Cecilio García-Camarillo (1943-2002): He Created, Curated and Broadcast Culture and History
Cecilio García Camarillo was a Texas native who moved to Albuquerque with his partner Mia in the latter half of the 1970s. Prior to settling in Burque’s South Valley, the Austin-based writer, poet and all around creative soul had established an important presence in the national Chicano movement of the times.
From his new base close to the cottonwoods of the Rio Grande/Bravo, Cecilio continued making a splash in local, national and international political and cultural circles.
He plunged into community theater, cranked out poems, translated literary works, published newspapers, magazines and bilingual chapbooks, created “visual poems,” recorded oral histories, launched a radio show on KUNM, produced art, raised a family, and cultivated countless collaborations and friendships.
Dr. Enrique Lamadrid, UNM professor emeritus, once defined Cecilio as “a complete Chicano renaissance man, a gentle warrior whose cultural activism over the past quarter-century has transfigured Chicano literary culture.”
As the 1970s drew to a close, Cecilio founded Espejos de Aztlán (Mirrors of Aztlán), the bilingual Spanish-English cultural and public affairs program that still airs Monday evenings on KUNM at 7 pm. Espejos is part of the station’s programming block produced by the Raices Collective, a group of dedicated KUNM volunteers who have broadcast music, culture and public affairs shows since the mid- 1970s.
A good deal of New Mexico’s modern history was recorded and documented on Espejos during Cecilio’s more than two decades as the show’s host, when he methodically taped for posterity countless artists, activists, musicians, cultural workers, and political movers and shakers. Much of his priceless body of work is preserved at UNM’s Center for Southwest Research in Zimmerman Library for students, scholars and the public at large.
“He’d always show up with his cassette player and record the show. He was an interesting guy and always had interesting guests,” remembered Henry Gonzales, current co-host of Espejos who sometimes, as we say in KUNM parlance, “ran the board” for Cecilio. “I always enjoyed engineering for him when he did his Espejos show.”
Interspersed with poetry, prose, drama and song, Cecilio’s Espejos programs delved deep into historic and contemporary issues, spotlighting New Mexican land grant battles, environmental justice causes, women’s rights, farm labor, Central America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, tenants’ struggles, police violence, and more.
A sampling of guests included Reies Lopez Tijerina, leader of the Alianza land grant organization in the 1960s; New Mexico La Raza Unida Party leader Juan Jose Peña, acclaimed Nuevomexicano author Rudolfo Anaya; and Elizabeth “Betita” Martínez, editor of the influential Chicano movement newspaper El Grito del Norte. Cecilio’s conversational/interview style seamlessly shifted back and forth from Spanish to English, combining the two languages in an audio stream of culture, history and consciousness.
Cecilio interviews Tijerina on Espejos de Aztlan in 1999 (Spanish).
Cecilio’s recorded interviews preserved the voices of now departed activists who left their mark in the world, among them American Indian Movement leader and poet/musician John Trudell; Jeanne Gauna, co-founder of the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) and a pioneering leader of the environmental justice movement; and social movement artist Rini Templeton.
The first stirrings of two renowned Albuquerque cultural institutions, the International Flamenco Festival and Working Classroom, were heard on Cecilio’s Espejos broadcasts.
With a radio-transmitted heart beat guiding him along, Cecilio provided a stage to New Mexican and national artists and musicians, including Jesus “Chuy” Martínez , Ivon Ulibarri, Flaco Jiménez Tony Quiñones, Ray Cruz of Brown Sugar, and many, many more.
“(Cecilio) had a great sense of humor,” remembered Vicente Silva, former Raices Collective member and the first host of KUNM’s Friday night salsa music slot during the 1980s, a program which was originally called Sabor Picante. “He was a fun individual.”
Silva, who helped launch the national Radio Bilingüe network in 1980, placed Cecilio, Raices and Espejos de Aztlán in the context of a historic blossoming of Chicano and Latino culture and politics during the 1970s, illustrated by alternative news publications like New Mexico-based El Grito del Norte, poetry readings and even the inclusion of Chicano rock bands like Azteca and Malo in the annual UNM Fiestas.
“This was a time of a lot of social activity, not just social activism, but happening, music,” Silva said.
