Rose window at Chartres Cathedral

by Yoly Zentella–

About 200 children, nine tightly robbed, black habited nuns, eight bright but austere classrooms divided in half, separating the sexes, and at each desk, a bottle of blue-black fountain pen ink: this was the stage of the urban New York City working class Roman Catholic school, circa 1960s, I attended.

Our nuns, stern and stoic as they were , with only one among them being known to smile, were custodians of this small, immaculate, marble floored, parochial school occupying two stories. Children – Irish, Italian, and a sprinkling of assorted Latinos – ages 6-14 attended daily, quietly, so that only the black, swaying, rosary beads, hanging from the nun’s belted waist to her ankle, could be heard as she glided down the hall.
There was one classroom for each grade. In those days there were no special services; every student worked hard in class. If you didn’t pass you repeated the grade. There were rarely behavior problems.

We received a simple but well-rounded education, prayer book Latin, Gregorian chant – sung at High Mass and special feast days – catechism theology and Catholic art lessons on Roman, Medieval and Renaissance church symbolism. How we would astonish the upper classes at the out-of-our-league Metropolitan Art Museum when we would stand before the paintings during a class trip or on brief, unsupervised juvenile jaunts, analyzing aloud the symbolism in the Flemish or Italian triptychs! Working class children should be prepared for work in the factories, industry, service, not to view paintings as if they were art connoisseurs on holiday on the south of France. The upper classes bought expensive art books to learn that a palm in the hand of St. Lucy meant martyrdom. They attended museum lectures to learn what the dedicated but often impatient and perpetually annoyed looking nuns, grand-daughters of Irish immigrants, taught us.

The school was small, and I knew every inch of it by heart, with each inch being much like the other. But there was one corner of the school, tucked away in the tiny principal’s office, that was special. It housed a cardboard box, a parallel to the box that the cabaret, scantily clad, cigarette girl carried, securely held by a band around her neck. She would  coquettishly ask the tuxedoed men drinking cocktails, “cigars, cigarettes?” A pretty standard scene in black and white movies, circa 1940s!  Instead, the box in the office kept antidotes to sin, the weapons of repentance – religious articles for sale, among which were a variety of crisp, new, often gold-edged Holy Pictures. My contrasting  boxes would most likely be considered by the nuns to be sacrilegious, sinful, or both. Better to keep my observations private!

Weekly, a well-behaved student was picked to take the box from classroom to classroom, silently hawking, among other objects, beautiful 2 x 4 replicas of scenes from the past – joy, ecstasy, insight, conversion, eyes looking to heaven, and martyrdom. I was never chosen for this task; the nuns knew better. I might have taken the opportunity to flirt with a boy or two, or give away rosaries, the plastic ones, at least. Charity! While I didn’t really want to be a hawker, I did relish being near the pictures that didn’t speak, that begged to be accepted in their frozen state. I was intrigued by their fragmented stories,  much as I was by the mural that spanned three of the inside walls of the main church, the mother of the Catholic school.

It was a mural of larger than life saints, a parade of doctors of the church, martyrs, preachers, mystics, all crowned with halos except one, and curiously all White, except one, a female, Native American, Blessed Kateri. I always thought she and I resembled each other. The saints were separated by gender, males to the left, females to the right, each animated, theatrically posed, each holding a symbol in their hands or against their breasts -a prayer book, a palm, a wheel, a crucifix, roses – depending on their particular roles in the story of the church and the century.
The figures were splendid oil paintings – prominent above the sanctuary – soft colors and gold-edged halos, all in procession toward the absolving Lamb of God. They also were not offering any clues about themselves, not even of the nuances of their spirituality, the frailty of their convictions, or their personal perceptions of the potential conflict between church and state. They revealed only what we had learned during religious instruction, which was standard and shallow at best.

As Catholic school children we learned a more simplified version of the lives of the saints, most likely based on Jacobus’ hagiographical accounts. But one also had to have spent summers pouring over library books of myths and legends to connect the saints to archetypes. Perhaps this was my fascination with that pious parade that I could not keep my eyes off of when we, the class, were in the mother church for special feast days or  for confession. I so wanted to have that mural in my bedroom where I could scrutinize the saints for signs of private thoughts.
As I could not have the mural, the Holy Pictures would have to do. I became a young, working class collector, storing them in my daily missal, thinking of the saints’ significant moments, during mass – the holy remembrance of the last supper which had been reduced to a series of clicks by the nuns – signaling to us when to kneel, stand or sit.  Catholic conditioning! As absolute silence was demanded, I reviewed my growing collection and fantasized.

Saint Lucy by Domenico Beccafumi

The saints had taken my adolescent interest, much as the archetypal fairy tale characters had as a child. I had been fortunate that the local public library, eight blocks away, had a good collection of  world fairy tales which I poured over during the summer, when you could check out  ten books at a time. Such immersion had become a pastime in my solitary room, unless I was at my paternal grandmother’s, whose penchant was for Mayan myths and Strauss waltzes played on her ancient piano.

Fairy tales, myths, hagiography, later the symbolism of the Tarot, Jung’s work on dreams, an interest in Medieval and Renaissance history, costume, music, and Mexican spirituality with its particular concept of death, created a mix that sometimes collided, but slowly transformed into an identifiable potpourri of persistent underlying thought.

