This past week I went to see a movie produced by Spain, Mexico and France in Spanish titled "También la lluvia" (Even the Rain) about a movie director Sebastián (played by Gael García Bernal) who travels with his cast and crew to Cochabamba, Bolivia, because his producer, one Spaniard by the name of Costa (Luis Tosar), somehow has figured out that his tight budget will stretch further in Bolivia where apparently he can get extras for the movie for about two dollars each a day.
The movie is set in 2000, before the the named Water Wars in Bolivia are about to start and when the population will resist and fight against the privatization of water.
Sebastián is directing a movie about the New World around 1511, movie that aspires to be faithful to historic events and attempts to portray the manner in which the Spanish Crown through the likes of Cristopher Columbus, Bartolomé de las Casas and Agustín Montesinos dealt with the indigenous population of the new continent.
So we see the filming of Indians being burned at the stake refusing the acceptance of the Christian principles as presented by the Spaniards who immediately began demanding everything gold and total submission.
Another heartbreaking scene that is unable to be filmed for Sebastián's movie has us witness how the Spaniards follow a group of Indians, among them many women with their infants in arms, as they are being pursued by the Europeans and their hounds and when facing death, the mothers choose to drown their babies before leaving them for the dogs. The Indian "actresses" hired for this scene refuse to do it, even after Sebastián and his crew try to explain to them that the babies would not even get wet and they show the women the dolls that they would submerge in the water. It seems that historically this is what happened. The "actresses" cannot bring themselves to do it and that moment ends with one of them quite tenderly beginning to sing a lullaby to calm the crying babies.
Daniel is one of the Indians that has an important role to play in the movie as Hatuey, a rebellious Taíno Indian. But Daniel, the actor, is also a committed political activist that is an ouspoken and courageous leader against the privatization of water in Cochabamba 2000.
For me this movie hits home. As a Latin American, as a mestiza, I know that the blood that courses through my veins is Indian and European, specifically Spaniard. I don't care about which might be more dominant. It would be counternatural to deny either. I hurt for the Indians and wonder about the willingness with which they forego all their riches for some pieces of looking glass and shiny stones, how willingly we embraced another culture, language and religion. Maybe we resisted but in any manner I lost that part of who I am. I don't know much about the Indians, I don't know any of their languages. From the Spaniards I have the beautiful language I speak, the beautiful books I read, and though I've never been to their peninsula, and I know my life is forever linked to them, I would never call Spain my "Motherland," because the cost paid by the indigenous peoples from where I come was a high one indeed.
So, that made me think that this "resentment," if I can call it that, is too old to carry around without acknowledging it. I hope that by doing that, the 21st century Margarita I am now can be liberated of this opressing past, and as a civilized human being I can embrace any member of the human race and call myself their sister without worrying if they came from the east or west of the Atlantic Ocean.
I really liked Luis Tosar, the guy who plays the producer Costa, as well as Juan Carlos Aduvuri, the actor who portrays Daniel/Hatuey. They both show depth, feeling, intensity and the contradictions of the land and the ocean that divide them.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Post #10 -- Me, at the Movies
Okay, so I’m one of the rare people that has the uncommon privilege of sometimes flexing at work and being able to leave work some Fridays at one. When that happens I’m a lazy bum. I rarely do anything that one might consider productive for a working wife and mother. Me? I choose to go to the movies.
Trust me, there is something to be said about being at the movies by yourself. I know the movie theater is a very loud space, but I find it to be an almost private, quiet and silent place. This allows for me to be in a mode of reflection and escape.
I usually have to ask for help and I’m escorted with my soda and my nachos to my place. And then I escape for a couple of hours far away from my routines, the demands of my everyday life and I almost can forget about my cane and my weakened body.
Most times the movies do what they’re supposed to do: entertain me, at times even chuckle, maybe show me things I can appreciate like fashion, beautiful faraway destinations I dream of visiting and pretty people. But then you have the movies that touch your soul.
These are the movies I like to comment on. So, this past weekend I finally got to see "Biutiful".
I wouldn’t say it’s a movie for escape, because it doesn’t take you to a lighter place than yours…You know, where the homes you see are nicer than yours, where people are beautiful and look good even sweating or even when they cry, and in general, live a life with more means than you. Well, "Biutiful" speaks from the other side of the spectrum of light, prosperity and beauty.
