1. "Lagrimas", a song with a chorus in Spanish about the six Jesuit priests and their co-workers who were killed in 1989 by graduates of our own School Of the Americas (now WINSEC) in Fort Benning, Georgia. That seminal event has been regarded as the turning point in our proxy wars in Central America in that decade, and resulted in the massive annual demonstration against the SOA, the one on the 10th anniversary attracting 20,000 protesters.

2. "Grito", the song I wrote, from the viewpoint of an undocumented worker from Latin America. It is bracketed, as intro and 'outro', by a "Ranchera", "Cancion Mixteca", a poignant song expressing longing for one's homeland. (Compuscript)

3. "Eucharist Suite" and my setting of the "Our Father" (the Lord's Prayer), done together in one piece, are from Metanoia. These may be very un-UU, but they are central to the Catholic faith tradition, the one being prayers of thanksgiving (as a Jew, I did include the three Seder prayers of thanks for the bread of the earth, the fruit of the vine, and for giving us the Commandments -- sung in Hebrew) and the other being one of the three most important prayers in that tradition. In my introduction to "Grito" I speak of being a stranger in a strange land, and that phrase is echoed in the very first line in the song ("Yo soy un extranjero en una tierra extran(y)a"). One of the points of the program is for those with little or no Spanish comprehension to experience a little of what that is like. If the overt Christian-ness of the Eucharistic prayers and the Our Father lower their comfort level, that would be a good thing.

4. "Puebla" is a short story I wrote dealing with a "What-If": What if the Mexicans had not prevailed against the forces of Napoleon at Puebla in 1863? Some historians suggest that, with French colonial Mexico siding with the confederacy, the Civil War may have gone the other way. "Puebla" vacillates between just such an alternate universe and ours, a blending of fantasy and science fiction that paints a startling portrait of a fractured North America, and a person equally fractured by his own hubris who emerges from an internal crucible to inspire the creation of a major global non-violent peace force, much like the Khudai Khidmatgars (“Servants of God”) of Badshah Khan, the one known as the "Frontier Gandhi". It will be professionally edited for clarity (science fiction can throw those unfamiliar with the genre, and this story throws some pretty weird curves), and poetically translated into Spanish. (I attended an experimental school in Mexico as a chid, and received my first college credits from the University of Guadalajara, so though I am far from a native speaker, my Spanish accent is fairly natural.)

5. "Paz y Libertad" is written by a local songwriter and musician, Jose Luis Orozco. It would make for a great closer. I spoke with him once about permission to sing it at a SOA Watch event. He was gracious and generous (but very firm regarding the fidelity of his lyrics.) I would love to honor him by his song's inclusion in the program.