Introducing the Diary of Joaquín Magón

May 26, 2011 /

Entry 1 — 5.26.11

I sit. I stand. I sigh. I think. I grip my camera, aim and shoot. On the stage of the California Democratic Convention, 12 farm workers wave the red UFW flag as the crowd chants, “¡Si se puede!” Joy spreads through me like hope in an empty heart and I reflect on a path that has undulated like the spine of a cobra through destiny’s uncertainty.

If you told me a year ago that I’d be in Sacramento representing the United Farm Workers, I’d say you were full of it. Up until now my life has been a dream where I dreamt to live and lived to dream and dream I did and am doing so right now. Confusing I know so let me tell you a bit about myself.

I graduated from UC San Diego last June and then moved back to Coachella. I, like you, am the product of a new economy that fell like a deck of cards built on false hopes of big men. That’s a fancy way of saying that the economy is messed up, and there wasn’t much luck in finding a job before graduation.

I traveled to México instead, found a bit of myself that I had lost, wrote a lot and forgot about the me I left in the U.S. I listened to people share stories of working in the United States, saw how connected this world is and saw the vast poverty fields of perpetually crushed dreams and the hunger to obtain a better life. I saw my hands that weren’t calloused like theirs, but I saw that my mind had the tools to harvest change. Now I didn’t know that I would end up here but I knew I had to do something.

I’ve always had a sense that life was not for taking but for giving. Standing in front of a hall that believes in democracy and the Democratic Party I see that people are hungry for change and they’re willing to give a part of themselves to obtain it.

And if there’s something I’ve come to realize it is that I am I, and although alone I am no one, I want to add myself to the mass that is us and push forward a movement.

Like I said. I never thought I’d be here. I thought I would continue to have my nose in a book and continue to study theory upon theory. But life had different plans for me, I guess. I don’t know where this path will take me but to learn and grow and make connections and help people is the goal.

So welcome. This is my life. I am walking forward on this path that leads to who knows where. I don’t see an end to this path. I don’t see a clear objective that I tried so hard to forge yet failed to achieve. It seems the more I planned my life the less my life looked like my plans. So I say I’ll just walk instead.

This is the blog of a union organizer. You’ll see my path, our strife and struggles. This is the diary of Joaquín Magón.

“Joaquín Magón” is a youth reporter from Coachella living in Salinas and working for the United Farm Workers. He will contribute blogs regularly for Coachella Unincorporated.

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