Raúl R. Salinas

American poet, activist, and social reformer

• Born: March 17, 1934
• Birthplace: San Antonio, Texas
• Died: February 13, 2008
• Place of death: Austin, Texas

Mainly self-educated in numerous penitentiaries, Salinas—a Xicanindio (Mexicano, Chicano, Indio) poet and indigenous activist in the forefront of the 1960’s pinto prison poetry movement of the United States—transformed self-alienation and prison indignation into political awareness, civil and human rights struggles, and antineocolonialism resistance. As a revolutionary icon, Salinas not only promoted the cultural underpinnings between Mexican and Indian cultures but also advocated globally for human rights and indigenous movements of the Americas.

Early Life

Even though he was born in the city of San Antonio, Raúl Roy Salinas (rah-EWL roy sah-LEE-nahs), who styled his name as raúlrsalinas, grew up in an eastside barrio of Austin, Texas. Abandoned by his father and growing up in a single-parent household, Salinas attended Catholic elementary schools, and Tapón, as his friends called him, was an average student. In eleventh grade, he dropped out of public high school; however, his mom and grandmother instilled in him a penchant for literary expression. Without a high school diploma and no motivation, in his early twenties, Salinas moved to California in search of labor as a migrant farmworker; after a drug conviction, though, he landed at Soledad State Prison in 1957.

In jail, Salinas began an arduous process of self-instruction during a twelve-year span in both state and federal penal institutions, including Huntsville (Texas), Leavenworth (Kansas), and Marion (Illinois). Many years later, Salinas came to regret deserting his own family and not growing up with his children, repeating a similar, familial pattern of paternal dereliction. However, prison gave him plenty of time for self-reflection and a new perspective on life: He embraced a revolutionary intellect, experienced renewed spirituality, and, most of all, cultivated political passion.

Life’s Work

During one stint at the Leavenworth Federal Prison in 1969, Salinas began printing an in-house literary journal, Aztlán de Leavenworth, wherein he showcased his most famous poem, “Un Trip Through the Mind Jail y Otras Excursions.” Titled by the same name, a collection of his early verse was eventually published by the Editorial Pocho-Ché underground press in 1980, giving him a major boost as a Chicano literary figure. Beat poetry and jazz music were also major influences on Salinas as writer and spoken-word performer.

His years of imprisonment from 1957 to 1972, furthermore, helped to shape his role as an advocate for inmates’ rights during the prison rebellion years, directly impacted by the Chicano and Black Power movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. His activism made him, to fellow inmates, a jailhouse reformer and to guards an unabashed agitator. This inevitably landed him at Marion, where he became one of the so-called “Marion Brothers,” prisoner agitators transferred from numerous federal lockups into Marion’s control units and subjected to notorious behavior modifications. Setting a legal precedent, Salinas was one of four plaintiffs in the successful landmark case Adams v. Carlson (1973), involving prisoner rights and penal reform.

In prison settings, Salinas interacted with Puerto Rican Independistas, Black Muslims, Native Americans, and even politicized, working-class whites, who introduced him to various militant authors, radical ideas, and perspectives of anticolonialism and anti-imperialism. At a time when jails were divided by prison gangs, proliferating along racial and ethnic lines, Salinas bonded instead with prisoners of all colors and promulgated political alliances to challenge legally—in Salinas’s own rhetoric—the status quo of “prisons of empire,” which are maintained by the state as “backyard colonialism.”

Going into exile in Washington State (to avoid Texas and California law enforcement) after jail release in the early 1970’s, Salinas became a community activist in the Seattle area, supporting Native American fishing rights, assisting the American Indian Movement (AIM), and joining the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. In the 1980’s, he moved back to East Austin and set up Resistencia Books, a space for grassroots organizing, and Red Salmon Arts, a Native American Chicano cultural arts group. For almost the next three decades, Salinas proceeded to promote the indio ancestry of Chicanos, using the term Xicanindio to describe himself as indigenous. In the Nahuatl tongue, the Aztecs’ native language, the “Chi” syllable in Chicano is spelled as “Xi,” and since indio is the Spanish word for Indian, Xicanindio thus emphasizes the mixed-blood, indigenous roots of Chicanos.