One category of sainthood appeared prominent in the Catholic school setting – the martyr. Used as a teaching tool in discussions of faith and loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church, martyrdom  appeared as the juxtaposition to the eternal torment of hell, where death was not even a possibility. Martyrdom carried with it the badge of courage and holiness, of modesty and virtuous faith. Yet, through these stories, we, the children, were also exposed to horrific tortures and death, glossed over by the romantic triumph of death and canonization. Looking back at these descriptions one could say that the nuns were unknowingly preparing us to cope with the real world – of Southern lynchings, of historical anecdotes on mob violence toward Mexicans and Chinese in the 19th century  and reports on 21st century human rights abuses in Iraq. Tales of martyrdom pierced the protective coating of innocence that children came into the world with. By age 12, if we lived in a state of family violence, such accounts reinforced the idea of  physical punishment by parents and nuns, standardizing discipline for many during this era, like David Copperfield’s harsh treatment by both step-father and schoolmaster.

Christo Crucificado by Diego Velazquez

The pain of others appears to be a consistent subject of curiosity. The British spectacle of brutal executions from early times to the 19th century, spanned from the carefully designed execution of royal traitors, with members of the council, the clergy, and servants-in-waiting attending, to the public scenes of mayhem as traitors of lesser social status were drawn and quartered, to the burning of  heretic Catholics and Jesuits. Even during the age of Humanism in England, Thomas Moore, author of Utopia, portrayed as kindly and just, in A Man for All Seasons, relentlessly pursued heretics. For Catholics, the Roman centuries of early faith were backdrops for martyrs, descendants of the crucified  Christ, whose death pallor was caught so well by Velazquez’ in his Christ on the Cross (1632).

Churches in Mexico and Central America, territories that have sustained centuries of conquest, uprisings, and repression with gross violations of human rights have incorporated their historical and collective suffering to those of the crucified Christ, with statues often displaying signs of torture and finally death. Such portrayals are unlike the Euro-American and European Christ figures that seem relatively unharmed while crucified, perhaps displaying a quiet, private reserved suffering, very different from the Mexican and Central American public display of emotion and pain, reflections of a brutal cultural birth and history.

In this part of the world, the figures of Christ, the Virgin, and saints are dressed in native made clothing and cloaks. These life-like statues exist quietly in their niches, surrounded by flowers, candles, tiny rolled up petitions, and copper symbols of parts of the body that need healing, some perhaps already healed. Some figures are rumored to have nocturnal lives, slipping out to perform miracles, and returning to their places, soiled and torn.

In earlier European centuries, to a lesser degree today, the church had become the instrument of the monarchy and the state. During the English Middle Ages and even into the Renaissance, the abbeys kept the faith alive through their vast, sometimes questionable, relic collection, while the suffering of the martyrs continued to be a reminder that such a state, as in the case of the common man, was a path to heaven. Were these ideas usurped by the authorities to control the population?

Martyrdom, as depicted by holy pictures and embedded in relics, has existed within the spectrum of victimization, occupying an earlier space in time, contrasted by  a more contemporary one, within this disturbing continuum. Within the latter component were the sacrificed lives of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, regarded by some as Cold War martyrs;  their execution described as a “legal lynching” by John-Paul Sartre (Reinholz, 2009).   Different times, similar challenges to authority.

Extreme suffering, and often death, is the price that one pays for challenging and resisting authority, any authority – the tribe, government, the church, parents. History and literature are replete with examples – religious, political and historical figures -  archetypes for ideas and causes. There exist newspaper reports of child abuse and infanticide cases – because a child asked too many questions, cried incessantly, required attention, or otherwise overwhelmed an already emotionally distraught mother – the child should have known better. History tells us of the ambitious Thomas Wyatt, who opted for rebellion at a time of perilous, pre-Elizabethan plots. Wyatt should have known the price for treason; he should have treaded lightly, waiting for better times.

Christ and the martyrs, so closely connected to politics and treason, took part in the war of ideas, pushing and pulling on the dilemma – the survival of the idea or of the believer. This was the stuff of history, of my history that began in the still fresh shadow of World War II.
During the 1950s, NYC was home to refugees and survivors of the European holocaust. Riverside Drive Park, a favorite haunt of my father and I, had one memorial plaque to those who died at the hands of the Nazis. One day we, I about age 8, went on one of our park walks, during which time we contemplated the river and watched the barges slowly drift south on the Hudson. That day we engaged on a discussion of survival when coming to that familiar memorial plaque, and reading it again, my dad may have remarked, to perhaps my comments or questions with, “ I would have lied about my race to save my skin.”  I remember my indignation, arguing with him, questioning his reasoning.  The naiveté of my sweet, quiet dad. Did he really think it would be so easy to lie and remain safe? He underestimated the Nazis, their finely tuned policy of extermination, the requirement of papers, birth certificates, of documents tracing back for several generations, hunting for any trace of Jewishness – a meticulousness underlined by a German psychological fear of engulfment and annihilation, of starvation and humiliation by the Versailles Treaty of 1919, essentially designed to bring Germany to its knees. A desperate grasp at survival.

My thoughts at the time about his remark have remained with me: “What a coward, lying about his roots in order to survive – to save himself.”  A war of ideas between father and daughter!  Decades later, having studied and witnessed the historical and political process of social movements – religious and secular, right and left, I can appreciate his reasoning – not about the realities of fascism because, speaking respectfully,  he lacked a historical foundation, but about survival – the universal human preoccupation with escaping, resisting, attacking, manipulating, lying low, strategies for physical and ideological longevity. Each of us picks our own battles according to values and needs. As a Mexican man with a family his goal was to protect himself and us, in this way preserving his culture. I learned so much from him. I am so much my father’s daughter!

And my dad was a survivor. He had survived poverty, migration from Mexico, a perhaps distant mother, the alcoholism of his father; emotional abuse. He had lived in  Louisiana as an adolescent when Jim Crow was still part of everyday life, lived through New York union strikes – to join or not to join – the Depression, McCarthyism, The Cold War, an unfinished education, a monotonous factory job, the deaths of his parents and brother, and a marriage to a beautiful but emotionally challenging woman. He had been deemed exempt from WW II.  He survived it all, with bearing and serenity; he had been speaking from experience and personal strategy.  He died at age 96.

