door, the European chalet, the church across Park Central, the benches of Alameda Pardo, Sunday's promenades, British Peruvian school, blue uniform, hat, white shirt, red tie, ferocious exams. At the excelsior, the cowboy and the girl, Miraflores, I come down to the coast, take El Expreso to go to Lima, El Urbánito to el Mercado Central, walk to Shell, where my schools and Jorge used to be, then to Porta Street, that saw my growing up years. El Terrasa Club is still a block away, looking toward his next dance, dance, his eyes full of adoration, and Malecón gives me his cleaves that roll to the Pacific ocean. The scent of jasmine, dahlias, sweet peas, honeysuckle, Narcissus, stop my steps. Miraflores, my Miraflores, thank you. I'm going to be able to drive much better now. When I say, take your brand, when I say what, when I say take your red pencil, you say it with me, okay? And I want to, by now you must have a lot of energy, so I want to hear it. A red pencil, better. You can do a little more, a little more like the little you say, a little more better. Take your red pencil, put more fire into my story, stir my pot and produce intoxicating bruise. To me, Narón, help me across the page inject life into my words, spice my sensual romances, make them ex-rated. Fun my embers, make the flames devour the pages, erase the lines clean and make them dance with new words that would be heard all over the world. Imitated, applaud, red on MTV. Thank you. And in my walks around the area from one university to another, I taught at San Francisco State, I also taught at Stanford. I taught Spanish so they would so they would speak it. They wouldn't just say, oh, I taught, I took Spanish at San Francisco State or I took Spanish at Stanford. No, my students, 20 years later, remember that I taught them Spanish. I made them speak it. I was just telling my friends in the car coming over, the ceilings at the humanity building at that time were very, very high. And I would ask at the beginning of the semester for very high ladders and either they, the people that worked there on myself did it. At the very top I wrote an idioma, no es un idioma, hasta que se habla. A language is not a language till you speak it. And I wouldn't speak one word of Spanish the whole semester. And I remember, but I don't speak Spanish, pero lo vas a aprender. Ah! Graffiti. I remember the graffiti splash on the police station, cement wall in San Francisco, down with the pigs. I remember graffiti, I thought I had forgotten, splashed across a steel and glass wall of Banco Popular del Perú in Miraflores crying, down with a military. I remember the graffiti on the brick wall near the quadrangle of Stanford University for one entire spring quarter declaring, so we choose between reality and madness. Consider sadness or euphoria, ecstasy or despair. I remember graffiti during the whole semester scandalizing all from a partition on the third floor bathroom installed humanities buildings in San Francisco State University to have a daughter who grows up to be a politician is enough reason to have an abortion. I remember graffiti on the freshly wide wall of downtown Jackety Jack Cafe shouting angrily, this sure is in New York and there needs someone answered, I think, smiling, saying goodness, San Francisco still rains. Thank you. Coffee or tea, there used to be a lady in my own block that helped wherever she could. Nobody, some people didn't even talk to her, they had not to her, she looked to Indian, to Mexican and the blue eyes, the blondes hardly paid any attention, something, hello, okay, and I loved her. I closed her eyes when she died and I loved her and I miss her. Coffee or tea, I miss you in small, quiet ways. When I'm tasting a rich cup of coffee and I look at the geraniums under the front porch I find your smile amused at my effort to grow anything floating among the red and white petals you have to fertilize them they like lots of water, you know, she would say. We were drinking coffee, you were holding the orange cup with a green heart in the center and the one with the puppies falling all over themselves. I miss you in small, quiet ways. When I'm tasting honey color orange lemon tea and I think of the afternoon you came over after your operation they had taken your great part of your intestines with a tumor. You were in a pensive mood quietly weighing your words you said no. No coffee. Then you pause, surprise sighed when your look fell upon the color lilies on the dining room table announcing their yellow orange. You said quietly instead heck I'll have some coffee. Then you smile amused at yourself. I miss you in small, quiet ways. Thank you.