Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Who Was Al Robles?

He was my Father's Brother. My grandmother Marquita's Son. I have also heard him described many other ways. A man, a wanderer, a composer of songs, words, and ideas.
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1 comment:

  1. MisaMay 7, 2009 at 8:47 AM

    Thank you for your blog on your Uncle, who is being grieved and will forever be missed by people scattered all over the nation and even in the nations within, the communities, and the "spring up communities" we build together for a short time. I am a friend from one of those "spring up communities" -- Tule Lake Pilgrimage. And I considered him a friend and brother from just seeing him every other year for a week and looking forward to it. Of course, it was always Al and Peter Yamamoto just like it was Shizue and I.
    Beyond that, he is part of my youth. I read him. Time to Greez was a book I used and reused in my teaching. He wasn't that much older than I because we were young people who were shouldering the responsibility to tell our own stories, write our own poems, bring our families and ancestors inside every institution of learning, every town hall, and with us every time we raised our voices. Those were the times SF was not that far from Oregon and I-5 was the connector as we went up and down crashing at people's houses, selling our books. And each person -- musician, poet, activist, drummer -- became a reason to have a party! As for me, I brought each treasured poem and story inside my classroom to share the vision with my students who taught me as much if not more than I did them, a fellow traveler. Mostly I wanted to say, I wrote about your uncle on my blog "TBAsian" at misajoo.blogspot.com and to say thank you to you and your family who have been so kind to all of us and have hearts and arms wide enough to wrap around us all. . . just like you uncle.
    With love and respect -- Misa

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