Holocausts have not only had martyrs; but also those who fought back, fled, lied, and hid.  My father was neither a hero nor a martyr, but one who lived a quiet, retiring, resigned existence, reading his books and waiting with patience for the story of life to pass. Who was the naive and innocent regarding survival? The father or the daughter ? I have refined his strategy.

St. Stephen by Giotto

It is a Catholic school, a hot, sweltering May afternoon. We had been assigned to write and present a composition, in our best script, on our favorite saint. Most of the students in the class picked a martyr. There were as many portrayals of St. Lucy as there were stories about her martyrdom in the 4th century AD.  I chose St. Stephen , stoned to death around 35 AD. I got an A for my efforts; I suspect the high grade was a reward by our Sister for being the only one in the class to have chosen the official forerunner of martyrdom, after Christ. As I waited my turn to present, sweating from the heat – we girls were made to wear our plaid woolen uniforms throughout the school year, to the end of June – I thought how much fun it would be to act out these martyr lives and deaths in a school play, much like the passion plays in the Middle Ages, usually taken from the liturgy, and very popular with the illiterate crowds.  I thought, perhaps I should suggest it. My turn came and went. The play was only a fantasy.  Decades later, I read that the Golden Legend had been stunningly adopted by choreographer Christopher Williams, into a 3 hour dance composition -  performed in May of 2009 in Chelsea – portraying the lives of a number of male saints.  This was a counterpart to the 11 female saint stories, Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, also created by Williams and performed in 2005.

The key to the success of these performances seems to be Williams’ skill for the fantastic – reminiscent of Medieval drama, for dance movement, for the use of Church symbolism, and for staging saintly, sometimes naked figures, coming alive on the stage in “short dance – plays” . Perhaps here, in these creations, decades after my Holy Picture fascination, one could catch a glimpse of, perhaps interpret, the thoughts of some of those frozen-in-expression mural figures. Williams’ portrayal of St. Laurence suggests that “he alone didn’t believe it [his death for the faith] could happen to him.” Was this a glimpse of an optimistic personality, of a thought-out plan for survival, or a personal perspective of politics at that time?

Martyrdom continues to attract our attention. Even for the non-believer, the concept of religious and political martyrs, archetypes of victimization, perhaps of perpetrators, past and present, is a point from which ideas and debates radiate – ethics, morality, loyalty, patriotism, law, justice, revenge, faith, survival. Controversy begins with officially approved or leaked reports on atrocities, newspaper features of child abuse, and innocent holy pictures airbrushed free of bloodstains.  For me, it took a modest neighborhood library, a working class Catholic school and a conversation with a quiet father to cultivate a personal narrative on suffering and survival, to understand the manner in which faith in the unseen and ancestral experiences can emerge from a mix of disparate elements. Perhaps now, the saints and martyrs will share with me what they once would not.

By the time I was 16 my hair was a mess, brittle, split ends. I was told that the remedy lay in a bottle of good conditioner; but the damage from my adolescent penchant for big hair stemmed from an urgent expression of independence, a drive to establish an adolescent identity separate from that of my family. Conditioner could not help me there.

Not that I wanted to disown my cultural legacy of language, traditions, our foods, religion and ritual. I just wanted to have another dimension that would be connected to my private self, my friends, music, emotions and secrets – to own something else besides what I already had as a first generation, brown adolescent of Mexican descent growing up in a working class Manhattan neighborhood. I wanted to be me, not a shadow of my family, in particular of my mother.

Our New York City neighborhood, where we were the only Mexicans amidst Irish, Italian, Puerto Rican and Dominican families, was encircled and marginalized by the world of the affluent other. We rarely saw them, except when we journeyed to Central or Riverside Parks to ride bikes, watch the river, walk, picnic or take quick, juvenile, romantic romps far from home’s watchful eye. My tight, well connected neighborhood existed in its own working class space. Although I had no sense of social class at that time, I felt that there was a difference between us multicultural barrio kids and them, with whom we rarely associated. They lived in towers, I, in a humble, but secure and immaculate five floor walk up railroad flat, as did most of my friends–although some had their own bedrooms.

Growing up in a quasi-traditional Mexican, Catholic, Spanish speaking family, we were governed by curfews and rules, by strictness, correctness and morality. Attending the neighborhood Catholic school, manned by Irish nuns, added to an already controlled life such as mine. The factor of sin, as described by the black-habited sisters, included a built-in equation which went something like,  five venial sins equal one mortal sin. For an adolescent the fives piled up quickly. Warnings of hell, synonymous to mortal sin, was a much used admonishment tool.

We wore uniforms – Catholic school grey and blue woolen jumpers, blue ties, sweaters, knee socks, and white blouses. The jumpers had to be below the knee, an agony for most of the girls; but after school and on weekends we changed to other uniforms: short skirts, Angel or Dr. Kildare blouses, black stoc

kings, lots of black eyeliner and big hair. We were little, fragile, sheltered, wanna be gang girls.

My very small allowance was spent on hair spray, shampoo, conditioner and combs, lots of plastic ones until I discovered metal ones with small teeth, perfect for teasing hair. I teased a small amount during school days. Anything over an inch would be subject to getting the bubble gum you were chewing pressed into your hair by the stern nun hovering over you. After school, the height was between you and the comb.