You’re in Europe which evokes images of art, history, museums and beauty. But it shocks you because you’re taken into the life of a dying man, living on the outskirts of his society, who is caring for his two kids, and to top it he’s psychic and his bipolar and addicted wife comes and goes from their lives. The “hero” (Javier Bardem) is not a hero in the sense that Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford are heroes in our American movies. This man, Uxbal, deals in human trafficking, is full of contradictions and faces moral dilemmas he tries to resolve as he lives his last days. And it hurts to see the wretched lives from which he profits.
In spite of all the poverty you witness, the squalid places we, as humans, are able to call home, the activities we dare do to generate some bills to survive, the luminosity, the grace in this movie, if any, is that our humanity stubbornly shines through. Be it in the Chinese men and women that work in the sweatshops and construction industry or the African guys that sell knockoff designer bags on the streets where tourists conglomerate unaware of the dark underbelly of this incredible city they visit.
The movie paces slow and gives you no respite, not even when Mateo and Ana, Uxbal’s kids, smile and try their best at just being kids. Not even then because you're aware of that underlying threat that something more awful will eventually happen.
I didn't get a bit of relief until towards the end of the movie when I was able to cry the sadness I was feeling, when Uxbal holds on to his Ana with all his strength and asks his ten-year-old daughter to please not forget about him.
I know that this type of story is probably true and real in all urban places of our planet, be it New York, L.A., Mexico City, Sao Paulo, or wherever. I’ve always heard and known about the beauty of the city where "Biutiful" happens, but I left feeling that I really don’t need to visit Barcelona before I die.
Trust me, there is something to be said about being at the movies by yourself. I know the movie theater is a very loud space, but I find it to be an almost private, quiet and silent place. This allows for me to be in a mode of reflection and escape.
I usually have to ask for help and I’m escorted with my soda and my nachos to my place. And then I escape for a couple of hours far away from my routines, the demands of my everyday life and I almost can forget about my cane and my weakened body.
Most times the movies do what they’re supposed to do: entertain me, at times even chuckle, maybe show me things I can appreciate like fashion, beautiful faraway destinations I dream of visiting and pretty people. But then you have the movies that touch your soul.
These are the movies I like to comment on. So, this past weekend I finally got to see "Biutiful".
I wouldn’t say it’s a movie for escape, because it doesn’t take you to a lighter place than yours…You know, where the homes you see are nicer than yours, where people are beautiful and look good even sweating or even when they cry, and in general, live a life with more means than you. Well, "Biutiful" speaks from the other side of the spectrum of light, prosperity and beauty.
You’re in Europe which evokes images of art, history, museums and beauty. But it shocks you because you’re taken into the life of a dying man, living on the outskirts of his society, who is caring for his two kids, and to top it he’s psychic and his bipolar and addicted wife comes and goes from their lives. The “hero” (Javier Bardem) is not a hero in the sense that Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford are heroes in our American movies. This man, Uxbal, deals in human trafficking, is full of contradictions and faces moral dilemmas he tries to resolve as he lives his last days. And it hurts to see the wretched lives from which he profits.
In spite of all the poverty you witness, the squalid places we, as humans, are able to call home, the activities we dare do to generate some bills to survive, the luminosity, the grace in this movie, if any, is that our humanity stubbornly shines through. Be it in the Chinese men and women that work in the sweatshops and construction industry or the African guys that sell knockoff designer bags on the streets where tourists conglomerate unaware of the dark underbelly of this incredible city they visit.
The movie paces slow and gives you no respite, not even when Mateo and Ana, Uxbal’s kids, smile and try their best at just being kids. Not even then because you're aware of that underlying threat that something more awful will eventually happen.
I didn't get a bit of relief until towards the end of the movie when I was able to cry the sadness I was feeling, when Uxbal holds on to his Ana with all his strength and asks his ten-year-old daughter to please not forget about him.
I know that this type of story is probably true and real in all urban places of our planet, be it New York, L.A., Mexico City, Sao Paulo, or wherever. I’ve always heard and known about the beauty of the city where "Biutiful" happens, but I left feeling that I really don’t need to visit Barcelona before I die.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Post #9 -- Justin: My Valentina's Crush
This past week Justin Bieber turned 17. I know this because I was informed by Valentina that Justin was born on a Tuesday (“Just like me, mommy!”). On that day I wore a purple sweater. I explained to Valentina that I didn’t wear it to “honor” him, but to make her happy since the day before she had been Facebooking for everyone to wear purple on March 1. Besides, I didn’t want to be the cause of her morning pout.
