Que Vivan Las Mujeres!

Berenice Badillo,

by Ernie McCray

As I listened to
my friend and hero,
Berenice Badillo,
talk about her art
in Chicano Park
a few days ago,
her mural,
“No Human Being is Illegal,”
that was born in her soul,
I hadn’t expected to
hear about
the plight of women
in the Chicano movement
to any extent
but when she
spoke ever so fervently,
still feeling remnants
of a past pain,
about the machismo
that stood in her way
during the days
when she painted
her truths
on the pylons
beneath the Coronado Bridge,
I listened so intently
that, as the park grounds
quaked
from the rumbling sounds
of traffic humming
on the bridge
above the park grounds,
I was, momentarily,
totally fixated on the plight of women
in our world
and transported,
like a character in a lucid dream,
back to the days
when I first
felt such trembling
on the grounds,
back when
muckety-muck-city-father-powers-that-be
imagined a highway patrol substation
as the centerpiece
for a proud Mexican American community,
but the folks of the neighborhood,
brown of skin
stood hand in hand,
tall and strong
and bold
in their resistance
of nonsensical
and heartless plans
to house police
on their hallowed land
and this struggle for dignity,
in a neighborhood
they changed
from Logan Heights
to Barrio Logan,
was won
by both women and men,
daughters and sons of Aztlan:
Latinas/Latinos,
Chicanas/Chicanos/
Heroes/Sheroes  –
equals in defeating
the foes
of human decency,
and as time has
moved on
there’s more
women’s art in the park,
with one exhibit
shining a bright light on a truth
that’s too often
kept in the dark,
the reality that
“Women Hold Up Half the Sky.”

That day I left the park
with
“Que Vivan Las Mujeres!”
resonating in my heart.