Big hair was a time consuming process: washing, conditioning, curling your hair with plastic rollers, end papers and curling gel that smelled like candy, spraying the rolled hair, letting it dry naturally. If you were among the higher status working class you had a hair dryer, but we didn’t. After it dried the rollers were taken out and each section was teased. The hair on the crown of your head was crucial – much serious teasing, up and down until seven inches was reduced to three inch tangled sections, this going on until you had formed a sort of dome on your head. The front portion of hair was teased moderately and smoothed over the dome. The rest of the hair on the back and sides could be swept up into a French twist or left loose.

The job completed and black eyeliner in place, a look in the mirror – I looked great – similar to what you would now call a chola, but at that time the word did not exist for me. Perhaps the closest parallel to this look was the 1940s pachucas, of which I did know of from the Mexican cinema – and, perhaps, it was this similarity that my mother violently objected to, to the perceived immorality that our adolescent dress suggested, or, perhaps it was to the otherness we represented living on our working class island surrounded by the affluent. The gang girl, the chola and the pachuca were three symbols of female rebelliousness and defiance, linked to the deviant uneducated, semi-poor. As working class Mexican immigrants my parents had a need to appear respectable. I was not helping their cause.

From 1961 to 1963, life as I had known it changed.  After countless arguments on the concept of independence, my mother dragged me to her Dominican friend who reluctantly cut it off – the hair and my quest for independence. I sat in her at-home beauty parlor chair and cried bitterly.  The friend avoided looking at me, trying to remain friends with my mom; yet I caught glances of apology and guilt on her face. So it was off. I could still tease it but the height would be minimal. Combed in another style, I had to admit it looked pretty chic.

In 1963 I was graduating from 8th grade and on my way to high school. I chose a public one and spoiled the annual 100% batting average of the 8th graders going to Catholic school. The tall, stern, nun admonished me. I was a traitor; I would surely go to hell. I didn’t care.
A public school sans religiosity and a subway ride away to Chelsea would bring a semblance of freedom from a rigid home.

Suddenly my hair did not matter anymore; the world had opened up for me and I could fly, for a few hours at least. With my shorter, less developed chic cut, high school freedom provided room for reflection – making very clear to me the impact of restrictive moms, nuns and neighborhoods to one’s budding independence.

The end of this era led to a new chapter, where teased hair was replaced by  intellect. Literature, art, history, politics and social consciousness now contributed to my evolving identity; twisting, turning, detouring, adding, discarding and synthesizing the past and present as I struggled to find my place within my culture, my family, my class, my place among the others, and the world. The once aspiring chola would continue to live in working class barrios, comfortably reading Zola and Hardy.

At a recent dance I saw a woman with heavy black eyeliner and big hair. I had to remark to her that her look had brought back memories of my own days. I didn’t tell her what big hair still represented to me, the painful conflict with my mother, my interlude with Catholic nuns, the dormant issue of class, and the path to independence.

This past weekend was the Latino Books and Family Festival at California State University, Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to be invited to speak on a panel at the event entitled “From Inspiration to Publication: The Business of Poetry,” with poets Alicia Partnoy, William Archila, Rafael Alvarado, Erika Ayon and Melinda Palacio. I was honored to be sitting next to such accomplished writers.

In March, I attended a panel at UCLA featuring Alicia Partnoy, author of The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival, about Argentine political prisoners’ writing and art, and I was excited to be able to finally introduce myself. It was also an honor to sit alongside William Archila whose book, The Art of Exile–a poetic account of his exit from civil war El Salvador in 1980 and his later return–won the festival’s International Latino Book Award in Poetry. I bought Archila’s book today at the festival, and am already in love with it. Beautiful images of here and there, and consequently feeling alienated from both feel dreamy and magical. But as William explained at our panel, what we here in the U.S. call “magical realism” is an everyday way of thinking in Latin American countries.

Walking through booths of Latino publishers, bookstores, writers and organizations made me feel lucky to be a Latino writer welcomed by a supportive community. Sometimes being a writer can be lonely. The act of writing is solitary, but what I love about being a poet is the opportunities it brings to share stories and experience a moment of togetherness. On the truest level, this community is hopefully felt when we read a poem about a man’s memory of being a boy in El Salvador or a political prisoner’s story of survival, but it can also happen in public spaces.

It is about community. We share our stories to understand each other and gain a sense of sameness; or as Father Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, author of Tattoos of the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, and the festival’s keynote speaker said, “it is a mutual experience.” A moment in time when we discover a kinship with one another.

In my household there is an ongoing debate about the state of the Latino community in the U.S. Of course, we all know there is still a long way to go, but in my house some think we have focused too much on art, literature, and education and not enough on business and politics. That may be true, but we need Latino writers and poets, books, publishers, bookstores, and community centers if only to have a place to be recognized and seen, because no one else is going to do it unless we make them.

As David Orr said in his essay, “The Politics of Poetry,” (I’m summarizing here and taking liberties) politics and poetry both demand a mastery of rhetoric and politicians are –just as poets– “people who imagine new ways of being and perceiving.” Orr refers to this as a “totalizing vision.” The politician and poet’s ability to imagine a wider worldview allows both to clarify for a public a new or different reality through language. So yes, it would be good for our community to have more Gloria Molinas and Sonia Sotomayers in places of power, but we also need Luis J. Rodriguez, Sandra Cisneros, Gary Soto, Martin Espada, and Julia Alvarez (to name a few).

Support your Latino writers, buy a book, and let’s keep the community moving together.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.    She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.

“Up, up with education! Down, down with deportation!” chanted a crowd of 30 or so Latin American youths holding hand-painted signs advocating the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would grant “restricted” residency to children of immigrants who pursued a higher education or military service.

