A new history starts ... yesterday.
Early morning, 11 March 2004.
I had to get up early, cos at the time I was working at the campaign offices of Ralph Nader, as a flunkie. My mother is already watching television, having not slept as per usual during the night. I see her face, I try to figure out what has happened. The cameras of TVE are re-transmitting the carnage & chaos after the train bombings in Madrid very early that morning. What? Someone bombed the underground trains in Madrid? What? I had to get to work. I wanted to stay with my mother that day, but couldn't.
Since it's so early in the morning, none of the Stateside papers have anything in them about the Madrid bombings. I get to work & ask if anyone had heard about them, they said oh, some trains were bombed in Spain. This seemed so cold to me, because everyone knows that I'm half Spanish. I mumble something about my Mom being from Spain, I need to know what happened. I didn't try to mumble, but at the time my thoughts were lagging, & my body felt weak, I didn't know how else to say anything. No answer from the co-workers, nothing. No letter from Nader, whom I never met nor saw, no sympathetic looks from the office boss. Seriously nothing.
The day of the memorial for the victims, with attendance by the Kings of Spain, was a beautiful ceremony. I watched a bit of it with my mother, then went to work. I cried on the bus, the metro & on the walk to the office. No one noticed, especially not the people at work. I bought the newspaper that day, & took one from the office as well. I saved them, & the TIME magazine that featured the attacks. I kept them until I thought I had gotten over them. These days I realize that I really haven't.
During the next few days at work, I got a horrible feeling from these people. No one talked to me about anything, which was usual, but no one even offered their condolences that my mother's country had been bombed. I got this from most of the Americans I knew at the time. It was as if 9/11 was the only bombing that mattered, no one else on Earth mattered, a very, very American sentiment. I sat in a conference room packing Nader's autographed books into envelopes to be sent out to people who made donations. During this process I decided to quit.
I didn't tell anyone at work that I quit, they weren't worth it. I didn't tell my Mom why I didn't go back to work, but she knew. I didn't tell anyone for a really long time why I quit that job, cos not even my "friends" offered me any words or support. before this I was trying to get away from some of the people I had been hanging out with, & this confirmed to me that I should throw them all away. All of them. It wasn't until 2005 that I met new people. Unfortunately that's when I lost the best one I've ever had. Although, to end this paragraph on a positive note, that person will always be with me in my heart, & is with me in spirit right now. Always.
One of the last days of work, when everyone still thought that ETA was responsible, I walked wearily from the Dupont Circle metro station to the "secret" campaign offices to work & passed by 2 people holding a newspaper, a black man asking a white lady the rhetorical question of "Why don't they just carpet bomb them?" I fell into a depression then. I had been at home trying to tell my mother why the attack didn't have ETA's signature on it, but she wasn't having it. ETA had something to do with it, clearly, if not be responsible for the entire thing, for her. I never thought so, but now I'm thinking someone somewhere might have been involved. But at the time I was dead set against this idea, & hearing 2 regular working Americans walking down the street on their way to work who have absolutely no clue about Spain or ETA or the bombings take Bush's stand was it for me.
I refused to talk about it after that. I couldn't. I didn't read anything. I couldn't. All I saw was José Luis Rodríguiez Zapatero with his arms up on television thanking the Spanish people for voting his party into power. See, the attacks came right before the election, where a very conservative PP was in power, the same politicians who came out & said that ETA was responsible. When it was found out that they weren't, the Spaniards felt disillusioned once more with their goverment & decided to change it by voting. So many people went to the polls, still in mourning. I thought this was a good thing, but now I'm seeing that the PSOE wasn't the party to vote for, either. I'm beginning to think no party is the party to vote for. There's so much bullshit in politics, & that's not counting the conspiracy theories.
So anyway, I haven't really talked about it until this week, when the 11-M trial started. After 3 years of "investigations" 29 people are on trial, & one is in jail. I didn't know it was such hard work trying to follow a trial. I remember my mother following every single important trial on television, starting with the Iran Contra Affair. I feel horrible when I don't know what's going on in the world. I remember writing something at the dining room table & my mother telling me to turn around, because at that moment we were witnessing history: the Berlin Wall was falling. No matter what your views, no matter what's going on in your life, you should know what's going on in the world. This was something my mother taught me & something that I will teach my children, if I ever have any.
This involves reading the newspaper (it's online, no excuses anymore), watching the news or listening to the news on the radio, talking to people, opening your mind & opening the minds of others around you. READ. WATCH. TALK. LISTEN. Educate yourself not only with history but history-in-the-making. It's very important for the growth of a person, really. My mom instilled this in my father & me, & we bond over current events (especially Spanish current events) now. It's a beautiful thing.
If you do not know what's going on in Spain right now, please learn about it. There are hundreds of journalists standing outside the courtroom from everywhere in the world covering this trial. This attack has stained the history & hearts of Spaniards, & it is a very important trial. Unfortunately there are a lot of political factors in it as well. I will do my best to write summaries on the trial, not for anything other than my own benefit, so that I know that I fully understand what's going on. The good thing is that I might help at least one person follow it, & learn about what's happened, is happening, & will happen. I will also provide links in both Spanish & English for reference.