I admit I can see how very cute the kid is. He was adorable at two when pounding on his toy drum set. What mother can resist his baby cuteness? I will say that my baby was way cuter but I’m big enough to admit that The Biebs was cute from the get-go. I tell Valentina he’s so pretty he could be a girl.
Anyway, I get fiercely defensive about Valentina and her crush. I tell her father to just let her be when he shows signs of getting sick and tired.
Valentina has NINE posters of Bieber on a wall of her bedroom. When she was a little girl (how I miss her!) she was into The Cheetah Girls, even Miley, and most recently Selena Gomez (not anymore because she “stole” Justin from her).
Her posters made me remember my dad’s reaction when I started with my crushes. In my day, it was all about Juan Gabriel, Julio Iglesias, Camilo Sesto, Sandro, Raphael and Emmanuel. They were very famous in Mexico in the late seventies and eighties. And I had their posters on the wall of my room. Until the day my dad walked in saw my lineup of famous hotties and without saying a word tore them off my wall. I was very saddened but he was my law and ultimately, the one I wanted most to please. I guess he had a hard time accepting that his Tita was growing up and no longer just his little girl.
Somewhere in my heart I know I can’t do that to Valentina. I don’t want to encourage her to be star struck. To the contrary, I want her to know how inaccessible these famous people are. I want her to know that getting to meet Justin is as probable as me winning the lottery and not living in debt. But her heart is also involved and I believe all these feelings over The Biebs are a natural part of her transitioning into adolescence. So this is what I honor when admiring her posters and her purple shirts and phone wallpaper, and the Justin music she constantly listens to on her phone. I even helped her think (hopefully with some semblance of objectivity) through the points she argued with one Nicholas Jacques on Facebook and whom suddenly stopped the debate when Valentina questioned the “artistic value” of Britney Spears, whom apparently he really likes. We're still waiting on his reply.
Any time I tell Valentina about the possibility of Justin knowing that she likes him, what does she tell me? Mommy, NEVER SAY NEVER!
I admit I can see how very cute the kid is. He was adorable at two when pounding on his toy drum set. What mother can resist his baby cuteness? I will say that my baby was way cuter but I’m big enough to admit that The Biebs was cute from the get-go. I tell Valentina he’s so pretty he could be a girl.
Anyway, I get fiercely defensive about Valentina and her crush. I tell her father to just let her be when he shows signs of getting sick and tired.
Valentina has NINE posters of Bieber on a wall of her bedroom. When she was a little girl (how I miss her!) she was into The Cheetah Girls, even Miley, and most recently Selena Gomez (not anymore because she “stole” Justin from her).
Her posters made me remember my dad’s reaction when I started with my crushes. In my day, it was all about Juan Gabriel, Julio Iglesias, Camilo Sesto, Sandro, Raphael and Emmanuel. They were very famous in Mexico in the late seventies and eighties. And I had their posters on the wall of my room. Until the day my dad walked in saw my lineup of famous hotties and without saying a word tore them off my wall. I was very saddened but he was my law and ultimately, the one I wanted most to please. I guess he had a hard time accepting that his Tita was growing up and no longer just his little girl.
Somewhere in my heart I know I can’t do that to Valentina. I don’t want to encourage her to be star struck. To the contrary, I want her to know how inaccessible these famous people are. I want her to know that getting to meet Justin is as probable as me winning the lottery and not living in debt. But her heart is also involved and I believe all these feelings over The Biebs are a natural part of her transitioning into adolescence. So this is what I honor when admiring her posters and her purple shirts and phone wallpaper, and the Justin music she constantly listens to on her phone. I even helped her think (hopefully with some semblance of objectivity) through the points she argued with one Nicholas Jacques on Facebook and whom suddenly stopped the debate when Valentina questioned the “artistic value” of Britney Spears, whom apparently he really likes. We're still waiting on his reply.
Any time I tell Valentina about the possibility of Justin knowing that she likes him, what does she tell me? Mommy, NEVER SAY NEVER!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Post #8 - My First Teenage Crush
My teenage years in school were spent in Mexico, so when the time came for hormones to do their thing in my body, I had the Spanish-language performers to sort through to choose my first teenage crushes.
Though, in all honesty, my first crush was really a junior high school teacher. He was a very cultured man, and taught us History, Biology and even P.E. I still remember his full name: Arturo de la Torre Ochoa. We just called him by his paternal surname of De la Torre. He was tall, skinny, and he dressed with elegance and distinction. He was very handsome. He was a lawyer and yes, married. You can imagine, I was not the only one “in love” with De la Torre. Most every girl in my school fantasized about losing “it” to him. In all honesty again, I really didn’t know I had an “it” to lose, but if De la Torre wanted me to lose something, I was willing to lose everything up to and including my bus fare.