I watched as students took turns telling their grueling Cinderella stories, each one starting with, “My name is Juan or Maria and I’m undocumented and unafraid,” then stumbling over words, pausing to apologize for being nervous, and continuing to spill forth their love for America. At the end of the rally they ended with the same chant, but the girl with the mic mixed up the words and instead said, “Up, up with deportation! Down, down with edu—I mean, no, up, up with education.” In effect, it just showed how much they really do need a way into college.

But what struck me the most, being Hispanic myself, was the emphasis in each story of the great love they had for this country. If to be in love means you wouldn’t let anything keep you from standing by your lover, and when you’re with them you feel so lucky and special no matter what and you know you’ll be OK as long as you have them…then I see no reason why these devotional, undocumented 65,000 yearly graduates should be torn from their one true love, the USA.

I may not know what it means to have to wade through a river and trek through a hot desert into a foreign land, as Mexican immigrants do; I do know, however, how it feels to fall in love with a new city. When my friend Dave and I first pulled up to the curb in the car, face to face with Columbia College Chicago, I squealed, pounded my feet, and gasped because it was as if at that moment, I heard Chicago ask, “Marry me?”

And I said, “Yes! Yes!” So with Columbia College as the engagement ring, I married Chicago the first day we met. No, we didn’t know much about each other except for an essay and the mutual feeling that we belonged together. Love and excitement left little room for fear, and I was ready to learn and live for me. Exiting the car, we walked the streets of Chicago. Arching my head back looking at those skyscrapers, I began to wonder what really goes on the uppermost floors.

With plenty of rooms for storage and offices, I’d say the top floors–high above the public eye– are reserved for more un-business-like endeavors. How about laser light parties? Spa treatments? After all, they’re living the high life. Or maybe the floors contain more sinister designs; such as meetings for controlling the poor down below, preparing for the apocalypse, and whatever else rich men with ambitions might do in their spare time. I keep these naive thoughts to myself.

Walking along, these buildings embrace me like strong, burly arms and in a godly voice proclaim,” This is speed, this is growth, this is open up wide, swallow the world, choke; make it go down.” I could hear all the noise in Illinois and I felt at home; a sensation I had only one other time a thousand miles away, oddly enough, in a classroom.

I sat down on a smooth boulder in a garden; a patch of green sewn in by streets and glass edifices. “What’s wrong?” I heard Chicago ask. I looked down at my toenails and replied that the future is shakily uncertain and, I must confess, when it comes to relationships, I always fail. Chicago’s humidity is like a big, wet kiss on my skin, reassuring me and saying, “I have enough in me to welcome and care for you.”

I look across the way at a tall, black man at a bus stop pacing with his arms out stretched. “I loooovvveee the way you liiieee,” he moans. Then I notice his headphones. The man grows quiet for a few seconds before bursting into the chorus, as if he were drowning and calling for help. Now when I listen to “Love the Way You Lie,” by Eminem and Rihanna, this guy’s voice will involuntarily yodel into my mind.

I turn away from the man still holding his voice in his arms out to the sun. Would he continue singing on the bus? No one would dare quiet a passionate black man, especially one singing Rihanna.

I continue telling Chicago, but you see I’m not good at math, and relationships are like math equations. For instance: commitment – selfishness + sacrifice + expectations + obligations divided by the fact that I never do what I’m supposed to do equal destruction and frustration, because somehow appealing feelings are erased and replaced with tired disdain. I finish explaining with a sigh.

Car horns beep through the tenseness, feet paddle the sidewalks, the sun finds its way through the trees. Chicago, “What about love and marriage?”

Well, I say, and lift my bottom from the rock and walk away from the small park and get back into the car. If you factor in love that complicates everything, and marriage is a never ending math equation that you constantly have to work on.

Dave and I drive to Chinatown and get out of the car to have a quick walk up and down the street. “We can make this relationship work”, said Chicago. “Know why? Because we’re going to set aside the rules, the tricks, and the noose that comes with being in a relationship.” With this in my mind, Dave and I pass shop windows cluttered with random objects that make you think you could walk out of the store holding a fish, an umbrella, and a porcelain doll.

When I drive back to the campus with Dave, I see a 200-pound woman melting like vanilla ice cream down a fence she’s sitting on. “Are you with me”? The question comes from the space between the buildings and the wind that nibbles on my ear, caresses my cheek. I stand on a street corner feeling as though I am in a wonderland amongst shadow-casting giants, bearded beggars, youthful arrangements, melodramatic and shy stores; faces both strange and familiar. I love it all. “Absolutely,” I say out loud. “What?” Dave asks. “Nothing,” I say. “You sure?” says Dave, “You’ve been talking to yourself all day and smiling all dreamily,” he said. “I’m OK, really,” I say contentedly.

And that is my story of immigrating to Chicago and falling in love. Politicians seem to forget how all Americans are immigrants. They stick to their facts and scare tactics, but have they considered that the number of Hispanics in America is 16 percent and rising? If I were a senator, I could say how there could be negative consequences for unrequited love. In other words, if America is not allowed to love its people in return, nothing would prevent these undocumented Latinos and Latinas from turning to crack-dealing and prostitution. How’s that for a frightening statistic?

Latin Americans are the ones saying they are “unafraid,” despite an uncertain future and low income, so what are the reasons legislatures are afraid to approve the DREAM Act?

We “beaners,” or “wetbacks” as we’re also referred to, work in service industries ranging from road constructionists, janitors and house cleaners—jobs that others refuse to do out of reluctance of getting their fingernails dirty. Nevertheless, these jobs require diligence in their undertaking, giving us a strong work ethic.