According to the radio veteran, Cecilio succeeded in not only producing a regular radio program but in building up a community institution where the common person had a voice.
“Cecilio would also stretch out and bring in people from other parts of the state and it just wasn’t a local program,” Silva stressed, adding that people from outside New Mexico also sprinkled Espejos’ roster of hosts. “He was very consistent. He kept it up and was very dedicated that way.”
Silva recalled how he and others suggested to Cecilio that he perhaps prerecord his program, something Espejos de Aztlán’s founder declined to do because of his preference for a live, unrehearsed format.
“‘I don’t want it to be too polished for the people. It’s for everyday people. It’s not planned. It’s not scripted. It’s real,” is how Silva remembered Cecilio’s posture about Espejo’s format.
The founding host’s practice of recording his shows on cassette, once a commonly used tape in radio, was eased along by a KUNM engineer who rigged up the recording mechanism so it produced a better sound quality, he added.
Addressing many issues overlooked or underreported by the media, the platicas (conversations) of Cecilio and his guests on Espejos reached more than the Monday evening audience, according to Silva.
“I think it had an influence on the (KUNM) news department. Sometimes things would air on Espejos and the regular news staff would pick them up. I think he had a broader impact than just within the confines of Raices and Espejos,” he opined.
Profiled in KUNM’s Zounds!, Cecilio termed his volunteer time on the air as “pleasurable and satisfying,” conforming to his principle of “giving something back to the community.”
Cecilio interviews Ivon Ulibarri on Espejos de Aztlán
A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Cecilio was the founder and editor of two noted publications of the Chicano literary boom of the 1970s: Magazín and Caracol. His newsletter RAYAS (1978-1979) preceded the airing of Espejos de Aztlán. In 1981 Cecilio received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
In his Albuquerque life, the Tejano turned Nuevomexicano, as Lamadrid termed Cecilio, held a longtime “day job” with the local Mexican Consulate focused on protecting the rights of Mexican citizens in the United States.
“To thousands of listeners of radio station KUNM (Albuquerque, NM), Cecilio was the gentle and persuasive voice of “Espejos de Aztlán, the longest running cultural program in the station’s history. But the poem was always García-Camarillo’s favorite venue for the private voice of dream, nightmare, and transformation,” Lamadrid wrote in the now defunct Albuquerque Tribune (1922-2008).
“His long term association as a dramaturgy with “La Compañía Teatro de Alburquerque,” has also earned him a place in the history of bilingual community theatre. With the enigmatic stage name of “Xilo,” one of his major artistic collaborations was with “Mezcla,” a group of artists and activists.”
A taste of Cecilio’s poetic sensibility and spirituality was engraved in words he composed for his friend the late Jim Sagel, another acclaimed New Mexican writer of the late 20th century who also appeared on Espejos. A few lines read:
jim sagel
like the pages of a book
that the wind pushes
towards a dark blue mystery
pass our lives
the smiles of my friend
will no longer give me pleasure
he’s in a space
sketched by a northern pencil
out of the luminous fiber
of his consciousness….
I take two steps
and I am on the road
of legends
and medicinal plants
the sharp humor
of a gleeful dance
that provides the light
while the stories
of culture arrive
Indian and Hispanic
interwoven forever
like you loved
the mountains and the people
I continue to love them
the lowriders and dawns
I keep seeing them
the stories of the ancestors
I keep hearing them
did you love everything that much
everything has accumulated in my spirit
an eternal energy
I repeat why
everyone has to die
yes but we should all wait
for the moment
I choose my own moment
destiny should bring the moment
well I beat destiny….
Cecilio’s literary gifts inspired many folk in New Mexico and other places.
“Que te digo’ he was a legend in his own words and way of life, a great father to his children, and certainly a pleasant artist in general to the way of Chicanismo’ as we’ve come to live it,” wrote Socorro Romo, an Albuquerque poet who appeared on Espejos.
“He was in my life briefly, as a friend and teacher in the way of poesia. He’s certainly in my pensamientos (thoughts) occasionally, come September his birth month and February too, for various reasons. He made an indelible mark in my life, with his abbreviated presence.”
Roberto Roibal, co-founder and longtime staff member of SWOP was active in the Chicano, peace and solidarity movements of the 1970s and 1980s, a time when he met and worked with a like-minded Cecilio.
