 The curator of the exhibit and San Francisco's poet laureate and Professor an incredible poet and author Alejandro Margia. Let's give it up for Alejandro thank you Joan and Thanks to the San Francisco Public Library and the friends of the San Francisco Public Library for their incredible support Not just of this particular project But of the poet laureate ship and of poetry and literature and reading in general So thank you very much for that and I also want to thank you all also for Taking time out from your busy lives to show up today and celebrate with us Not just the vision the Wadalupe, but also Donat scene the earth the mother of the gods for whom Wadalupe stands in for and Celebrate as well our indigenous culture with a dance on this and a little bit of indigenous Nahuatl poetry And then of course to celebrate something. I'm very proud of and pleased to share with you today for the very first time the book based on the exhibit a little piece of Mexico and I have a little teaser for you From the book a little bit later on but right now We want to start by having the dance on this tell Cali Do an offering for us to get the program started. So with that, let's bring on the group of the dance that tell Cali to the stage a Prayer actually and so it's a prayer that was offering for the four directions and for the four Elements and now they will do a dance for we see the poach Lee Which is the the main God hummingbird on the left the main God of the Mexicas? And then they will do follow that up with another dancer for Mali Nali who is sometimes known as The translator not sometimes is known as a translator That work with so dance for we see the poach Lee and then followed by another offering to Mali Nali Madre or nuestra madre tierra una dedicación a la virgen de Guadalupe So thank you all very much for coming here. We are tell Cali a traditional dance group from Mexico City and We're here to honor and celebrate ton at scene Whose name and now what means blessed mother? Queremos darles las gracias a todo nuestros antiguos a las ofrendas de danza que hacemos en la lengua náhuatl nuestra lengua paterna le llamamos shit on tequiza shit on tequiza en la lengua náhuatl significa el movimiento cósmico es como nuestros Antiguos nos enseñaron a rezar por medio del movimiento corporal y es como lo seguimos haciendo de generación So we want to offer thanks also to all our ancestors and Who have followed us or who led us into this path and the movement? The energy of the dance and the movement is how the prayer has been handed down to us And it has a particular name and now what? shit on tequiza shit on tequiza which means Cosmic movement or cosmic energy Lasso kamati Gracias to Cali dan santas. We'll bring them back again for another offering in a few minutes. I'm gonna Give a little brief background on the history and the Resonance of the vision the water loop it, but I would like to start by invoking one of our great poetic pre-columbian voices and poets and Who was not only a poet. He was also a priest and a warrior Architect and a philosopher, and I'm talking about the great Nessa wall coyote coyote ambiente hungry coyote also questioned the militarism of the other communities around him and Sat to find a unifying force a unifying God that was not Hungry or warrior like And like so much of the pre-columbian poetry, which by the way was called in Sochi link we cuddle in Spanish It would be flori canto and an English flower and song. So it's all metaphor The now at language a very metaphoric language And so a lot of the themes were you know the themes that have a concerned poets throughout the ages around the world Why are we here Who creates us what purpose do we have? Course the great philosophical question. What happens afterwards? Yes, so I want to read a fragment of a poem By Nessa wall coyote. It is translated from the now what by Miguel young Portilla when the great scholars and Because my not my broken now what is not much better than my broken English I'll just read it in Spanish and translate it for you So this is from the so I'll coyote and the so I'll coyote states by the way are 1402 to 1472 So he lived entirely in the period before Columbus got lost Yo Nessa wall coyote me pregunto Acaso de veras se vive con raiz en la tierra No para siempre en la tierra solo un poco aquí I Nessa wall coyote asked myself. Is it true that we really come to live on earth? Not always here on earth only a little time here Although it be jade Is it true that we really come to live on earth? Not always here on earth only a little time here Although it be jade it breaks even gold Breaks even the sacred plumes of the kids I'll fall apart Not forever here on earth only a little while here from Nessa wall coyote and Let me kind of offer a few observations on The importance and the resonance of the region of other loop First of all when exactly I'm sure you all know the story of the Indian Juan Diego who in December one day sees an apparition That tells them she wants a church built there and after several tries on the third time she gives him the proof a hillside covered with roses which he picks and Then in his Dilma similar to the dress that the then Santas are wearing with that picture of other loop He goes to the bishops umariga and when he releases the the roses this image is Appears on on his cloth on his Dilma now when exactly that happens a certain amount of As most histories inconsistencies some say the traditional date of 1531, but others site 1535 and other sources 1580 right what is not in doubt though is that in that same site On the hill outside of Mexico City called the Tepeyac where the church sanctuary to other loop it was built Was the exact same site where for hundreds of years indigenous people had had Place of worship and of offerings Not for what the loop obviously, but for Dona and seen the blessed mother the mother of the gods And you can still kind of see a little bit of that residence in the indigenous residence in the image of what I look at For example, for example, you can see here that she has like a cord tied around her waist and Sinta meaning that it signifies that she's also with child. Yes mother of the gods and Another detail I just point out see this it looks like a shell Right. So another indigenous concept the shell in preclinical million times was the Placeholder that we use in Arabic for zero. Yes, because the Mayans and indigenous people had the concept of zero But their concept was different the shell which symbolized