 San Antonio, this is what is ours. As we walk down through the centuries, through el Mercado, and feel our heritage seeping up through the dirt. At el Mercado, the farmer's market, you hear, all ready to be cured with little grains of rice, velvet pictures for your living room senora. Just look at this magnificent tiger here, or here, Jesus with his crown of thorns. Our President Kennedy, he was so good to us Mexicanos. Get it for your comadre, the ones that's so involved in last neighborhood meetings. Excuse me. Do you have some breros, those great big ones? You know? Chiles, fresh, hot, and at a good price. Chilepetin, chileserranos, jalapeños, chile colorado, all ground up already. Excuse me. Are these hot? Ah, it's me. It feels so hot already. It's bugging me. My father used to call these days la canícula, the dog days. Y la dencha, why isn't she here today? Did she miss her ride? Hijo, what a tragedia. Is that her brother, the one that lives with her, he went to the social security office so he could get paid his retirement and that they can't pay him, they say, because his boss hadn't taken out anything for social security after 40 years and marinas and that his chest is hurting him, but he doesn't want to go to the doctor because he doesn't have the conque, you know, and he's still not 65 for La Medicare, so he just kept quiet and he took it and he didn't complain no more. No, that guy never complains. Is it far from here to the Alamo? Baya. And that yesterday, when Dencha gets home with that big old mountain of paper flowers in her arms, you know the ones that she sells and goes like so much. Well, I'm getting inside the door loaded down with everything and not seeing what was there, that she stumbles on the body of her brother on the floor. She falls on top of him with flowers and the poor guy dead or naive. Well, that Dencha feels like dying of pain. Why didn't she make him go to the doctor and pay it for him, you know, and let it down payments or something, like the layaway at the store's uncle, all feeling bad, poor thing, what a shame, hombre. Yeah, poor Dencha. Listen, if you go by her house, bring me the flowers and whatever else she has to sell and I'll sell them for her here. So the poor thing has for her expenses. Okay, Mano, and you know what? The corn and the fruit that I don't sell today, I'll take it to her. After all, tomorrow's another load. Yeah, tomorrow is another load. Ay, así es la vida, that's life. Sí, así es la vida, that's life. Well, Cajetes, all ready to be cured with little grains of rice. Yes, it's around you. It's around you, it's right here, aquí. Aquí, aquí, Mero. He wanders through the crooked streets that mimic riverbeds from long ago and breathes the anxious air in traffic that's filled with tension left from the quivering bow strings in woods under attack. She shops the windows happy where the stocking once was curled and her kitchen floor is built on bones of venison once Jethie roasted. It's a good place for a party he concurs to his friends now dressed in jeans. The ground was already beat smooth and festive by the joy of ancient dances. They feel the warmth and yet don't know their soul is filled with the spirit of Coyotes past. Walking through the west side breathing our history, our cultura. This is what feeds your soul, San Antonio. This is what feeds you. What takes your tomates and makes your tacos and feeds your soul? Feeding you, alimentando te like a mother speaking to her child. Dear mijo, I have slipped chile under your skin, secretly wrapped in each enchilada, hot and soothing, carefully cut into bitefuls for you as a toddler, increasing in power and potency as you grew until it could burn forever. He metido chile debajo de tu piel, descretamente envuelto en cada enchilada, caliente y calmante, cuidadosamente cortada en mordiditas cuando eres pequeñín, aumentando en poder y potencia según crecías hasta que pudiera quemar para siempre. Silently spiced into the rice, soaked into the bean, caldo smoothed into the avocado. I have slipped chile under your skin, dropped, my fiery drop, until it ignited the sun-altered fire in your blood. Like a prayer, silenciosamente y obisnado en el arroz, enjuagado en el caldo de frijol, emparejado en el aguacate, yo he metido chile debajo de tu piel, gota por fugosa gota, hasta que encendiera el fuego-altar de sol en tus venas. I have squeezed cilantro into the breast milk, he has squeezed cilantro into the breast milk, made sure you were nurtured with the clean taste of corn stalks. Para esugurar que te nutrieras con el sabor limpio de maíz verde, with the wildness of thick leaves, con los salvaje de hojas espezas, of untamed monte, de monte no domesticada, of unscheduled growth, de crecimiento no planeado. I have ground the earth of these américas in my molcajete, until it became a fine and pecan spice, sprinkled it surely into each spoonful of food that would have to expand to fit your soul. He molido la tierra de estas américas en mi molcajete, hasta que se convirtiera en especie fina y picante, lo que he rociado libremente en cada cucharada de tu comida que tuviera que expandir para venirle a tu alma. Dear mijo, dear mijo, dear mijo, dear corn, chiles, cilantro, militos, this is your herencia. Esto es tu herencia. This is what is yours. Esto es lo que es tuyo. This is what your mother fed you to keep you alive. Esto es lo que te dio tu madre para que pudieras sobrevivir, to keep you alive. To keep you alive. Para que pudieras sobrevivir.