Chicano poet, Joe Navarro, is a Literary Vato Loco, creative writer, teacher and activist for social change from Hollister, CA. He has been a featured poet in various coffee houses, as well as colleges throughout the U.S. Joe has authored seven chapbooks of poetry. His most recent titles include: Ambidextrous: In Two Languages and Poems y Poemas (poetry for children).
Joe's writing is inspired by a desire to create meaningful works that echo the voices of oppressed people everywhere who aspire for human dignity and human rights. He was also inspired to become a writer by an eclectic vibe that includes the beat generation poets, along with Amiri Baraka, Alurista, The Last Poets and others.
Joe is also a member of Apoyo Tarahumara, a group of volunteers, which as taken more than 270 tons of corn and beans to the indigenous Raramuri (Tarahumara) of Chihuahua, Mexico since 1994.
To learn more about this project please click on the Apoyo Tarahumara link.
Joe still has copies of his books: AMBIDEXTROUS IN TWO LANGUAGES and POEMS Y POEMAS(poetry for children). If you are interested in obtaining these chapbooks, please email Joe at poetajoe@yahoo.com.
Available for workshops and presentations.
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POEMS:
(All poems are property of Joe Navarro. You may use them with permission of the author and give him full credit for his work.)
My Garden
In June I look at the array
of brightly colored flowers
that I've cultivated since
September.
Months of watering and nurturing,
plenty of sunshine and a
whirlwind of ideas, mixed
with song, dance and play.
They grow, mind, body and spirit,
taller, enriched, freethinking.
Instead of neat little rows, they've
been scattered about, like
wild flowers, naturally. Each new
question is food for thought,
encouraging their stems to grow,
leaves to thicken and petals to bloom.
Each day they greet
the smiling sun, a little
closer, with their roots firmly planted
in the rich earth.
--Joe Navarro
© Copyright 2008
This Lifetime
Kuira. Kuiraba. Un saludo.
A friendly hello from my
compañeros de la sierra.
Buscan sonuco, maíz, corn,the
mainstay of their lives, the
original people came from maíz,
you know. It has power; it thinks
and breathes, and sustains precious
life, sonuco, quieren sonuco
to keep the people alive, and
survive so that there will be
future generations. Kuira, kuiraba.
La explotación, narcotraficantes,
deforestation and tourism encroach,
like beasts, with ravenous appetites.
My compañeros, los rarámuri, accept
the sonuco and muní, frijoles
and return to la sierra. Carajuco,
enough. No thanking
is offered, none is expected. Kórima
is the way of life here.
You have it, you share it. El
silencio es importante,try listening,
you might hear something new. La
Tierra, your mother, will impart her
wisdom. El Aire will bring a
distant message. El Sol, your father,
will advise you on how to prepare for
tomorrow. Stones will whisper
ancient stories. My compañeros
return to la sierra, where they
harvest their traditions. Los
rarámuri survive for tomorrow,
knowing that this lifetime
is a tiny spec, passing through,
within the context of the past,
present and future. They climb and
reunite with la sierra. I return home,
searching for tomorrow in yesterday.
--Joe Navarro
© Copyright 2002
HARMONY
Shakers and gourds
Rattle
Drums beat to
Heart time
Voices pray
Under
The smiling sun
Feet dance in
The rising dust
Eagle spirits soar
Human spirits leap
Ancestors smile
Everyone gives thanks
And all is in
Harmony
©Copyright 1999
Joe Navarro
THE GUY LIVES A LIE
They say that guy
lives a lie.
He knows why.
It's not polite to pry,
but some people try.
Some girls even sigh
when they learn the lie.
Oh my, oh my.
Poor guy
lives a lie
that makes him cry.
Can't tell no one why.
Especially that testosterone guy
who will try
to make him die,
unless he lives the lie.
Oh my, oh my.
Forced to live a lie.
That poor guy
pretends to be shy
keeping out of public eye.
He wants to be a happy guy.
Free of the lie.
Able to say, "Hi,"
without a care in the sky.
--Joe Navarro
GIVING YOUR LIFE
Giving your life,
handing it over,
as an act of faith,
to the point of
being willing to die,
in the belief that
one's death
will save lives, and a nation,
is the most noble act
of selflessness that
I could imagine.
Sending people to death
while killing countless others,
in defense of a lie and greed
and an oppressive empire
is the most immoral
and cowardly act that
I could imagine.