Of course, we didn’t know how to handle the intense emotions we were experiencing over boys, especially over De la Torre. One of my friends in junior high, Rosa, pushed him into the pool a Saturday he took us to a rec center during our P.E. class. He was dressed all in sporty whites, skinny, tall and masculine, walking by the pool, with his family sitting under a shady tree, when there goes Rosa and shoves him into the pool. He took it all in stride and Rosa didn’t even get in trouble.
And then there was the day he said something really nice to me. I use to belong to a small group of girlfriends: Rosa who already worked as a nurse’s aide, the sadly neurotic Socorro and Rosa Catalina Felícitas (yeah, she had three names aside from her two surnames of Myers Flores). I called her Catalina, everybody else went with the not so pretty and very old-fashioned name of Felícitas. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any one as physically beautiful as Catalina. She was tall and slender, gazelle-like, her hair fell in tight natural curls to the middle of her back Afro style, her eyes were large and almond shaped and colored, she had the perfect upturned nose, and a sensual mouth. Think Amber stones, think Bambi. And to top it all she was no show-off.
I don’t remember who was being the prankster that day, but it really wasn’t any of us. Still, De la Torre approached the four of us giggling silly girls. He asked if we were the culprits and we all dissolved in “It wasn’t me, Maestro, It wasn’t me.” Then he looked at me (true to myself I was tomato-red) and said, “You Margarita, you hush, because you speak with your eyes.”
It truly felt that he had singled me out. I wanted to convince myself that he had declared his love to me then and there. Teenagers, they’re all fools! I was no exception.
Sometime later somehow I ended up with his phone number. Well, from a public phone I called him once and trying to sound all Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday, I asked him if he was married and hung up on him.
Next day came. When he walked into the classroom in the most serious voice I had ever heard him talk, he said. “To whomever called me, you need to stop now. I don’t need to know who you are, I just need you to stop. You all know I’m a happily married man, so please no more calls.” He said this little speech in all his classes.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted earth to open and swallow me whole. So as the good girl I was, I talked to Lupita, the lady whose charge I was during the school year,and told her about what I had done. Lupita was one of three gray-haired unmarried siblings who lived with their eighty-something mother in our house. Devoutly Catholic, Lupita heard me and in all her kindness instructed me too confess and apologize to De la Torre.
Devoutly Catholic myself because of her influence in my life, during a break in school, I looked for De la Torre; when I found him, we walked to a corner of the courtyard and I started babbling and apologizing about me being the prank caller. Then three other girls approached him and started flirting with him. “Ay, maestro, what are you doing?” He answered authoritatively, “Here, speaking with the young lady.” (Trust me, everything acquires a romantic tinge when said in Spanish.) His words clearly told them to walk away, which they did. Me, I just fell “in love” all over again. He made me feel so validated, so real. Then he told me to not worry so much, to forget about it and to never do it again. And being the good girl I still am, I obeyed.
Wasn’t he the greatest?
I got to thinking about this because my daughter Valentina has just gone into her crush mode completely over The Biebs, about which I will blog next week. Hopefully.
Though, in all honesty, my first crush was really a junior high school teacher. He was a very cultured man, and taught us History, Biology and even P.E. I still remember his full name: Arturo de la Torre Ochoa. We just called him by his paternal surname of De la Torre. He was tall, skinny, and he dressed with elegance and distinction. He was very handsome. He was a lawyer and yes, married. You can imagine, I was not the only one “in love” with De la Torre. Most every girl in my school fantasized about losing “it” to him. In all honesty again, I really didn’t know I had an “it” to lose, but if De la Torre wanted me to lose something, I was willing to lose everything up to and including my bus fare.
Of course, we didn’t know how to handle the intense emotions we were experiencing over boys, especially over De la Torre. One of my friends in junior high, Rosa, pushed him into the pool a Saturday he took us to a rec center during our P.E. class. He was dressed all in sporty whites, skinny, tall and masculine, walking by the pool, with his family sitting under a shady tree, when there goes Rosa and shoves him into the pool. He took it all in stride and Rosa didn’t even get in trouble.
