My mom has always said that we, her children, were never as well dressed as when she had control over the clothes that we wore. We took the studio portrait above 20 years ago, and I’m not sure we’ve ever looked so good.
Mil palabras: 1986
10
Monthly Archives: January 2006
First day jitters
I really didn’t want to leave my office in Kerckhoff. Class at 5 pm simply felt like punishment for slacking off last quarter. As if the late start time for class wasn’t bad enough, Chicana/o Studies 178 – Latinas and Latinos and the Law, is held on the other side of campus in Public Policy. As an undergrad I wouldn’t have grumbled about walking from the center of campus to the north end, but when all my classes are located in one building, Moore Hall, having to leave the Moore-Kerckhoff-Ackerman-Student Activities Center (to see el Venado) vicinity doesn’t sit right with me.
Up until 4:45 pm I was on my first of four conference calls this week. Since the meeting ended too late, I had no chance to exploit my laziness and drive my car to Lot 3, much closer to Public Policy. So, I walked.
I arrived to the class room exactly at 6. Two students I know well, Marisela and Daniela, greeted me a bit surprised yet happy, “Cindy!” I would have sat next to them, but the seats around them were taken. I found one toward the back and took a seat.
The young, very handsome man with dark gray slacks and diagonally striped shirt wasn’t a TA. There was something obvious about the fact that Prof R was a new hire. He spoke too softly. His jokes fell flat and he tried hard to make connections with his first set of students. I observed him and his body language. He never stood up straight. He smiled a lot. I scribbled my obersvations, which became a list for reasons to not drop the class. I felt myself develop a mini-crush in record time.
Prof R went over his academic background: undergrad at UCLA; law school at Boalt Hall (Berkeley); and a PhD at UCLA. Then the students launched into their introductions. Almost all were Chicana/o Studies and some other social science and humanities major. Most also cited an interest in law as a profession as one of the reasons for taking the course. As far as I know, I was the only “academic” graduate student in the class, but there were also two 3L’s and two MSW students. As students introduced themselves, he followed up with questions or certain connections to his own research interests or biographic information. After a student from Boyle Heights introduced herself, he mentioned he was born at White Memorial. A half Chinese and Mexican 3L said taking the Latinos and the Law course would help her learn more about her other half. Prof R said, “My mom is Chinese and my dad is Mexican.” When a philosophy major from Compton introduced herself, he added that he and his new fiancee hoped to live in Compton. Damn, my crush vanished in record time. One of the last students to introduce herself said she was from West Covina. Prof R said he was raised in Hacienda Heights.
Dude! That’s my hometown. I was born in East LA too, well Monterey Park which is like 3 centimeters east of East Los. I’m not half Chinese, but I get confused for Asian all the time.
I may have not had a crush on Prof R anymore, but I had a new affinity… the Hacienda Heights connection. Seriously, when I meet people from HH outside of HH — especially Raza — it’s almost as if we become instant best friends. When I got to UCLA eight years ago only one of my new friends knew of HH, and that was because she lived in La Puente, a city just north of HH.
Christmas in Hacienda Heights
There were 61 people at my house Saturday night [December 17], most whom I’m related to. The house felt crowded, small and like it was about to burst. Soon, we’d be hanging out of doors and windows. My cousin Ernie commented, “this house seems to get smaller every year.” He was wrong. Our house is actually bigger now than when we were kids, but the growth in our extended family has outpaced the growth of the house. Before just family would attend, but now cousins bring their own families and other cousins and my siblings bring significant others. The real reason the house feels small is simply that more people keep coming, but that’s the way we like it.
Christmas in the Ureño Saldivar family is full of traditions that have evolved through the years. The two main ones are Santa Claus and the Rosario. My family owns a Santa Claus suit that must be about as old as me. Every year, one of the men dresses up and enters the house with a sack of presents. Each kid (at least it used to only be kids) is supposed to only get one gift. Back when my aunts and uncles started the Santa thing and I was just a little mocosa, they decided that each kid would only get one gift, preferably a cool toy, from Santa Claus. This way, cousin Jorge shouldn’t feel bad when he opened up a nice package of tube socks from Santa and couin Bobby got a sleek grey Nintendo. Now those cousins are grown up and bring their own children to the Christmas Eve gatherings. My youngest cousin, Valerie, is 10 years old. The kids who are still young enough to be excited by Santa Claus, even if they know he isn’t real, are los bisnietos (my cousin’s kids). They love getting their gifts and trying to guess who had to play Santa Claus that year by guessing the voice or just looking around to see which uncle/cousin suddenly disappeared. I’m sure the kids had no trouble figuring out that Danny, my older brother, was Santa this year.