that placeholder did not stand for zero the way in the Arabic System but for the opposite for the possibility of everything Yeah, so that's the background of what I look at and of course Lots of debates lots of inconsistencies for example all the key historians of that period who were writing in the 1530s and in the 1550s and in the 1580s, none of them mentioned what I look at yeah, and Her story does not come into print till The mid 1600s or so 1620s. Yeah, so there's a gap Lacuna we call it a missing part there of what happens during that period But like I said, what is No doubt is that what the loop is in fact or not seen The indigenous goddess, which is why she's brown and dark But also of course in the throughout history the image of what a loop has been so important, of course 1810 when Mexico launched its independence the priest Hidalgo used precisely the banner of what the loop it to organize People later on in the end of Zapata the vision the what the loop it was also the standard bear for his army and his slogan Tierra y Libertad and even into the more modern era If you remember if you remember the well guys in the fast of Cesar Chavez during that campaign for the farm workers Their standard was also what a loop it so she has a sort of mystical magical aura about her and I think it's true that whenever communities are under stress or under duress Figures like this Images miracles happen and even in our own time here in California in California, of course is part of Latin America And has nothing to do with the East Coast and so you're all Latin Americans For example about 15 years maybe a little bit more right here at Pinto Lake County Park by San Jose on a oak tree La Virgen appeared and For months and months people would come to leave offerings, you know gifts require those miracles prayer and even more recently in Los Angeles, I believe downtown LA the Virgen appeared on one of those big glass Skyrises right and attracted a crowd so definitely There's the power and the belief and in the energy for so many centuries associated with the image of tonacine and Let me just offer This observation about the Don Santas because we were gonna bring him back in a in a little bit So what they're doing is praying yes, and in our ancient times It would be the bravest warriors that would do the dance that would do the prayers Yeah, so the question of the dance is very sacred for us in that context and I'm gonna bring him on right now. I just want to tell you my own sort of brief story when I was a young baby brown buffalo in Mexico City when my first Memories that must have been not quite four years old is being in the procession of the Virgen of all the Lupe and We were all carrying candles and we were carrying these great big thick candles and Like I said, I couldn't have been more than four years old It didn't turn out too well because it candle kept getting heavier and heavier and heavier And I cut the girl's hair on fire who was who was in front of me That's my first memory about that but but even now as an adult perhaps I'm a little bit more agnostic about religion and things like that, but I Still carry in my car an image of the Virgen of all the Lupe just in case So let's bring on the dance on this again, and then we'll present a little bit of the book for you Okay, let's bring the dance on this Tocale. Oh, that's and This will be there there Danza For ton at scene. Yes, the indigenous Virgen of all the Lupe. So let's bring him back on Thank you very much We're gonna offer a song a prayer. It's a popular prayer and song in honor in offering of ton and scene Something It's a brief song. I'll just tell you a little bit about what the word say So the phrase and now what way ton and scene signifies great venerated mother Wani la que da la vida la da Dora de la vida Wani the the she who gives this life Mojo locats in Tendemos to a to a gradable corazon Mojo locats in we have your blessed heart Tlazo kamati. Gracias Tlazo kamati. Gracias. Thank you Significado de este pequeño canto que se lo veneramos a nuestra madre tierra Y en este Tiempo a nuestra madre la Virgen de Guadalupe And so these are the lyrics of the song that we're gonna offer now in honor of our mother earth and also of the Virgen de Guadalupe Y seguido vamos a seguir con un Con una ofrenda de danza dedicada a la misma madre tierra ton and scene and we'll follow the song with a dance Also dedicated to the blessed mother ton and scene It's here for them one more time We'll bring them back in a few minutes where we close the ceremony so that they can give us the closing Prayer offering for us today and again I want to thank you all very much for coming by and all the folks at the library and in particular I Hope I'm not sure if all of you have seen the exhibit that's right across the hallway there a little piece of Mexico which was organized by the staff of Of the Jewett Gallery and of course Joan Jasper and all those wonderful people Let's give them a big hand of a and if you've seen the exhibit it it features over 200 pre 1910 Mexican postcards. Yes. So every postcard in the exhibit is over a hundred years old and the other thing that we are celebrating today is the the reception for the book Based on that exhibit and so I want to give you a little bit of a teaser on it Here's the cover. Yes, and that postcard on the cover by the way is by Guillermo Calo and Subtitle of the exhibit and the book is the postcards of Guillermo Calo and his contemporaries now Unfortunately, I have to go around introducing Guillermo Calo as the father of Frida But in his own time he was a very well known Photographer and in particular what our project of the exhibit has revealed is That he was also the most prolific and innovative Mexican postcard Photographer of his time. Yes, so the exhibit Shows the incredible range of his work and and we'll see some of them in a second, right? Here's the title page and this this image by the way is of the Yucatan the Cortador is a Hennigan and so the exhibit and the book is Separated by sections it's organized around sections and You can see from the title page. It has several essays Just on Guillermo Calo and the work that he did on the postcards And I say this very interesting essay by the way During my research I go to Coyoacán, if you know the town in Mexico City to interview Arturo García Bustos and Arturo García Bustos Had been a student of Frida and had known Don Guillermo Calo as he called them So it kind of gives us a chance to see a really