And then there was the day he said something really nice to me. I use to belong to a small group of girlfriends: Rosa who already worked as a nurse’s aide, the sadly neurotic Socorro and Rosa Catalina Felícitas (yeah, she had three names aside from her two surnames of Myers Flores). I called her Catalina, everybody else went with the not so pretty and very old-fashioned name of Felícitas. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any one as physically beautiful as Catalina. She was tall and slender, gazelle-like, her hair fell in tight natural curls to the middle of her back Afro style, her eyes were large and almond shaped and colored, she had the perfect upturned nose, and a sensual mouth. Think Amber stones, think Bambi. And to top it all she was no show-off.
I don’t remember who was being the prankster that day, but it really wasn’t any of us. Still, De la Torre approached the four of us giggling silly girls. He asked if we were the culprits and we all dissolved in “It wasn’t me, Maestro, It wasn’t me.” Then he looked at me (true to myself I was tomato-red) and said, “You Margarita, you hush, because you speak with your eyes.”
It truly felt that he had singled me out. I wanted to convince myself that he had declared his love to me then and there. Teenagers, they’re all fools! I was no exception.
Sometime later somehow I ended up with his phone number. Well, from a public phone I called him once and trying to sound all Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday, I asked him if he was married and hung up on him.
Next day came. When he walked into the classroom in the most serious voice I had ever heard him talk, he said. “To whomever called me, you need to stop now. I don’t need to know who you are, I just need you to stop. You all know I’m a happily married man, so please no more calls.” He said this little speech in all his classes.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted earth to open and swallow me whole. So as the good girl I was, I talked to Lupita, the lady whose charge I was during the school year,and told her about what I had done. Lupita was one of three gray-haired unmarried siblings who lived with their eighty-something mother in our house. Devoutly Catholic, Lupita heard me and in all her kindness instructed me too confess and apologize to De la Torre.
Devoutly Catholic myself because of her influence in my life, during a break in school, I looked for De la Torre; when I found him, we walked to a corner of the courtyard and I started babbling and apologizing about me being the prank caller. Then three other girls approached him and started flirting with him. “Ay, maestro, what are you doing?” He answered authoritatively, “Here, speaking with the young lady.” (Trust me, everything acquires a romantic tinge when said in Spanish.) His words clearly told them to walk away, which they did. Me, I just fell “in love” all over again. He made me feel so validated, so real. Then he told me to not worry so much, to forget about it and to never do it again. And being the good girl I still am, I obeyed.
Wasn’t he the greatest?
I got to thinking about this because my daughter Valentina has just gone into her crush mode completely over The Biebs, about which I will blog next week. Hopefully.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Post #7 My books: The Power of Now
I just finished reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle on my Christmas gift, my nifty NookColor.
I know I’m late given all the bru-ha created by this author and his books, especially after Winfrey had Tolle’s A New Earth as one of her reading club’s selection.
Anyhoo, I read it. I declare myself too limited to fully comprehend the mystery behind his words. As a writer he is really repetitive and he is so into his message and so detached from the “form world” that I guess it’s below him to connect to us “form beings” in our “pain bodies.” It was hard for me to elevate myself away from my worldly life, which seems an apparent requirement to reach his level.
Having said that, there are some nuggets that I found valuable for me in my current "life situation." Life does sound “nicer” as he describes it, but there is sooo much to do. But if life will be nicer maybe it would be worth a try…
-The idea of surrender. Not that you give up or that you say you’re defeated in the battle and so you’re a loser. You surrender, you do not resist the “What Is.” Things are crummy, yes, but you either decide to change your crummy things, remove yourself from your crummy environment or you accept it. I like these options. Figure out if something can be done to fix your mess, decide if you want to fix it or not, go away or leave it be. If you think you must let it be, then don’t harbor any resentment, hatred or other type of negative reaction. Surrender to it. It’s “What Is.”
--The idea of forgiveness. Before starting the book, I was already in a mode of forgiving those who have hurt me, as I declare it in my daily prayers. At least I declare my desire or intent to forgive. I don’t know if I’m yet there. Usually my resentments never boil over, they just simmer. But saying I want to be free of resentment, is pretty liberating.
--Living in the Now. This one is hard, since I am attached to my past in a pretty hard way, in terms not necessarily of the things that happened to me, but in the people who helped define who I am, good and bad, treasures I received from them, or their messy crap as they deposited in my lap. I also like the idea of the future. My future is always beautiful. As of now in my future I have full bodily functions restored and I have no money problems. And I have a little piece of this beautiful planet where I can walk on the beach. But being in the Now, as I understood Tolle is being okay this exact moment. Doing what I do. Accepting who I am. Able to detach myself from my life experiences and their emotional baggage, to surrender to the grace of this moment. Content with just Being me, as I am in the Now.