I had to get up early, cos at the time I was working at the campaign offices of Ralph Nader, as a flunkie. My mother is already watching television, having not slept as per usual during the night. I see her face, I try to figure out what has happened. The cameras of TVE are re-transmitting the carnage & chaos after the train bombings in Madrid very early that morning. What? Someone bombed the underground trains in Madrid? What? I had to get to work. I wanted to stay with my mother that day, but couldn't.
Since it's so early in the morning, none of the Stateside papers have anything in them about the Madrid bombings. I get to work & ask if anyone had heard about them, they said oh, some trains were bombed in Spain. This seemed so cold to me, because everyone knows that I'm half Spanish. I mumble something about my Mom being from Spain, I need to know what happened. I didn't try to mumble, but at the time my thoughts were lagging, & my body felt weak, I didn't know how else to say anything. No answer from the co-workers, nothing. No letter from Nader, whom I never met nor saw, no sympathetic looks from the office boss. Seriously nothing.
The day of the memorial for the victims, with attendance by the Kings of Spain, was a beautiful ceremony. I watched a bit of it with my mother, then went to work. I cried on the bus, the metro & on the walk to the office. No one noticed, especially not the people at work. I bought the newspaper that day, & took one from the office as well. I saved them, & the TIME magazine that featured the attacks. I kept them until I thought I had gotten over them. These days I realize that I really haven't.
During the next few days at work, I got a horrible feeling from these people. No one talked to me about anything, which was usual, but no one even offered their condolences that my mother's country had been bombed. I got this from most of the Americans I knew at the time. It was as if 9/11 was the only bombing that mattered, no one else on Earth mattered, a very, very American sentiment. I sat in a conference room packing Nader's autographed books into envelopes to be sent out to people who made donations. During this process I decided to quit.
I didn't tell anyone at work that I quit, they weren't worth it. I didn't tell my Mom why I didn't go back to work, but she knew. I didn't tell anyone for a really long time why I quit that job, cos not even my "friends" offered me any words or support. before this I was trying to get away from some of the people I had been hanging out with, & this confirmed to me that I should throw them all away. All of them. It wasn't until 2005 that I met new people. Unfortunately that's when I lost the best one I've ever had. Although, to end this paragraph on a positive note, that person will always be with me in my heart, & is with me in spirit right now. Always.
One of the last days of work, when everyone still thought that ETA was responsible, I walked wearily from the Dupont Circle metro station to the "secret" campaign offices to work & passed by 2 people holding a newspaper, a black man asking a white lady the rhetorical question of "Why don't they just carpet bomb them?" I fell into a depression then. I had been at home trying to tell my mother why the attack didn't have ETA's signature on it, but she wasn't having it. ETA had something to do with it, clearly, if not be responsible for the entire thing, for her. I never thought so, but now I'm thinking someone somewhere might have been involved. But at the time I was dead set against this idea, & hearing 2 regular working Americans walking down the street on their way to work who have absolutely no clue about Spain or ETA or the bombings take Bush's stand was it for me.
I refused to talk about it after that. I couldn't. I didn't read anything. I couldn't. All I saw was José Luis Rodríguiez Zapatero with his arms up on television thanking the Spanish people for voting his party into power. See, the attacks came right before the election, where a very conservative PP was in power, the same politicians who came out & said that ETA was responsible. When it was found out that they weren't, the Spaniards felt disillusioned once more with their goverment & decided to change it by voting. So many people went to the polls, still in mourning. I thought this was a good thing, but now I'm seeing that the PSOE wasn't the party to vote for, either. I'm beginning to think no party is the party to vote for. There's so much bullshit in politics, & that's not counting the conspiracy theories.
So anyway, I haven't really talked about it until this week, when the 11-M trial started. After 3 years of "investigations" 29 people are on trial, & one is in jail. I didn't know it was such hard work trying to follow a trial. I remember my mother following every single important trial on television, starting with the Iran Contra Affair. I feel horrible when I don't know what's going on in the world. I remember writing something at the dining room table & my mother telling me to turn around, because at that moment we were witnessing history: the Berlin Wall was falling. No matter what your views, no matter what's going on in your life, you should know what's going on in the world. This was something my mother taught me & something that I will teach my children, if I ever have any.
This involves reading the newspaper (it's online, no excuses anymore), watching the news or listening to the news on the radio, talking to people, opening your mind & opening the minds of others around you. READ. WATCH. TALK. LISTEN. Educate yourself not only with history but history-in-the-making. It's very important for the growth of a person, really. My mom instilled this in my father & me, & we bond over current events (especially Spanish current events) now. It's a beautiful thing.
If you do not know what's going on in Spain right now, please learn about it. There are hundreds of journalists standing outside the courtroom from everywhere in the world covering this trial. This attack has stained the history & hearts of Spaniards, & it is a very important trial. Unfortunately there are a lot of political factors in it as well. I will do my best to write summaries on the trial, not for anything other than my own benefit, so that I know that I fully understand what's going on. The good thing is that I might help at least one person follow it, & learn about what's happened, is happening, & will happen. I will also provide links in both Spanish & English for reference.
