hip-hop – Saigon Joe

Hope in an Alley

As a pre-teen, I walked down many an alley. I guess it was more interesting than walking on a sidewalk on the street. I saw things people threw out and, as I walked down the cinder strewn path, I was able to look into the back yards of some buildings and see swings and bushes and toys left out overnight. I saw open garbage cans filled with junk and rotting food; I saw rats scurrying out of the way, having their lunch disrupted by the scraping of gym shoes on the cinders, making a crunching sound as I walked past. But I also saw scribbling and writing on the backs of buildings and garage doors; sometimes a piece of crude artwork. I saw hearts with initials within and what appeared to be cryptic gang signs at times, marking the area and perhaps warning others they are in sacred territory.

The alley was a place where pre-teen and teens could hang out behind someones garage and smoke a cigarette and carve their initials on a telephone pole. It was a path you could walk and perhaps find something of value (one man’s trash is another man’s treasure). It was a place adults were rarely seen except when backing a car out of the garage.

As time went on, alleys were paved and garbage cleaned up. But they were still alleys and young folks still walked down them to school or store or just to hang out. Some became unsafe and threatening while others began to express a personality of the neighborhood. Shoes were seen dangling from overhead cables and, replacing scribbles and scrawls, carefully executed artwork began to appear. It was called grafitti, but much of it was beyond the typical defacement, and paid homage to people, places and things. The alleys began to express the desires, frustrations and hopes of a generation of young people.

Today, if you walk down the street, you will see murals, financially supported and produced by artists brought in from outside the area. They are mostly corporate murals designed to attract folks and upscale the community. But if you want to see the personality of the hood and hear the voices of the young folks who live there, then you have to walk down an alley.

Unsanctioned artwork, mostly by self-taught graffiti artists, reflecting disillusionment, injustice and inequality, produced by young people expressing their feelings in a society that offers them little hope of change, these artists pay homage to fallen local heroes, iconic role models who have passed away; victims of brutality and oppression, and they share their feelings and concerns with others who live in the hood. They unify their peers and tell their story on the back and side walls of the neighborhood. Yes, you can look but you also have to listen.

If you want to see the soul of a neighborhood, forget about the butterflies and flowers lining the fronts of buildings on a busy street and take a walk, if you dare, down an alley where the artists are not paid and the subject matter does not need approval. But don’t take too long because the work may be whitewashed over, and another attempt at honest communication, thwarted by gentrification, erased by those who do not wish to see or hear what they are destroying.

John died at 19, two years younger than his father when I was drafted into the Army. I will never be able to sit at the table and have a beer with my son on Veteran’s Day and share my experiences in Viet Nam (distorted as they may have become over time) and he will never go off to a war someplace no one ever heard of until bombs and bullets gave it the dubious distinction of being recognized.

Even so, John, though he wore no uniform; though he was not in the military, was a soldier, an urban soldier, fighting against the injustice that permeates our society. His weapon was the microphone and his ammunition were his words, spit out faster than the rounds of a Thompson sub-machine gun, hitting the target dead center. His banner was Love and he practiced it; not the carnal or the meaningless façade of caring when you don’t. No, John was there, in the middle of the night to answer a phone call from a distraught teen, like himself, who had doubts and anxieties and needed someone to speak encouraging words. He was there to leave his bed and drive over to the house of someone who needed comfort because they were rejected or bullied. And, he would travel a hundred miles or more, at his expense, to deliver his message to anyone who asked, usually without any honorarium.

He left his mark in this world, from Chicago, Atlanta, California, Manchester, Minnesota (to name a few), in the hearts of those he touched, while others, even much older, left only a scar in their wake of ignorance and hate. For John, no one had to earn respect from him. They HAD his respect…everybody. He was a warrior fighting injustice, oppression, inequality, racism and, most important, reaching out to his fellow “hapas” who were of mixed descent, to inform them that they had a voice, were not inferior; that they had opportunity and that they could make a difference if they worked within the present culture while remembering and honoring their heritage, never forgetting where they came from and how they got here.

He spoke for and to the ones whose parents arrived as refugees, just barely able to speak English and who worked 10 to 12 hours a day in minimum wage (or less) labor so they might raise their children with opportunities they could not get in their homeland –the ability to break out of the cycle of poverty and oppression through education and personal commitment and recognizing and seizing opportunities. He gave awareness and hope. John was a warrior and a healer. He had water to give (as he said), water that refreshed and rejuvenated his peers. And it was water that ultimately, tragically, took his life.

So this Veterans day will be different for me as I pay my respects to a different type of soldier, but a soldier none the less, who fought in his own way for his country. This young man who was an instrument of peace in a war-torn urban setting; a young man who shared his canteen of water freely and attempted to bind the wounds of the injured. A young man, regardless of his being my son, is worthy of my deepest respect. He went by the name of John Vietnam. You can find his work on YouTube.