personal insight into the man and then another essay on a brief essay on Mexican postcards up until about 1949 because what happens in 1949 Which is as far as my own research goes is that then the Codacrome postcard Starts taking over and that's a mass produced postcard Yes, and then eventually what happens is that all the scenes become the same, right? The girls on the beach at Mazatlán could be the same girls on the beach at Merida, right? There's no difference anymore, right? Whereas during this period every image is very unique and very artistic and The exhibit these Postcards that I'm showing you are all from the book and from the exhibit, but it begins with the very first Mexican postcards around 1882 Before the images were allowed Permitted and this is one of the most fascinating postcards in the exhibit Right, you can barely see the date there, but it says December 19th 1900 it is signed by Guillermo Calo and it is not only one of the first postcards Produced in Mexico, but it is a portrait of his which are super rare and unknown And the only time you will see his portraits are in this exhibit where we feature eight portraits done by Guillermo Calo because he's known mostly as an architectural photographer And here's one of his masterpieces in the postcard genre Besides this being an incredible photograph and you can see the detail of the shadows and he's got just incredible detail on this This is the main post office that was built in 1907 and This postcard is also embossed So Calo was one of the few who was the only one actually who was doing embossed postcards, right, which is much more Technical technique in that sense. I think this is the masterpiece of both embossing and of his photography And we have some of his contemporaries. This is the only woman photographer Her name is Cecil Seller and she does incredible ruins We have several of them in the book and several in the exhibit Very interesting because she was the wife of one of the most well-known anthropologists Edward Seller who first translates the code is Borgia So we were very fortunate to find some of her postcards and this is a Trojan So this is a granary. Yes And the only other place in the world that this type of grainy granary exists is in the Republic of Georgia In the former Soviet Union Now this is another one of the rare images This is the big centennial parade of 1910. It's the last big hurrah of the dictator and This is the replication of Malinali. Yes For whom we had to dance earlier and she's gotten a bad rep, right? Often called la Malinche To signify someone who has betrayed their country But the interesting thing about the phrase is that if you look at the ancient text, it wasn't Malinali who was called Malinche It was Cortes That's called Malinche. Yes, and what Malinche means the captain of Malinali and you hear that in Malinche Yes, so it's the first time perhaps in history that a man was named after a woman And then of course part of Mexico in 1910 was it's pushed towards modernity Which is also some of the focus of the exhibit And so part of Mexico was becoming very modern railroads ports shipping etc But other parts of Mexico were still living in the 1700s or 1800s and moving things by human labor And then we have a whole section on churches and ruins that are really Beautiful and an interesting note the majority of the postcards especially these colored lithograph ones were Printed in Germany, which I think they were the best printers of the time Which I think also gave Guillermo Kahlo an entrance, right? He was German, right? So he could communicate with these printers This is one of the themes that appears very much in the exhibit and in the book that the Juanas Right, this is kind of rare because this is an embossed image of the Tehuana and you all know the story of the headdress, right? According to legend myth or cheese man Boatwrecked and in all these petticoats or wash the shore there on the coast of Oaxaca They didn't know what they were for so they decided to kind of improvise them as a headdress and then we see here some of the photographs as the photography starts transferring over to Real photo postcards. Yeah, so this is the carnival in Kulia Khan 1910 Wild outfits on and then some images right perhaps stereotypes or types, right or cliches and This is the back cover which features another postcard by Guillermo Kahlo. This is by Abel Brickette And this would be Virginia Fabregas the most important and famous actress of that period and I just want to say They say that after our closing ceremony, which will come right now we will be selling the book and All the proceeds I have donated the entire print run by the way, it's a very small print run So it's a collector's item already I've donated the entire proceeds of all the books to the Sam's to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, so In in kind of support for everything they've done for literature and reading in poets So when you purchase the book, you're actually making a donation donation to the Friends of the Library. Yes, and I know in most cases if you buy a book from the author, they will sign it for you In this case, I'll sign it twice We have nothing else to inform you that I want to give especially the thanks to the young dancers that It's important for us to transmit our roots We as parents have the obligation to instill our roots to our children It doesn't matter where we are, but that we sit proud of where we come Who we are and where we go We're going to end, as we started with all the respect to this place To the representation of our mother, Tonansin, the Virgin of Guadalupe With the permission to the four winds, to the four directions, to the four elements of the earth Again, thank you very much, Alejandro, for the invitation and to this library. He is God We want to thank in particular our young dancers who are following in the tradition of the elders It's so important for the parents to pass on the tradition and our roots and we'll be closing then with our final ceremony we want to thank the library and our final Prayer dance to the four directions and the four elements Thank you all very much Okay, we want to thank you again for this and we continue to celebrate the birthday of our mother Guadalupe Tonansin and to offer our prayers through our energy and our dance and The correct auditorium in the library has not been blessed many many many times by our prayers and our dance. Thank you very much So the presence and our celebration of Guadalupe Tonansin