I was a young boy, on the cusp of becoming a young man, and I was living on the frontier of the new “Age of Aquarius.” It was the late 1960s, and America’s youth and culture were experiencing a revolution of thought and purpose. We were the generation that would end the culture of greed and violence, and welcome an enlightened new age of peace, freedom and love. Even here in the Rio Grande Valley, people like me, young and old, dreamed of an American renaissance, where brown-skinned people could strive and thrive without oppression, suppression or discrimination of any kind.
We were Americans, born and raised along the winding Rio Grande, yet we were not considered full-fledged citizens. We were Americans, yet we were seen and treated as cheap and reliable farm and ranch hands. We were Americans, living on the outskirts of the American Dream. We were Americans, living in indignity, and for many, even in degradation, treated as such by the White landowners and ranchers along the Rio Grande.
So, for those of us in our teens, the coming of the Age of Aquarius was a time of revelation and exaltation. A moment in time to acknowledge our dreams, and to begin seeing the world around us through the eyes of a generation that had reached the peak of the mountain, unlike our parents and grandparents, who had struggled and endured hardship and adversity throughout their lives, simply to exist in the Valley of a blurred and distorted America dream.
The most profound irony of living as a brown-skinned youth along the Rio Grande during this period was that we were brought up to love America, despite the fact that it did not love us back. We were taught to respect and to obey, even though we merited no respect by anyone other than our own kind. We were taught to have faith, to pray and to thank the Lord for our blessings, even though too many times the Texas Rangers, Christians and others treated us like chattel and cattle, herded into “barrios” and barred from entering certain stores, restaurants and hotels. Yet, we were taught to be thankful and to be graceful, and grateful. And we were. And we did.
I grew up believing and loving America, thanks to my parents, who were both born American citizens in the Rio GrandeValley, at a time before we were even tolerated, much less accepted as human beings, worthy of consideration and respectability. The stories I heard, and the memories they shared, embarrass me as an American, and chill the very core of me, with empathy and sadness for what they had to endure, suffer and experience, simply to stay alive and survive, in the Valley that I have come to love and to cherish as my home.
Now that the days and the seasons have passed me by, now that I have served my country in war and seen the best and worst of our endeavors across the globe, now that I earned the right to sit back and look at my life and my triumphs and failures, my joys and my sorrows, I am left to wonder, whatever happened to our Age of Aquarius? Whatever happened to the great transformation where “harmony and understanding,” and where “sympathy and trust” would abound?
I look around me, and it seems that just the opposite has occurred. Of course, back then we were young. We had dreams. We had great expectations of our generation. We were going to change the world, and let the sunshine in.
But as I look around me, there is darkness all around. There are shadows that frighten, and specters and phantoms of our past rising up to reclaim the worst of our inclinations and predispositions. We seem to be heading back into time, and back to where we once felt separated and segregated, one from the other. There is now a digression to aggression and resentment.
Where did my generation lose sight of that rainbow in the sky that showed the way to the new age of “no more falsehoods or derisions,” and of “golden living dreams of visions?” Where along the way did the rainbow dissipate into black and angry clouds that shut out the sun?
Whatever happened to our Age of Aquarius? It was our moment in the sun, and we blew it. And now, we sit and wait beneath ominous clouds, for the storm to come, for lightening to strike, and for the world to come tumbling down. And what shall be call this age — the eve of destruction?
Al Garcia lives in San Juan.
