Armando Caicedo

I am an ordinary guy, like anyone else.

(Half a deluded dreamer, half bald, and half absent minded, born somewhere in the last half of the last century.)

I scribble by demand of my digestive system, because it has already advised me, "If I don't draw, I don't eat."

Every week I have to cook up texts and illustrations for "My Spinal Column", syndicated editorial column of satire and humor that is published in Hispanic newspapers in the United States.

This is how I make my living. (Or better said, make my half a living.)

I gave birth to Juan Alien while reflecting on the fact that immigration had been reduced to a statistical phenomenon - without feelings - drowning in an ocean of rhetoric.

I proposed to draw a smile on the human drama of immigration, because the social role of humor is demonstrated in the injustices and contradictions of our society.

I have to be, as well, a person that is half suspicious because I do not drink, smoke, nor dance close, and the only weapon of mass diversion that I have used in my life is the pencil.

I consider humor to be something serious and that implies lots of risk: sticking the nose in where it doesn't belong. Juan Alien will not change the world, but I have warned him, that if he wants to continue living in this house he will have to propose controversies, invite analysis, make people think, create opinions and amuse.

Lord: Thank you for the privilege that you give us to live in a society where the right to dissent is respected.

When he crossed the border, Juan Alien gave up everything but his dignity and his capacity to be surprised.

It bothers him that people here are more or less suspicious according to the color of the skin they have.

He pays taxes, contributes to Social Security, but doesn't know if it all is in his name.

He is known in the first train that leaves at sunrise and in the last bus that brings him home at midnight. But of course, he works three jobs, has a class in English, a girlfriend that waits for him when he gets off work and every other day, a class in the Internet.

Prays to his Virgin every day and carries around a stamp of Baby Jesus. The first sentence he learned was "Combo number five".

American football makes him dizzy and the police make him untrusting.

In his commentaries he mixes humor, sarcasm and social criticism. It is acidic, spontaneous and stimulating. His greatest source of perplexity is discovering that the most direct route to the intolerance is prejudice.

In his home town he was "Juan Somebody".
When he crossed the border, he was rebaptized "Juan Alien".
At work he is knows as "one alien".

He has not vote and much less a voice. He doesn't demand nor protest. If he raises his hand it is to stop the bus. And his dream is to buy a "troka" (truck) for when his two cousins arrive and with his old maid aunt.

He doesn't represent the Hispanics that arrive in an executive jet, nor the diplomats that endure with great solemn dignity their transfer to the great country in the north.

He represents those born in this land and have for decades fertilized it with their sweat and tears.

Those who come and go migrant farm workers that travel from field to field harvesting fruit and dreams.

Juan is the embodiment of the youth that study and put forth the effort to make a reality the American dream.

He is the voice of the political refugees.

He is the example for the farm workers that are obligated to graduate, through the path of necessity, as industrial workers.

He is the rear view mirror with which the Hispanics of the second and third generations can see the reflection of the personality with which their parents and grandparents arrived.

Millions of citizens. Several million more of those who have fulfilled all the requirements of law to be here. They are millions of "Juanes" that are starting to draw a new map of hope in America.

I know the soul of Juan. I have drawn him for many years. There are more than a thousand stories that I have written in "single panel cartoons" to show what he feels, loves and lives as an immigrant.

It doesn't matter to me if there are people that cannot identify with his physical appearance, but I will feel fulfilled if they identify with his soul.