So for real, I forgive red-headed Mark, Cathy, Jeff and Mary Lekus. I forgive you, guys, and wish you peace and a full grasp of the Now.
Books I’m reading now: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan; Faust by Goethe; Siddhartha by Hesse.
I know I’m late given all the bru-ha created by this author and his books, especially after Winfrey had Tolle’s A New Earth as one of her reading club’s selection.
Anyhoo, I read it. I declare myself too limited to fully comprehend the mystery behind his words. As a writer he is really repetitive and he is so into his message and so detached from the “form world” that I guess it’s below him to connect to us “form beings” in our “pain bodies.” It was hard for me to elevate myself away from my worldly life, which seems an apparent requirement to reach his level.
Having said that, there are some nuggets that I found valuable for me in my current "life situation." Life does sound “nicer” as he describes it, but there is sooo much to do. But if life will be nicer maybe it would be worth a try…
-The idea of surrender. Not that you give up or that you say you’re defeated in the battle and so you’re a loser. You surrender, you do not resist the “What Is.” Things are crummy, yes, but you either decide to change your crummy things, remove yourself from your crummy environment or you accept it. I like these options. Figure out if something can be done to fix your mess, decide if you want to fix it or not, go away or leave it be. If you think you must let it be, then don’t harbor any resentment, hatred or other type of negative reaction. Surrender to it. It’s “What Is.”
--The idea of forgiveness. Before starting the book, I was already in a mode of forgiving those who have hurt me, as I declare it in my daily prayers. At least I declare my desire or intent to forgive. I don’t know if I’m yet there. Usually my resentments never boil over, they just simmer. But saying I want to be free of resentment, is pretty liberating.
--Living in the Now. This one is hard, since I am attached to my past in a pretty hard way, in terms not necessarily of the things that happened to me, but in the people who helped define who I am, good and bad, treasures I received from them, or their messy crap as they deposited in my lap. I also like the idea of the future. My future is always beautiful. As of now in my future I have full bodily functions restored and I have no money problems. And I have a little piece of this beautiful planet where I can walk on the beach. But being in the Now, as I understood Tolle is being okay this exact moment. Doing what I do. Accepting who I am. Able to detach myself from my life experiences and their emotional baggage, to surrender to the grace of this moment. Content with just Being me, as I am in the Now.
So for real, I forgive red-headed Mark, Cathy, Jeff and Mary Lekus. I forgive you, guys, and wish you peace and a full grasp of the Now.
Books I’m reading now: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan; Faust by Goethe; Siddhartha by Hesse.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Post #6 Hey Mago or The Healing Touch
Mago is a nickname for Margarita in Spanish, as Jim is for James and Liz for Elizabeth in English. But my name has many possible nicknames, and I think I’ve been called all of them at one point or another: Mago, Maga, Marga, Margot, Márgara and even Margarota since the “ita” ending in Spanish is a diminutive. But for my family I’m just Tita. Back in my school years, if you phoned my house and asked for me, you would surely have gotten my mother (I’m named after her). Since her entire life my Mom has been Marga, my papi decided from the beginning of my life that I would simply be Tita. Many of my relatives believe that it’s my legal name and would never dare call me Margarita.
You would think that I’m about to ‘fess up to having multiple personalities, but no. Actually, it’s a rather sad memory of when I was twelve years old. How to begin? It has to do with discrimination and the healing effect of the human touch.
During my elementary school years in California, I was a sad kid, I had no friends, nor did I know how to go about making some. So there you have me: quiet, obedient, wanting only to please, chubby and Mexican. As kids would be (I know now), they would pick on me precisely because of these characteristics: I tended to get good grades, I was chubby and Mexican. I guess it’s understandable, something you can explain now, but if you’re seven or eleven and lonely, with no skills to take care of yourself, and you’re being followed everyday by a red-headed, freckled-face, chubby boy named Mark, calling you names that have to do with your nationality and your food, you immediately start wondering what can be wrong with you, until you decide that there definitely has to be something wrong with you. There just has to; otherwise, why would Mark bother to walk by your side every day calling you names while still sitting on his bike, and you keep walking home, head stubbornly down, face burning red, pretending he’s not there?