We are also said to have invented car pooling; being crunched in a small van with 20 people isn’t a problem, thus proving our capacity to remain composed in tight situations. As for our contribution to the American food platter, if you haven’t eaten a chimichanga, your taste buds are virgins to deliciousness. And who’s to say we aren’t productive citizens? Oh, we know production, and even reproduction for that matter. See, after jumping the border, “beaners” continue to jump at any, and all opportunities.

Point being, there’s no excuse for legislatures to keep hard working, flexible, spicy Mexicans from becoming citizens with equal learning options.

All racial slurs aside, what joins Americans as a nation, lies in our belief of being a have-person or a will-have-person. That means we all live by wishing. I’ve watched the smoke from birthday candles writhe and billow out into the air like the wishes from my breath that propel them. After 19 birthdays, I still haven’t stopped wishing, and I never will. ‘Wishing’ is attached to ‘wanting’ by a string; the wanting pulling the wishing forward, unstoppable to the point of selfishness. I came to Chicago because of a wish that transformed from a flirted whisper in my ear to a fortunate reality.

Red, yellow, black and white people lie in bed and maybe look out a window that opens up to the night sky. When I look out, I pronounce ‘I wish’ and see my lips reach out with the ‘w’ for a star’s blessed kiss. Still, leaders of this country continue their filibusters and recklessly become dream- busters.

Lynndel Noriega grew up in New Mexico where she discovered her love for writing and then moved to Denver, Colorado in eighth grade where she furthered her writing abilities.  She discovered her home in Chicago attending Columbia College.

Zumba Class, YMCA, Lakeland, Florida

I think my Zumba instructor knows me. I think she is a witch, some sort of sorceress that scans my heart as soon as I enter the gym. You see, she seems to know exactly what I need and it worries me that I’m so transparent, or that her sorcery is that potent.

On days when my heart puts on weight and I can hardly contain its heaviness in my chest, she plays calypsos, sometimes from Trinidad, sometimes from Tobago, Brazilian sambas and merengues from the Dominican Republic.

Not nice, gentle merengues that you can sway your hips to or follow with a flutter of your feet. No. That would be too common. She plays the angry type called perico ripia’o, which she must smuggle straight from the slums of Santo Domingo.

Last winter after a freeze, she played in a row, two guajiras, three salsas, an angry mambo, a potpourri of reggaetons, and an assortment of cha-cha-chas of the mutinous type.

A musical concoction so intoxicating in its temperature-rising effect, so balmy on my forehead, so risky to maneuver, so incandescent, that by the time I came out of the class, the sun was peeking out from behind gray clouds and the ice was beginning to thaw out in the strawberry fields.

On one occasion, burdened by the loss of a loved one, I dragged my feet to class, bloodshot-eyed and wary. Instead of seeing me, I think she saw grief, which she seems to be allergic to.

Quickly, she pushed some buttons in her iPod, her antidote to everything gloomy, and filled the room with the ferocious drumbeats and the clarion of a high-pitch cane flute of a Colombian cumbia. I let me hips go, undulating and fluid.

I glided over the wooden floor, my pelvis swayed back and forth, to and fro shamelessly. My African ancestors possessed me and my feet spoke their tongue.

I sashayed at the waist like the Yoruba brought to this land in chains did when their masters were asleep. I made mine this cadence that is purely black, not Indian or Spanish, but ebony from the belly of our mother continent.

I invoked the grace of Yemayá and the powers of Changó and before the end of the song, the orishas had welcomed me in their family like a prodigal daughter. And from the safety of their home, with each step-step-glide, step-step-glide, I unburdened my heart little by little until I felt the last remnant of sorrow leave my body.

Adriana Paramo is a creative non-fiction writer residing in Florida.

Today, I discovered that I am a “product of the ABC School District.”

If you are not familiar with the schools that are a part of the ABC School District, then let me help you out: Ferguson, Melbourne, Tetzlaff, and Cerritos–all schools that I went to as a kid!

About a week ago, I got an email from a lady that works for the district. She was ecstatic to learn from the internet that I was from Hawaiian Gardens and now an AUTHOR. She called me a great role model for young kids and absolutely insisted that I meet up with her to discuss a possibility of talking to the classrooms of the district. So that’s what I did today.

I met up with Ann (that’s her name, BTW), who hit the floor at the first sight of me (maybe I should’ve brushed my hair or something, or it might have something to do with the fact that I’m some sort of celebrity now.) Anyway, after she breathed a few times, I proceeded to talk about how I got started in writing and what, if anything, led me to take on this goal when I was in school.

For a second, I thought Ann was going to have a stroke. Apparently, she couldn’t contain herself because before I could even say anything else, she rushed to the phone to ask if the superintendent could spare a few moments to meet me at that point. Then ten minutes later, we met up with the superintendent, who I relayed my life story and writing career to. Both of them were so amazed by my accomplishment that they purchased like 8 copies of my books. Even the secretary was in awe. And when I told him that I was the designer of my website, they were that much more amazed.

By the end of the meeting, they referred me as “a product of their schools.” It actually made me wonder: Did I have anything to do this, or was it all them?

In any sense, it was good to go back and recall all those memories in school. I even met up with my old vice principal in junior high. Of course, he didn’t remember me, but I remembered him (vaguely). See, I’m not that old.

It’s going to be great to speak to the students next year. I will tell all of them that it IS possible to make something of yourself.   It REALLY IS. I am living proof of that.

Sandra Lopez is an author from Hawaiian Gardens, California who has penned two novels.  Her first novel “Esperanza: A Latina Story” was published in 2008 by Floricanto Press while Lopez was still in college.   Her blog “Sandra’s Book Club” is an extension of her love of literature where she reviews books and shares about her life as a novelist.

Mami y yo

Awhile ago, my mother’s face started slowly disappearing. At first it was not as obvious to others as it was to me. It started around the eyes.