--Joe Navarro
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
Millions of people,
you know,
human beings,
you know,
children, elderly,
mothers and fathers,
you know.
People with names
and faces.
People with histories.
People who have loved
and have been loved.
Yeah, millions of those
people
live in poverty
in America.
Money for jobs and food
and people
have exploded far
from home.
--Joe Navarro
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Thank you for visiting my website. I hope you enjoy the poetry. Please forward the link to my website and check it frequently. Thank you.
--Joe Navarro
Summer is almost over for many students, teachers and administrators, and the new school semester is on the horizon. Children are invigorated by the excitement of starting again, being with friends and the challenges of learning new concepts and skills. Likewise, teachers are refreshed, after having given some thought about what can be done differently this year. Teachers hope of reaching more students academically and the thought of giving students important life-skills so they can develop and grow to become contributors to their community and families. However, this excitement is overshadowed by the unavoidable pressures of the state and federal governments to torture students into submission, so that they will become better test-takers by learning through rote-memorization and heavy doses of phonics.
As educators we are always challenged to do what is right and risk being punished or doing what we believe is wrong so that we can keep our jobs. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act and California Department of Education have steadily increased efforts to toughen standards and enforce a rigorous system of testing. Educator and researcher, Alfie Kohn, argues that tougher is not necessarily better.
The tougher the standards become, the more difficult it is for children to raise test scores. So teachers are caught in a trap, where preparing students to become better at raising test scores becomes the objective of teaching. Hollister School District focuses endless hours on training teachers to teach students to raise their scores. Our curriculum is driven by the tests. Annually, we have become increasingly reliant on a scripted curriculum, which takes away teacher creativity and discretion, and are becoming education technicians instead of teachers.
Many California High school students are dropping out of school because in spite of good grades and meeting graduation requirements they cannot pass the High School Exit Exam. The rising benchmark of the Academic Yearly Progress (AYP) will always leave someone behind, leaving more discouraged students and teachers. It is a no win situation for public education, leading me to believe that the goal of NCLB is to discredit public schools and promote privatization of education.
In the end, the supposed beneficiaries of NCLB—Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, Southeast Asians and low-income students of all ethnic groups—end up in worse scenarios. These students end up in remedial education, are given larger doses of drill-n-skill instruction and increased phonics. They are deprived of meaningful, higher-order thinking skills.
Furthermore, most immigrant students who are not proficient English speakers, readers and writers, are deprived of learning in their primary language in Hollister Schools. Through lack of effort to provide information to non-English speaking parents and misinformation, many families who would qualify for primary language (such as Spanish) instruction are denied instruction in their primary language. Renowned researcher and activist, Stephen Krashen, powerfully argues that once children have mastered primary language literacy that they can transfer this knowledge to learning a second language. Instead, the federal, state and local policy makers and administrators ignore important data and impose policies that slow down the academic growth of students. Spanish speaking children are also stigmatized and are accused of bringing test scores down.
I have spoken with colleagues who have discussed the pressures to raise test scores of students and have shared with me that they have been guilty of looking at students at the beginning of the school year and trying to sort and classify them on the basis of who will raise test scores or not. Teachers are no longer valued for creativity in creating classrooms that give students opportunities to explore, evaluate and question…it takes too much time. Now quantity of instruction (introducing lots of disconnected facts) is valued over quality education.
But, there are many people throughout the state and nation who are struggling for quality education. There are resisters everywhere, who are writing letters to the editor, contacting elected officials, calling for a boycott of testing, working to repeal NCLB and California’s ridiculous standards, organizing education conferences, or turning a classroom into a safe-haven, free of harmful ideologies and practice, where children learn about the real world and how to make it better. Individually we cannot do much, but collectively we can build a movement to achieve sanity in education.
Here are a list of resources that teachers and parents can use to learn more about creating safe and creative learning environments for students.
1. Organizations/Coalitions
www.t4sj.org
http://www.caljustice.org
http://testingabuse.blogspot.com
http://www.rethinkingschools.org
2. Research Sources/progressive
http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu
http://www.sdkrashen.com
http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.html
http://www.susanohanian.org
http://www.calcare.org
http://www.fairtest.org
3. Educational Reporting/analysis
http://www.ascd.org
http://www.edweek.orgl