Recalled Roibal, “Cecilio and I were personal friends. His three children and my three daughters spent much time together while growing up. We would go camping together and parties, have dinner together and we often traded child care duties with each other.”
The two friends collaborated on initiatives that included Academia del Norte, publisher of Chicana/o anthologies; El Taller Media, a printing and silk screening collective; SWOP; and the Venceremos Brigade, which sent hundreds of people to Cuba “in a show of solidarity and defiance to the US blockade of Cuba,” according to Roibal. Cecilio was among the volunteers who participated in the Brigade’s work trips to the Caribbean island nation, he said.
Interviewed by the Albuquerque Journal in 1987, when he was president of Academia, Cecilio explained the literary project’s mission as “trying to continue the historic and intellectual development of Chicanos” through the publication of folklore, short stories, novel excerpts, and poetry.
In addition to publishing well-known writers like Denise Chávez and Sabine Ulibarri, Academia’s Voces anthology gave a public voice to less well known authors such as Santa Rosa restaurant operator Ronald P. Chávez and Albuquerque’s Elida Lechuga.
“This is a one one-of a kind book. I don’t think you can find an anthology of contemporary Hispanic writers,” Cecilio was quoted in the Journal.
“We don’t feel it’s an academic project, so the general public wil be able to identify and read it. And hopefully the emerging writers, those still in high school, will read it.”
As a new century dawned, Roibal remembered how it was “heart breaking for everyone” when Cecilio was diagnosed with cancer.
The Albuquerque activist was among many who rallied to Cecilio’s side in a collective effort to save a dear friend and a highly esteemed community member.
“There were many fundraisers set up to help raise money for him to fight his cancer. He even went to Juarez, Mexico, for treatments. I remember going to Juarez to visit him one time with a friend of mine…”he is still dearly missed.” Roibal reminisced.
Cecilio Plays Yvonne Ulibarri’s Café Mocha on Espejos de Aztlan
On January 16, 2002, Cecilio García-Camarillo left this earth at 58 years of age. He was survived by his former partner Mia and children Itzolin, Cielo and Oraibi (Karina). Itzolin, who also had contributed to KUNM programming at a very young age, passed away the year after his dad died. Cielo, 39, departed our planet in 2018.
Burqueña María Villaverde, who was a KUNM Raices Collective member and bilingual media activist during the 1980s, credited Cecilio for carving out a radio space that is just as relevant today as it was decades ago. She wrote in Spanish:
“El recuerdo de Cecilio García-Camarillo sigue viviendo entre los que continuamos escuchando su creación : Espejos de Aztlán. Tanto en español como en inglés este programa nos ha dado la oportunidad de conocer, en sus propias voces, a una multitud de gente dedicada al arte, a la salud, al desarrollo de comunidades, a los derechos humanos, o sea, a la infinidad de quehaceres a que se dedica nuestra gente. Prueba de su importancia es que, aún después de pasar años del fallecimiento de Cecilio, otros han seguido su ejemplo y continúan ofreciéndonos la oportunidad de “vernos reflejados” en el trabajo realizado por nuevas generaciones. Gracias, Cecilio, por no haberte dejado vencer en tu lucha por obtener la sintonía de Espejos de Aztlan.”
English translation:
“The memory of Cecilio García-Camarillo is alive with those of us who continue listening to his creation: Espejos de Aztlán. In Spanish as well as in English, this program has given us the opportunity to meet, in their own voices, a multitude of people dedicated to art, health, community development and human rights- really the infinite number of tasks to which our people dedicate themselves.
The proof of its importance is that, even after many years following the death of Cecilio, others have continued following his example and continue offering us the opportunity to ‘see ourselves reflected’ in the work done by the new generations. Thank you, Cecilio, for not giving up in your struggle to achieve the radio presence of Espejos de Aztlán.”
Information: Albuquerque Journal, July 17, 1987. Albuquerque Tribune, November 15, 2001. Zounds! November 1989, Chicano Poet, January 31, 2006. Center for Southwest Research, UNM. Henry Gonzales, Socorro Romo, Maria Villaverde, Roberto Roibal, Vicente Silva.
Cecilio Garcia Camarillo Papers: https://nmstatehood.unm.edu/node/74064
Edited by Kent Paterson