The skin around her eyes was permanently tattooed so that she would always appear to have eyeliner on. Most people didn’t know because they’d never seen her without make-up.

But I had, I had the distinct and rarely granted pleasure of seeing that beautiful face without make-up, until one day I didn’t.

The eyes kept changing. I never knew if I’d be looking into pools of blue, or hazel, or green, but I knew I would rarely see eyes so dark brown that they are almost black.

I knew that those soulful gorgeous eyes of my childhood would no longer be what I gazed into when I looked at the beautiful face of my mother. Instead I would be forced to look at an artificial color created by a contact.

It didn’t stop there. One day she came to visit and when I saw her face I started crying!

Ridiculous tears of a child in her 30s throwing a tantrum because the lips that had kissed boo-boos away, that had sung off-key, were now inflated to absurd proportions.

Now, I have no idea what my mother’s face will look like the next time I see her because she has had elective surgery to remove what she considers the ravages of time.

I’m losing that beautiful face! I actually ache over this loss, I cry, I complain, I mourn. I know it is her face to do with as she pleases, but why can’t anyone understand that THAT face is mine too.

No one asked me if I was willing to say goodbye to that face. I will always miss that face.

Unknown Mami is  a bilingual Latina mother, wife,and actor in my late 30s who lives with her husband and daughter, “Put Pie,” in San Francisco.  She has her own blog entitled “Unknown Mami.“

In my search and thirst for the past, for the faces of our history, I have forgotten the faces that brought me to the subject of immigration in the first place. I forget that the story isn’t always something out there in the world, but something right here inside my own home, and my own family.

My family decided to have a Catholic mass in my grandmother’s (my father’s mother) honor this past January. In December my grandmother was in the hospital after she suffered an episode, which many of us feared was a stroke, and that our worst fear––the inevitable truth of her passing––was upon us.

Watching her, my tiny grandmother, skin as delicate as tissue paper, laid crumpled in her bed, I tried to hold back tears, as I suspect we all did, in what seemed like an attempt to keep this fragile creature from dissolving.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a stroke, and she was back in her Boyle Heights home by Christmas Eve. To celebrate, we had a mass said in her honor this past weekend in a small Catholic church, Mission San Conrado, up above Solano Avenue, in the shadow of Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium.

From left to right: my father, grandmother, mother, and me

Yesterday, once again looking through Don Normack’s photos from the book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, I came across a black and white landscape shot of Solano Avenue and the north slope of La Loma. The homes of La Loma are gone now, but the church, the site of my grandmother’s mass, stands at the foot of that hill, and it is still green, still looking untouched. My brother Andres took his son Armando and our nephew Gabrielito up the steps behind the church, past the ceramic alter to the Virgin Mary, to explore the greenery. I wasn’t up there with them, but I’m sure the boys played pirate, adventurer, conqueror, as I’m sure the boys of La Loma did 60-70 years earlier.

Inside the church, during the homily, the priest (speaking only in Spanish) addressed my grandmother, who with the help of her youngest daughter slowly rose to her feet. He asked her, are all your children here? She nodded. And are these young people your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? She smiled and nodded.

Some of the great-grandchildren attempting to sing for their great-grandmother

And señora, he asked, where are you from in Mexico? Teocaltiche (a small pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico), someone in the aisles assisted. Is anyone else here from Teocaltiche? My father raised his hand high up and let a proud grin spread wide over his face. And señora, how long have you been here? My grandmother laughed, shyly keeping her glance low in what seemed like an old school sign of respect for clergy, Cincuenta años. Fifty years, she told him.

And here I was trying to find an L.A. story, lamenting the loss of a culture and a people, not realizing that culture still lived in Chavez Ravine. Normack’s photos illustrate a lost town, but the hills are still there, the Spanish is still there, and family is still there.

In 1949 Normack stumbled into Chavez Ravine. In 1949 my grandmother had 3 young children, in a poor pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico (my father once told me how they didn’t have electricity in Teocaltiche, and that the children waited for full moons to play out in the streets at night). In 1949, the inhabitants of those three Los Angeles communities grew their own vegetables and milked goats that grazed along the green hills all around them. In 1949, my father scaled the hills surrounding his town with his grandmother to collect nopales (cactus) to accompany the simple meal of frijoles, chile, and tortillas his mother was preparing for dinner.

My father, first on the left, with his siblings, cousins, and grandfather in Teocaltiche, Mexico

And now in 2010, sixty-one years later, the houses on the hill of La Loma are gone, but my family thrives. And my small, unassuming grandmother stands in a church beaming with pride to be surrounded by her still growing family of seven children, nineteen grandchildren, and twenty great-grandchildren. And in an hour two of those great-grandchildren, Armando and Gabrielito, will be conquering the hill just outside. And somehow, there is comfort in knowing nothing is ever completely gone.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.  She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.

Cada mañana cuando me monto en el bus que me lleva a la universidad las probabilidades de encontrarme a una mujer detrás del volante son altas. No es raro ver a una de ellas, entrada en sus 30, conduciendo un automotor de servicio público para abrirse paso en mega avenidas de 10 carriles como la I-95. Tampoco es extraño verlas como integrantes de las cuadrillas de mantenimiento que cambian constantemente el asfalto.

No hay que extrañarse si en pleno verano usan bikinis para tomar el sol dejando de lado la forma del cuerpo y la edad. En julio pasado, vi a un grupo con uno que otro kilo de más. A diferencia de lo que les hubiera pasado en Colombia, no fueron miradas con desdén ni despertaron un runrún de críticas al pasar. Por lo menos eso percibí tras ver a los bañistas muy metidos en lo suyo.

