Some 150 people crammed into the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics last night to hear spoken word and hip-hop in celebration of Indigenous People’s Day — and in protest of the federal holiday Columbus Day.
“It’s all about [remembering] who are the real heroes,” said one of the event’s organizers, who gave her name as Mariposa.
In its fourth year, “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers” features a different “anti-colonialist” hero every year, with people like Franz Fanon featured in years past.
This year the spotlight was on was Leila Khaled, a Palestinian woman known either as a freedom fighter or a terrorist for hijacking planes in the 1960s and 70s. Her profile, replete with the traditional black-and-white keffiyeh and an assault rifle slung over her shoulder, was featured on posters and t-shirts printed during the event.
“She’s a Palestinian freedom fighter who hijacked a plane,” Mariposa told the crowd, before showing a pre-recorded video greeting from Khaled. “She never killed nobody though, I want you to know.”
Those lucky enough to be within the center dined out on grass fed organic bison soup — “indigenous cuisine of the Americas,” one speaker noted — while those who spilled over onto the Valencia Street sidewalk stood on tiptoe listening to the speakers, or shopped at the small jewelry stall that had been set up outside.
One speaker compared gentrification to colonization, singing, “You gotta a big house but you don’t belong here, you gotta big dog but you don’t belong here.” Arms swinging like an orchestra conductor, she finished her song with a message: “Fuck you Europeans, your time is almost over.”
Mariposa said the problems faced by the Mission today are linked to those faced by indigenous groups at the hands of colonizers.
“I think it’s all connected. I actually put these two words together and coined the term gentricolonization,” she said. She added that this was the location of the first Spanish mission, which she called a “plantation for Native Americans.”
“You are all at the site of the first mission,” she said. “Underneath all this land there’s this big lagoon, and there are several hundred bodies in that lagoon.”
Mariposa said the event relies heavily on the donations gathered at the door. Four years ago, she said she didn’t think it would last this long.
“Truthfully, I never expected it to be an annual event,” she said.
Nonetheless, she plans to carry on with the event in future years.