Of course, I know I can’t and I must not tell my parents. Why create confusion? At home I’m the silly one, the one that makes others laugh. The lovable home clown. So I learn to separate my family life from my school life. And my beloved parents cannot even fathom the reality that I was living at school.
Like the visible upset of my fith grade homeroom teacher because I had the number one spot in her multiplication tables contest. Like the kids behind me at the water fountain saying “yuck” and running off because they could not bring themselves to drink from where I had drank. Like Cathy and Jeff getting mad at me and bringing up my nationality because I said no to taking a puff from their cigarette. Like not being able to make friends with Ruth Sandoval, based exclusively on the facts that we both were Mexican and spoke Spanish, in spite of what good-intentioned teachers might have wanted the outcome to be.
Then, after several years, I’m sent back to Mexico for sixth grade. I was enrolled in the Catholic parochial school “San Agustin de la Rosa,” just a few blocks from home.
There I discovered friendship and the wonderful warmth that comes with the acquired sense of belonging without really having to do anything special except be yourself. I make my first best friend, Baudelia. I hang out with the girls in my class. And forgotten is my sadness. I’m still too young to analyze or make comparisons. This is simply the way it’s here, different from how it is over there.
One sunny day, I’m just standing there when a classmate, Sergio Hernandez, whom we all called “El Negro” (literally “The Black One” because his skin was noticeably darker than the majority of brown skinned kids). But calling him El Negro to his face was not a criticism, but an endearment, something that said that though he looked different than the rest of us, he was completely included and accepted. As a matter of fact, El Negro was an extremely popular kid in my grade. The same happened at home, I call my sister La Flaca (the skinny one, though she's not, unless you compare her to me); she calls me La Gorda; we have an extremely tall uncle, and every one calls him El Pequeno (the small one). All these nicknames happen within the circle of family and friendship.
Anyway, I’m standing there, I see El Negro running towards me. He stops right in front of me and touches my forearm saying “Oye, Mago…” (Listen, Mago). Whatever followed is totally erased from my memory. This is all I have left from this brief encounter with a classmate with whom I was not even close friends.
And honestly, this is all that matters. I remember looking at his dark hand on my arm, and then he is gone. I’m left staring at my arm with one repetitive thought going round and round in my mind. “I’m touchable. I’m touchable. I’m touchable.”
Told you that it was about the healing effect of the human touch.
You would think that I’m about to ‘fess up to having multiple personalities, but no. Actually, it’s a rather sad memory of when I was twelve years old. How to begin? It has to do with discrimination and the healing effect of the human touch.
During my elementary school years in California, I was a sad kid, I had no friends, nor did I know how to go about making some. So there you have me: quiet, obedient, wanting only to please, chubby and Mexican. As kids would be (I know now), they would pick on me precisely because of these characteristics: I tended to get good grades, I was chubby and Mexican. I guess it’s understandable, something you can explain now, but if you’re seven or eleven and lonely, with no skills to take care of yourself, and you’re being followed everyday by a red-headed, freckled-face, chubby boy named Mark, calling you names that have to do with your nationality and your food, you immediately start wondering what can be wrong with you, until you decide that there definitely has to be something wrong with you. There just has to; otherwise, why would Mark bother to walk by your side every day calling you names while still sitting on his bike, and you keep walking home, head stubbornly down, face burning red, pretending he’s not there?
Of course, I know I can’t and I must not tell my parents. Why create confusion? At home I’m the silly one, the one that makes others laugh. The lovable home clown. So I learn to separate my family life from my school life. And my beloved parents cannot even fathom the reality that I was living at school.
Like the visible upset of my fith grade homeroom teacher because I had the number one spot in her multiplication tables contest. Like the kids behind me at the water fountain saying “yuck” and running off because they could not bring themselves to drink from where I had drank. Like Cathy and Jeff getting mad at me and bringing up my nationality because I said no to taking a puff from their cigarette. Like not being able to make friends with Ruth Sandoval, based exclusively on the facts that we both were Mexican and spoke Spanish, in spite of what good-intentioned teachers might have wanted the outcome to be.
Then, after several years, I’m sent back to Mexico for sixth grade. I was enrolled in the Catholic parochial school “San Agustin de la Rosa,” just a few blocks from home.
There I discovered friendship and the wonderful warmth that comes with the acquired sense of belonging without really having to do anything special except be yourself. I make my first best friend, Baudelia. I hang out with the girls in my class. And forgotten is my sadness. I’m still too young to analyze or make comparisons. This is simply the way it’s here, different from how it is over there.
