Books by Louis Reyes Rivera

Sanchocho: A Book of Nuyorican Poetry / Scattered Scripture / Bum Rush the Page

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Notes for (jorge’s journey)

By Louis Reyes Rivera

Capitalism, of course, is an economic system. The word defines the reason we do business—to make money. Democracy, however, is a political term that defines how we legislate the conduct of business. It means to say a government that allows everyone equitable access. Consequently, democracy is in conflict with capitalism, as under the latter only capital (i.e., assets, credit, cash) matters.

Its basic dictate requires a segment of the population to be unskilled. The unemployed/unemployable become a cheaply exploited commodity—a non-laboring lumpen caste upon which inestimable numbers of jobs are created, particularly in social services and the judicial system. In order to stay in business, each sector must make more money each year. In social services and in public schools, more unprepared people are created through miseducation, even as the general economy moves into high-tech skills.

Similarly, in order for courts, prisons and police to justify expanding their tax-based budgets they must arrest more people. This form of economics has its historic parallels in chattel slavery. Where yesterday’s form for fast money involved breeding, buying, transporting and selling slaves, today’s form involves growing, buying, transporting and selling drugs; where yesterday’s form for steady money involved slave labor on plantations and inside mines, today’s form involves an underclass in prison cells and welfare dependency.

The juridical arena is now the nation’s third largest industry, and building new prisons is the busiest area for the construction trades. Former Detective Mark Fuhrman’s nationally aired on-tape remarks (Aug., 1995) at the O. J. Simpson trial corroborated the practice of planting evidence against socalled "non-whites," which is as old as the first prisons in the Americas. Standard statistics hold that over 80% of the imprisoned are African Americans, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans, yet their composite proportion to the population has yet to exceed 28%. Thus an undercaste.

While it appears socially uprooted, an inner consciousness drives many of its members to search out their humanity (see F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth and The Autobiography of Malcolm X). In the poem, Jorge the Younger begins his journey from a state prison.

(a) the bus at green haven refers to the Green Haven maximum security prison in Stormville, New York, one of two state prisons with death houses.

(b) old san juan, the first Spanish capital of Puerto Rico, is part of Greater San Juan (a series of small towns which grew to overlap one another, including Old San Juan, Santurce, Isla Verde, Rio Piedras, etc.).

(c) ha ti fue quien mandaron means So, you’re the one they sent!

(d) heh/heh, mira, que con el no se hace na’/ni pa’ la leche del nene se hace na! means, heh/heh, look, man, with that guy you won’t make a thing/not even enough to buy milk for the baby.

(e) esta bien, muchas gracias, pero. . .means it’s all right; thanks, but. . .

(f) botado en la calle pero ando, compai/ botado en la calle pero sigo, comai/ siempre estoy mirando buscando my pai/ siempre encontrando mas de lo que hai/ botado en la calle pero. . . . roughly translates as "ejected into the streets/ and yet, my man, I’m still walking/ ejected into the streets/ and yet, dear heart, I keep on/ I’m always looking/ searching for my father/ always finding more than what I sought/ ejected into the streets/ and yet. . ." The terms compai and comai are short for compadre and comadre (masculine/feminine for intimate friend), often chosen as godparents to one's children (as parents-in-reserve). the term pai, like mai, is an impolite way to say padre/madre (i.e., father/mother versus pop or old lady).

(g) born from the seed of Caguas heads for that highland town alludes to Caguas, Puerto Rico, which mountain town was also the name of a village elder (a cacique, i.e., chief) at the time of the Spanish invasion. The cacique (pronounced KA-see-keh) Caguas is said to have capitulated to Spanish domination. Jorge is given here as a descendant of Caguas, earching for his roots (his father’s crime).