SOMOS EN ESCRITO
  • HOME INICIO
  • ABOUT SOBRE
  • SUBMIT ENVIAR
  • Books
  • TIENDA
Picture

​​SOMOS EN ESCRITO
​
The Latino Literary Online Magazine

WRITINGS  ESCRITOS

Reviews, Essays, Columns, Memoir

I Called It My Second Birthday

2/15/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Last month I turned 77 or as a friend put it, I got another chance to go around the sun.
I remember when at a younger age, I used to downplay the importance of birthdays calling them “just like any other day” until I heard someone say “maybe to you is just like any other day but tell that to your mom who carried you for 9 months and see how she feels.” 

As a man, I will never know the pain or experience of life conception or delivery but as a personal reflection, I know the excruciating pain of coming back to life after a ten-day coma due to an open-heart surgery I underwent in 2012.  

I remember how, after coming out of a 10-day coma my entire body was in shock and frankly I couldn’t tell what hurt and what didn’t, what parts of my body work and what didn’t, but as time went on, my body started to react to the intervention and pain and discomfort set in big time. My mouth felt totally destroyed due to the tube inserted in my throat to keep me alive. My torso had very limited ability to move if at all, my left hand was swollen due to a blood-clot, my restroom necessities were regulated by machines I didn’t even know I was plugged to. Frankly I do not remember ever feeling so vulnerable and afraid as the week I spent in the hospital after the operation. As the pain and discomfort grew so did the realization of the state I was in.

This enlightening came to me one night during dinner when my wife said it was my anniversary. I didn’t know what she was referring to so she went on to say “a day like today is when you went through the operation.” To which I responded, “so today is my birthday.” She replied “no, that’s in January.” My reasoning was that if I died and came back to life in February 7th, on that day I should celebrate my second birthday.

I borrowed that notion from a labor activist friend whom I met back in the early 80’s during my two years I worked with the United Farm Workers. Constantino Coronel had been a political prisoner for 5 years during the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship in Paraguay but got rescued by a campaign led by the World Council of Churches and Jimmy Carter. After considerable pressure the government of Paraguay said “we would release him but he died” to which the campaign leaders said “Well, in that case give us his body.” And soon enough they came back and said, “we found him, he is alive, only that he was lost in the system.”

As part of his release out of the country, The George Meany Institute and the AFL-CIO were able to gain refugee status for him in the US. However, since his language abilities were limited due to the fact that his primary language was Guarani and Spanish his second language, the Meany Institute people asked UFW leader Cesar Chavez to host him and keep him until they found a permanent place for him. So, as I was working building KUFW (Radio Campesina) for him, Cesar told me he was going to assign him to me.

​Coronel was an older man severely traumatized due to his imprisonment and being far away from his family and in a strange place where he was hardly able to communicate didn’t make things any easier. We became good friends, took him out for drinks and tours, treated him with respect, and asked for his input in the radio project. That seemed to be an effective therapy since soon enough he’d be singing, telling jokes and so on. This one time the whole radio team was invited to attend a community radio broadcasters conference in New Mexico so we drove from Bakersfield to Albuquerque. After a long trip we decided to go out and celebrate so we got ready for a long night out. I remember going by Coronel’s room to pick him up but he said he didn’t want to go. I insisted every way I could and he finally said he couldn’t go because that day was his birthday to which I exclaimed “What? the better the reason brother, it’s time to party.”

Constantino replied “No, you don’t understand, it’s my second birthday,” and with tears in his eyes he said that during his imprisonment he was tortured and regularly beaten by several guards, and when he passed out, they would wake him up with a bucket of water and continue with the beatings.

This one day, he said, he was being tortured by two guards, naked and soaking wet on the floor and he just wanted to die. When the guards went out of the room for a smoke break, he reached out for a metal wire that looked like a large paper clip and with his feet and hands tied he crawled towards an electricity outlet and with extreme difficulty he tried to insert the wires into the outlet in an effort to commit suicide. At that, the guards came back in and pulling him away continued with the beatings. “I should have died that day” he said “but I didn’t, that’s why I called it my second birthday.”

During our time together, we learned a lot from him. Perhaps the best lesson was that while there is life there is hope. Coronel eventually returned to his country where he enjoys his family and continues to inspire new generations of activists.  ​

​This memoir first appeared in Democracy Chronicles, February 14, 2021.

Picture
Julio César Guerrero earned two Master’s degrees in social work and telecommunications at the University of Michigan. He spent many years teaching in the Michigan University system, he also has ample experience as a journalist, student services, classroom teaching, community organization and development, social and human services, nonprofit and human services administration, community and media relations, diversity training, outreach, and recruitment. Most recently, Guerrero worked nonstop as the national coordinator for Caravana43, an international support network for the Ayotzinapa families of the 43 forcibly disappeared students in Guerrero, Mexico, when they made their tour through the United States.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    September 2015
    October 2013
    February 2010

    Categories

    All
    2018 WorldCon
    American Indians
    Anthology
    Archive
    A Writer's Life
    Barrio
    Beauty
    Bilingüe
    Bi Nacionalidad
    Bi-nacionalidad
    Border
    Boricua
    California
    Calo
    Cesar Chavez
    Chicanismo
    Chicano
    Chicano Art
    Chicano Confidential
    Chicano Literature
    Chicano Movement
    Chile
    Christmas
    Civil RIghts
    Collective Memory
    Colonialism
    Column
    Commentary
    Creative Writing
    Cuba
    Cuban American
    Cuento
    Cultura
    Culture
    Current Events
    Dominican American
    Ecology
    Editorial
    Education
    English
    Español
    Essay
    Eulogy
    Excerpt
    Extrafiction
    Extra Fiction
    Family
    Gangs
    Gender
    Global Warming
    Guest Viewpoint
    History
    Holiday
    Human Rights
    Humor
    Idenity
    Identity
    Immigration
    Indigenous
    Interview
    La Frontera
    Language
    La Pluma Y El Corazón
    Latin America
    Latino Literature
    Latino Sci-Fi
    La Virgen De Guadalupe
    Literary Press
    Literatura
    Low Rider
    Maduros
    Malinche
    Memoir
    Memoria
    Mental Health
    Mestizaje
    Mexican American
    Mexican Americans
    Mexico
    Migration
    Movie
    Murals
    Music
    Mythology
    New Writer
    Novel
    Obituary
    Our Other Voices
    Philosophy
    Poesia
    Poesia Politica
    Poetry
    Puerto Rican Diaspora
    Puerto Rico
    Race
    Reprint
    Review
    Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales
    Romance
    Science
    Sci Fi
    Sci-Fi
    Short Stories
    Short Story
    Social Justice
    Social Psychology
    Sonny Boy Arias
    South America
    South Texas
    Spain
    Spanish And English
    Special Feature
    Speculative Fiction
    Tertullian’s Corner
    Texas
    To Tell The Whole Truth
    Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo
    Walt Whitman
    War
    Welcome To My Worlds
    William Carlos Williams
    Women
    Writing

    RSS Feed

HOME INICIO

​ABOUT SOBRE

SUBMIT ENVIAR

​SUPPORT
​APOYAR 

Donate and Make Literature Happen

Somos En Escrito: The Latino Literary Online Magazine
is published by the Somos En Escrito Literary Foundation,
a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, tax-exempt corporation. EIN 81-3162209
©Copyright  2022
  • HOME INICIO
  • ABOUT SOBRE
  • SUBMIT ENVIAR
  • Books
  • TIENDA