No es extraño ver a más y más mujeres en la calle, tanto caucásicas como afroamericanas, enfrentándose de tú a tú con los hombres si la situación lo amerita. Las he visto pelear y no parecieran intimidarse con la fuerza que el contrincante les demuestra.

Aquí ellas levantan la voz, gritan si es necesario. Son ‘frenteras‘. No están llenas de tantos prejuicios ni de telarañas en la cabeza. Van tan despreocupadas por la calle que pareciera importarles poco el qué dirán. Eso sí, no faltan quienes las tildan de poco femeninas, de muy liberadas, de desatender a los hijos y de ser las culpables del auge de los divorcios.

Las estudiantes, por ejemplo, hacen un alto en su jornada académica para trabajar en un bar o en un restaurante. No les importa buscar trabajo en áreas de servicio para completar el dinero para el arriendo, los libros y la diversión. Son meseras, sirven tragos y no por eso tienen dudosa reputación. Luego, cuando la jornada laboral termina, regresan a la universidad para seguir cumpliendo con sus tareas.

Rachel, mi tutora de inglés, es una de ellas. Se ve muy madura para estar apenas en sus 20. Vive sola desde los 18 años. Dejó su casa cuando comenzó a estudiar Licenciatura en Inglés. Ha sido mesera y ha lavado platos en diferentes restaurantes. Acaba de graduarse y en agosto pasado inició su maestría en Enseñanza de Inglés como Segunda Lengua. Obtuvo una beca que le cubre la matrícula y le da un estipendio mensual. A cambio, debe trabajar para la universidad. Por eso, ya no necesitará seguir como mesera.

Cuando veo a Rachel me doy cuenta que ella escenifica el prototipo de la mujer estadounidense, especialmente a las más jóvenes. Trabajan desde la adolescencia. Van a la universidad —claro, si tienen recursos, hacen un préstamo o consiguen una de las tantas becas que el gobierno o las instituciones les ofrecen—. Son educadas y llenas de criterio propio. Desde los 20 años son exitosas. A los 23 tienen pregrado y postgrado, y están listas para seguir enfrentándose a la vida llenas de sueños.

No me atrevo a decir que en Estados Unidos las mujeres están libres de intimidación o que han ganado por completo su lucha por alcanzar la igualdad de derechos. Siguen obteniendo menos dinero y siendo minoría en altos cargos ejecutivos, tal como lo muestra una nota publicada por El Tiempo. Pero, algo que sí me queda claro, tras estarlas viendo en el último año, es que logran mayor protagonismo a diferencia de nosotras, las latinoamericanas.

Entonces era de esperarse, tal como lo publicaron los medios recientemente, que la mitad de la fuerza laboral en Estados Unidos sea femenina porque la mentalidad con la que están creciendo las nuevas generaciones ha contribuido a que sean vistas en la sociedad más allá del tradicional rol de tener hijos y ser amas de casa.

Tatiana Velásquez es una escritora de Colombia y tiene dos blogs Con Ojos Latinos y Noches de Media.

Before the Lasorda and Valenzuela, before we bled blue, before Dodger Stadium Chavez Ravine was a collection of three sleepy communities–La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde–existing in the hills sandwiched between downtown and Elysian Park.

There, poor, mostly Mexican-American families made their homes out of shacks and makeshift dwellings, but when a young photographer, Don Normark, stumbled upon the inhabitants of Chavez Ravine, he felt he “had found a poor man’s Shangri-la.” He had found three communities full of life, pride, and strength. Of course, most know that the homes that once scattered across the hillsides where vacated and bulldozed, at first for a public housing project, but later the public land was sold to private investor, Walter O’Malley for Dodger Stadium.

So what was once a vibrant Mexican-American enclave hidden in the hills of Los Angeles became the site of the major Los Angeles professional sport institution known as The Dodgers.

What is especially astounding to me is that Normack accidentally stumbled on to La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde, when he was searching for a wide shot of downtown, but was so inspired by the place that he came back more than a dozen times with his camera in hand. Little did he know, nor the subjects of his photographs know, that the place he was capturing would soon no longer exist.

And now because of the work of a young, novice, but inspired photographer, we have a look back at a time and a way of life that has become obsolete in wide-spread industrialized Los Angeles.

This is one of my favorite photos. He is demanding his own poem.

The book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, is full of Normack’s black and white photos and is accompanied by interviews with the people who once lived there. It is an amazing source, and a reminder of a simpler time when neighbors knew one another, and L.A. was green and untouched.

Below is a poem I wrote inspired by a Normack photograph and one woman’s memory of life in the Ravine. The poem was published in Trellis Magazine’s Valentine’s issue:

Quinceañera Serenata

“And what was really, really special was that on Saturday, five o’ clock in the morning when the sun was coming out, the boys used to play the guitar and serenade everybody, and it was so beautiful to hear the music in Spanish.” ––Carmen Torres Roldan

Mi quinceañera, en tela blanca,
como linda flor de la mañana,
blushes before an open window’s light.
A virgin veil sweeps black coquettish eyes,
and hands hold prayers like fiery drama.

Dawn calls me to sing my serenata
for this child-bride, this niña querida,
versus for young apricot cheeks. Ayay,
mi quinceañera.

Cantante, your song inside my soul gnaws.
Skin burns to feel a man’s eyes on my flaws.
Virgin hands clasp prayers while wild eyes
desire things unaware, while dawn invites
mi quinceañera.

Poem Notes:

The form of this poem is a rondeau. It is missing the final stanza for publication purposes.

A quinceañera is the celebration of a girl turning 15 years-old. It can also refer to a girl who is turning 15. This Mexican tradition is still very prevalent among Mexican-Americans.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.  She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.