As exemplar of the pinto poetry movement, Salinas published three collections of poems: Un Trip Through the Mind Jail y Otras Excursions (1999), East of the Freeway: Reflections de mi pueblo (1995), and Indio Trails: A Xicano Odyssey thru Indian Country (2006). His last book, Raul Salinas and the Jail Machine: My Weapon Is My Pen (2006), edited by Louis G. Mendoza, is a compilation of his personal letters and journal articles from his jail years and his subsequent release. As a spoken-word artist, Salinas also recorded three compact discs: Los Many Mundos of raúlrsalinas: Un Poetic Jazz Viaje con Friends (2000), Beyond the BEATen Path (2002), Red Arc: A Call for Liberación con Salsa y Cool (2005), a collaboration with a baritone saxophonist Fred Ho.

His literary awards include the Louis Reyes Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, the Martin Luther King, Jr., César Chávez, Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship Award in 2003, and the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award in 2007. Distinctions on his behalf also included the Raul Salinas Literary Media Lab in the Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) of Austin, Texas. In 1994, Stanford University acquired Salinas’s personal and literary archives, from the 1950’s to the1990’s. Salinas died of liver disease in 2008.

Significance

From the rough streets of East Austin to state and federal prisons, Salinas transcended economic disadvantages of birth, transformed into a celebrated poet, sued the federal government, and morphed into an advocate for human rights. Salinas also devoted much effort to help at-risk youths in detention centers. He provided a community space to advocate for the arts, especially encouraging artistic creativity in public schools. In the international arena, he was an unrelenting spokesperson for social justice, resisting oppression everywhere. A humanist artist activist, Salinas was the Xicanindio bard of the barrio and a protector of the global masses, not unlike the icon of La Virgen de Guadalupe, the patron saint of the Americas, which he had tattooed across his sternum.

Bibliography

Beltran, Raymond R. “Out of the Ashes, the Pínto Poet Arises.” La Prensa San Diego 26, no. 46 (November 15, 2002). A newspaper account of Salinas’ visit to San Diego for a poetry performance. It discusses the Coahiltecan influence on his work, from his grandmother’s indigenous heritage.

Gomez, Alan Eladio. “Resisting Living Death at Marion Federal Penitentiary, 1972.” Radical History Review 96 (Fall, 2006): 58-86. Because of their political activism during the convict upheaval years, more than a hundred so-called “problem inmates” from various federal penitentaries were transferred to Marion’s control units, and the mental “torture” techniques used for behavioral rehabilitation are discussed.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Troubadour of Justice: An Interview with raúlrsalinas.” In Behind Bars: Latino/as and Prison in the United States, edited by Suzanne Oboler. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009. This interview reveals Salinas’s participation in the prison agitation years, his years locked up, and how he became one of the plaintiffs in a prison landmark case.

Mendoza, Louis. “The Re-education of a Xicanindio: Raúl Salinas and the Poetics of Pinto Transformation.” MELUS 28, no. 1 (Spring, 2003): 39-60. Salinas’s development from “social criminal” to political prisoner is tracked, resulting in his transfer to Marion Federal Penitentiary in 1972.

Olguín, B. V. La Pinta: Chicana/o Prisoner Literature, Culture, and Politics. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010. This is a study based on research about Chicano/Chicana “pintos/pintas,” including Salinas and other writers. Olguín also critiques prisoner tattoo and handkerchief art and gang exploitation films.

West, Phil. “Poetry as Activism: Raúl Salinas’s Passion for Literature and Life.” The Austin Chronicle (March 21, 1997). A newspaper article on Salinas that mentions his work on behalf of two so-called “political prisoners”: Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal. Also a discussion of Salinas’s visit with the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, and author commentary and critique of his poetry by English professors.