Although the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall have been cleared of Occupy L.A. participants, Quetzal Guerrero, lead singer of One Tribe Nation, affirms that the movement is still alive. He also states that the band, a quartet collaborative of musicians from various ethnicities, is a mirror reflection of the group of individuals who during this movement took to the streets in protest of the U.S. government.
Quetzal Guerrero talks to us about the ambiance in the Occupy L.A. camps and about One Tribe Nation’s song “It’s Time”, a single that was written by Guerrero prior to the movement and that was inspired by all the actions that led to it. The vocalist also shares his ideas on how the public can adopt some of the organizational skills that were put into practice at the camps, so that Americans are not too dependent on the government or other countries.
Quetzal Guerrero: I was following updates on the war on Iraq, watching the banks collapse and seeing the government do nothing to help the working class. That’s how “It’s Time” was born. Similar to the Occupy movements, which were direct effects caused by all the mayhem going on in our country, and similar to the anger that people from all over the U. S. were feeling, that’s how I wrote this song.
When the movement arrived to Los Angeles, we were excited to discover that others shared in our way of thinking and that the message to our music and that of the movement had a lot of parallels. At some point, it came to our attention that live performances were taking place at the camps here in Los Angeles, so we decided to participate as well.
It was there that director Leonardo Bondanim captured great imagery of the performance and of the environment of the camps, and was able to produce a video that captured the essence of what the song is about and what the protesters were fighting for.
I was part of the movement and the marches and was amazed to discover the detailed organization that took place at the camps. People brought books from their homes to share with one another. There was a sort of library going on as well. There were scheduled clean up times where volunteers picked up trash to keep the camp clean. People also supplied each other with water and foods. They took care of one another and shared whatever little they had.
That’s how people were able to camp out there for so long, because they had the support of their fellow protesters. Society needs to adopt this way of thinking again and realize that we do not need to be dependent on the government or other countries. We need to take back what was stolen from us: our freedom and our voice.
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One Tribe Nation is Michael Sanders, Dave Filice, David Cowan, and Quetzal Guerrero.
