Okra Flower, Live at Baltic Kiss, 5/12/2023

do you want me to try

Sit Down

Custom Love

Wrecking ball, JJ style

I left ACL this year mucho inspired by Stevie Wonder's keytar performance. This is his tune, obvs.

signed, sealed, delivered

This song was inspired by the strength and humility of my clients in the Immigration Unit of the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, CA. 

After Trump’s election, I was scared for them, and for the millions of other undocumented immigrants that Trump vowed to deport. But then I heard a radio commentator who reminded me of something that I already knew from working at EBCLC: immigrants are tough. Much tougher than Donald Trump. Most of them have already been through much worse than a Trump presidency and survived. When Trump is gone, they’ll still be here. Even the ones he deports will still be here, in the sense that Trump cannot break their will to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones. He can’t deport them from this planet, and he can’t remove their desire to come back here. He can’t even comprehend how resilient they are – how brave they had to be to come here, how tough they had to be to build a life in a country that vilifies them, and how principled they had to be to choose to build that life on a foundation of love and respect after all the hate, violence, and discrimination that they have endured on both sides of the border. Trump doesn’t understand any of this. 

The challenge right now is for advocates like me take an example from our clients: to be resilient, to fight through setbacks, to hold on to our love, to put our heads down and do the work that’s necessary to protect the people and values that we care about.

A good legal argument can change someone’s mind, but only a good story can change someone’s heart. Recently a student in one of my classes asked, “When Trump’s immigration plan fails, will Americans finally understand that we can’t solve our economic and social problems by building walls and deporting people?” I don’t think so. Most people don’t link the success or failure of government policies with their own happiness or misery. The only thing that will change Joe Shmo’s views on immigration is when someone whose story he knows is in danger of being deported. When the foreman on his construction crew, or the DACA recipient in his child’s class, is picked up by ICE, then Joe will understand the human cost of Trump’s policies. As Bryan Stevenson puts it, people need to feel proximate to suffering in order to feel compelled to do something about it. I wrote this song to try to bring my clients stories’ closer to others, so that they might feel that proximity.

-Pete

Patrón (lyrics)

I work in your office when you’re not there
I wipe off the table and straighten the chair
I was here working before you appeared
And after you’re gone, patron, I’ll still be here.

I walked through the desert, I froze in the cold
I passed between killers and howling wolves
But in the valley of shadow, no evil I feared
And after you’re gone, patron, I’ll still be here, 
After you’re gone, patron, I’ll still be here,

Because I’m tougher than stone that grinds up the corn
and I’m kind to the stranger who comes to my door
There’s nothing you can do to me I can’t live through
And when you are gone, patron, I’ll be here, too.
And when you are gone, patron, I’ll be here, too.

There were people like you, patron, where I was born
They wanted respect, but I gave them my scorn
I left them behind with a credible fear
And after you’re gone, patron, I’ll still be here.
After you’re gone, patron, I’ll still be here.

Yo soy el metate que muele el maiz,
Yo soy el huipil que cubre el cicatriz
Pasé por infierno, y sobreviví,
Y cuando te vas, patron, ya estoy aqui.
Y cuando te vas, patron, ya estoy aqui.

okieweiss