A TRIBUTE TO THE DREAM 9

Dreams, Courage and Footsteps

Saturday, 17 August 2013 09:35By Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, Truthout | Op-Ed

How do you begin when there appears to be no beginning? My own memory goes back 7,000 years, symbolically and metaphorically, to the origins - to the creation - of maiz. But even that was not the beginning, although it is helpful in understanding the following stories.

Yet, how do you understand that which is often incomprehensible - the meaning of life, freedom, sovereignty, memory or dreams?

In March of 2006, Hopi runners went into Mexico from northern Arizona and ran all the way to Mexico City - Tenochtitlan to deliver a message regarding the importance and sacredness of water to the World Water Forum. They then continued on to Teotihuacan - dancing there for the first time in 500 years - then on to several other sacred sites, including the volcanoes in Puebla, where El Popo spewed while they danced. They then went on to Temoaya, the ceremonial grounds of the Otomie, where they also connected with Otomie and Incaica relatives.

When it was time to return to Hopi land, there was a problem. They had crossed into the land of Quetzalcoatl without passports or visas. Despite that, they boarded their plane and returned safely home.

Amid high tension, intense security and frequent terror alerts, how did they get through? Forget the details; the point is, in the end, they managed to board their flights and return across a militarized international border simply with their Hopi identification cards. Deep down, government officials of both countries understood that the sovereignty of the Hopi trumped and superseded the European-imposed borders of their modern nation-state sovereignties.

It is highly likely that US State Department officials are continuing to scratch their heads over that one.

Similarly, the world has just witnessed something that will take years for people to comprehend; the case of the Dream 9. After having lived virtually their entire lives in the United States, three Dream students (Lulu Martinez-Valdez, Marco Saavedra and Lizbeth Mateo Jimenez) went back into Mexico, picked up six more Dream students (Claudia Amaro, Adriana Gil Diaz, Mario Felix Garcia, Luis Leon-Lopez, Maria Peniche-Vargas and Ceferino Santiago) and walked back into the United States via Nogales, Arizona.

FOR THE REST OF THE COLUMN, GO TO: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18238-dreams-courage-and-footsteps

Rodriguez can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com