BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – “Free that pigeon,” a man says to a nearby boy in a plaza in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital.
“The police do that,” he says to the “chico de la calle” (“boy of the streets”), his tone indicating empathy with the bird. “The police contain. Not you.”
The kid laughs, releases the flapping pigeon and runs off. The man, poet and filmmaker César González, 26, gazes at the running boy.
González was born in a slum outside Buenos Aires. Beginning at age 14, he committed a long string of crimes, including robberies and kidnapping. Barely surviving police encounters that left him with six bullet wounds, he spent five years in prison on a kidnapping conviction.
He read widely in prison – history, politics, poetry. He wrote his first book of poems behind bars. Now a free man, he is writing his third book.
In addition, González released his second feature film in December 2014.
González aims to use his writing and films to fight a social system he says condemns and stigmatizes the poor.
His fictional films depict slum life, the risks of delinquency, the lack of work opportunities, and mistreatment of the poor by the rich. His poems address universal themes, such as love and death, and express his feelings about the injustices he witnesses.
“I am not more than two hands against a much larger system,” he says. “But I feel useful, because I am contributing something.”
González hopes his work unleashes the chains that bind his readers just as the books he read in prison set him free.
“Art saves – and seriously saves,” he says. “I talk about art not as an element of leisure, but rather as a tool of transformation.”
González says he embraced artistry to turn away from a life of crime and to denounce the stigmatization of lower-class Argentines.
With two feature films to his credit and a third poetry book on the way, he spurs his readers and viewers to ask how many people could escape lives of crime, oppression and imprisonment through creative engagement.
González grew up in the Carlos Gardel slum in suburban Buenos Aires. He was imprisoned from 2005 to 2010 on a kidnapping for ransom conviction.
In 2006 he met Patricio Montesano, a magician who performed at his prison. In a visit after the performance, Montesano told González of his love for literature – and soon began lending him books. González was particularly dazzled by the writings of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the famed Argentine Marxist revolutionary.
Inspired by the books Montesano loaned him, González chose the pen name Camilo Blajaquis when he published his first poem in 2007. The name is a tribute to Cuban guerrilla Camilo Cienfuegos, who fought in the 1959 overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista, and Argentine militant Domingo Blajaquis, who was killed by the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983.
González’s first book, “The Revenge of the Tied Lamb” (“La Venganza del Cordero Atado”), published in 2010 with Montesano’s help, comprises poems he wrote in prison up to 2008. His second book, “Chronicle of a Probation” (“Crónica de una Libertad Condicional”), was published in 2014.
González used one of his artistic pursuits to fund the other. With money he earned from book sales, he bought a digital camera and a computer to edit movies. He also took filmmaking courses.
González has made two movies: “Hope Diagnosis” (“Diagnóstico Esperanza”) in 2013 and “What can a body do?” (“¿Qué puede un cuerpo?”) in 2014. Both were released commercially.
He fronts the costs of filming through Facebook collections. He has raised 10,000 pesos ($1,138) online, he says.
González wants to continue rebelling against the marginality that awaited him. He is writing his third book in the same slum where he was born.
“I did not assume the role intended for me,” he says. “In this system that is naturalized, we are separated by social classes. The lower class is there to commit crimes or do the jobs that no one wants to do, and whoever runs from that destiny is condemned.”
More than 5 percent of the Buenos Aires population, more than 163,000 people, live in slums – shanty communities without utilities or paved roads, according to the 2010 National Census of Population, Households and Housing.
About one-fifth of the city’s population lives below the poverty line of 1,830 pesos ($208) a month, according to 2013 government figures.
Cristian Aramayo, who lives in a neighborhood of shanties and mud streets on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, says he identifies with the characters and scenes in González’s movies – people searching for work and not finding it, or finding work and being cheated and mistreated, or doing hard labor for 14 nonstop hours.
It was just such conditions that drove Aramayo, 21, to commit armed robbery three years ago, he says.
Seventy percent of Argentine inmates reported having committed crimes at the same time they were working, according to the United Nations Development Program’s 2013 regional report on Latin America. Low-quality jobs and low salaries drove many of them to supplement their income through robbery and other crimes, the UNDP argues.
The robbery rate in Argentina is the highest in Latin America – 973 robberies per 100,000 citizens, according to the report.
González’s movies gave him pause, prompting him to ask himself what he wanted for his life.
“What I saw in the movies made me think that there are many who go out to steal and do not return,” he says.
Aramayo admires González for rising above the dilemma he faced – between enduring mistreatment and turning to crime.
“[González] could get out,” Aramayo says. “He was imprisoned, he reconsidered, and now he is what he is.”
Lucas Garribia acted in both of González’s films. Like the other actors, he worked without pay. A slum resident himself, he says he welcomed the opportunity to appear on the big screen and to help reshape his society’s perception of thieves.
“The majority of those who see [González’s] movies are people from slums who lived what they see on the screen,” he says. “But if people from other classes see them, perhaps it will be useful for them to reflect that not everything is how the news shows it, and the person who steals does not do it because he is bad.”
Andrea Zitto, a journalist who follows González’s work, appreciates the artist’s exploration of social stratification.
“He clearly shows the discrimination that many people suffer,” she says. “I think we should give more space to artists like this, so that people can realize what reality is like.”
Silvia Ghiselli, a social worker who has served vulnerable people for 30 years, says delinquency is sometimes the only way a desperately poor person can survive.
Ghiselli, who met González in one of the juvenile institutions in which he was held, admires his poetry and films.
“César’s work is superior to all other similar discourse,” she says.
Surely other prisoners could make better use of their time behind bars by reading and writing, Ghiselli says.
“The ideal would be that there were many like him,” she says. “Because that would allow them to more humanely pass through situations of extreme vulnerability, as is being in prison.”
González says he will never stop writing.
“Words are like a drug that I need to continue living,” he says.
In his third book, González will address the lament of those who have what they need but want more.
“In the slum, it can rain through the roof and inundate the house, but we do not complain,” he says. “I don’t complain ever. I move forward.”
Natalia Aldana, GPJ, translated this article from Spanish.