One sunny day, I’m just standing there when a classmate, Sergio Hernandez, whom we all called “El Negro” (literally “The Black One” because his skin was noticeably darker than the majority of brown skinned kids). But calling him El Negro to his face was not a criticism, but an endearment, something that said that though he looked different than the rest of us, he was completely included and accepted. As a matter of fact, El Negro was an extremely popular kid in my grade. The same happened at home, I call my sister La Flaca (the skinny one, though she's not, unless you compare her to me); she calls me La Gorda; we have an extremely tall uncle, and every one calls him El Pequeno (the small one). All these nicknames happen within the circle of family and friendship.
Anyway, I’m standing there, I see El Negro running towards me. He stops right in front of me and touches my forearm saying “Oye, Mago…” (Listen, Mago). Whatever followed is totally erased from my memory. This is all I have left from this brief encounter with a classmate with whom I was not even close friends.
And honestly, this is all that matters. I remember looking at his dark hand on my arm, and then he is gone. I’m left staring at my arm with one repetitive thought going round and round in my mind. “I’m touchable. I’m touchable. I’m touchable.”
Told you that it was about the healing effect of the human touch.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Post #5 Baby, Close Your Eyes
This weekend my brain is a tad slow. I will blame the four day forced captivity after the Dallas area was hit with a true winter storm, ice, snow, freezing cold and all, making it impossible for us native and adoptive Texans to venture out into the world. So schools closed and fortunately the lovely company for which I work shut operations for three of these past four days.
So my daughter, dog Lola and I stayed put at home not going out once, pretending it was cool to stay home in our jammies and, yes, I confess, we skipped a day and didn't shower. I wish I was, but I'm not that type of creative mother that can improvise ways to make time pass quickly by. I avidly read about other mothers who bake, cook, sing, dance and play with their kids. But, I repeat, I am not. What I did do was break down and allowed my seventh grader to watch The Social Network on demand with me, just making her turn around and close her eyes during the inappropriate scenes for a twelve year old.
That's what my parents used to do with my little sister Irma and me when we were my Valentina's age. Back in Yuba City where we were raised there was one movie theater that featured movies in Spanish (Tower Theater) in the neighboring town of Marysville. I don't think that in the early and mid-seventies there was a rating system for Spanish-language movies that were brought into the States, so the adults were in charge of deciding to bring their children or not.
My parents opted to take us. But as soonn as the hero started kissing the heroine on the neck, and things got too steamy, papi and mami would give Irma and me money and ordered us to go buy popcorn, candy and soda, which we happily did. We had not an inkling about what was going on the big screen, nor were we curious about finding out either, but we would giggle and go have our fill of sweets.
You would hope that as a better educated individual, my husband and I would have figured out a better system, but here I am almost four decades later doing the same thing my parents did. Although uncomfortable as my daughter feels with inappropriate scenes she beats me to the punch and excuses herself to go to the restroom. Pity, if she would wait a couple of seconds more, I'd give her my debit card.
So my daughter, dog Lola and I stayed put at home not going out once, pretending it was cool to stay home in our jammies and, yes, I confess, we skipped a day and didn't shower. I wish I was, but I'm not that type of creative mother that can improvise ways to make time pass quickly by. I avidly read about other mothers who bake, cook, sing, dance and play with their kids. But, I repeat, I am not. What I did do was break down and allowed my seventh grader to watch The Social Network on demand with me, just making her turn around and close her eyes during the inappropriate scenes for a twelve year old.
That's what my parents used to do with my little sister Irma and me when we were my Valentina's age. Back in Yuba City where we were raised there was one movie theater that featured movies in Spanish (Tower Theater) in the neighboring town of Marysville. I don't think that in the early and mid-seventies there was a rating system for Spanish-language movies that were brought into the States, so the adults were in charge of deciding to bring their children or not.
My parents opted to take us. But as soonn as the hero started kissing the heroine on the neck, and things got too steamy, papi and mami would give Irma and me money and ordered us to go buy popcorn, candy and soda, which we happily did. We had not an inkling about what was going on the big screen, nor were we curious about finding out either, but we would giggle and go have our fill of sweets.
You would hope that as a better educated individual, my husband and I would have figured out a better system, but here I am almost four decades later doing the same thing my parents did. Although uncomfortable as my daughter feels with inappropriate scenes she beats me to the punch and excuses herself to go to the restroom. Pity, if she would wait a couple of seconds more, I'd give her my debit card.
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