Santa Claus doesn’t just bring presents, he also brings tons of laughs. The funniest was about four years ago when my cousin Tony was dressed as Santa. He was engaged to Ingrid then and took out a small gift for her from the sack. Everyone oohed, aahed and giggled when she got her gift from “Santa”. When she opened the box and removed a shiny and expensive piece of jewlery (I can’t remember if it was a necklace or earrings), there was more oohing and aahing.
Tío Pancho, forever known for his big mouth, blurted out, “Santa está horny!” Everyone who got the joke burst out laughing and Santa’s face turned redder than his suit. Ingrid probably thought twice about marrying in to the family, but didn’t back out.
Aside from the Santa Claus tradition, we eat lots of tamales and other goodies, the kids break a piñata, we pray the Rosary and lay down the Niño Dios. We left out the praying this year because our celebration was a week before Christmas Eve. However, we passed the time with more eating, drinking and singing. Tío Chuy brought his karaoke machine and aunts, uncles and cousins sang classic rancheras, banda songs, pop tuns, and of course rock.
Somehow, my cousin Rene and I didn’t get smacked by any of the adults for knowingly making them sing Hombres G’s “Devuélveme a mi chica.” It’s incredibly strange to hear your dad and tías sing “Sufre mamooooooon!” at the top of their lungs.
Karaoke is grand, but family and Christmas traditions are even better.
[Note: most written December 21, 2005 in El Cargadero.]
Luz de mi vida
On January 5, 1957, Mamá Toni gave birth to her seventh child, María de la Luz. She was the third María de/del she had given birth to by that point. Yet despite the commonality of her first name — which is now her middle name — there was nothing about my mom that was common.
She doesn’t even get a cold like most people. Instead, she got acute bronchitis when we were in Mexico. Even if she was on her way to getting sick, she still managed to liven up the party. (Sidenote: my younger brother, Adrian, asked, “what does acute mean aside aside from the fact that it’s less than 90 degrees?”)
I wrote this list over three years ago, but it still captures so many of the wonderful qualities about the women I’m lucky to call Mom (Italics = new stuff).
1. Stories. She has loads of hilarious tales about her childhood, my grandparents and her crazy teen years. By this point I can recite them myself, but its much better to hear them from her. She had my cousin Valerie begging for more stories during the long roadtrips from Ontario, CA to Jeréz, Zacatecas and to/from Jeréz to Salamanca, Guanajuato.
2. Involvement. Mom has continuously used the little free time she had to volunteer at school and church events. She was the PTA president for some time at my elementary school and she always helped out with the booster club for band.
3. Resolve. Mom is the opposite of a pushover. If she says she is going to do something, there is no way in hell that you’re going to stop her. She’ll tell you what she thinks even if it’s going to hurt your little feelings. She stands up for herself. She’s not the “traditional Mexican woman” who is supposed to be meek, subservient to the macho male, and only stays home to take care of her kids.
4. Faith. Some might not consider faith and religion to be too important, but it’s probably the main thing that has kept my family and my parents together over the years. I think Mom inherited her faith from her mother and she’s tried to instill it into her children too.
5. Creativity and talent. Mom surprises me sometimes with the things and ideas she comes up with. As kids we (siblings + me) always had the best Halloween costumes because my mom took the time to sit at her sewing machine or to find some cool material to make the costume. She even took a drawing class for a semester at a local community college. She’s like a kid in a candy store when she’s in a fabric store or a crafts store. I still make sure to save the Michael’s coupons for her.
6. Patience. So, maybe she’s not too patient with her own kids, but she does a very good job with other peoples’ kids. She’s worked as a teacher’s aide for kindergarten, third grade, and pre-k special education class rooms. Currently working with autistic children has probably done a lot for her patience.
7. Cooking. This woman can throw a feast! Her dream home has to have a huge kitchen. It’s pretty sad that I still barely know how to cook a lot of the dishes I always helped her out with.
8. Hostess skills. I think my mom makes excuses to have parties or get-togethers. Either way, they always turn out wonderful, even if on a shoestring budget.
9. Encouragement. Whatever we’ve been interested in doing throughout our lives, whether it be playing soccer or doing Aztec dance, she’s supported 122% with love, her talent, and resources.
10. Social consciousness. I think growing up in East LA in the late ’60s and ’70s would be good for showing you the need to give back and make a change in your community. My parents taught me to give of myself because I was so lucky from a very young age. As immigrants too, they also do all they can to support the rights of Latino immigrants and the Chicano/Latino community in general. My mom dressed me up in a Mexican skirt in first grade on Mexican Independence Day. I was kind of confused, but at least she never let me forget where I came from. She made me proud to be a Chicana.
11. Giving. She gives all that she can, what more can I say?
12. Beauty. Sometimes I just stare at her wedding picture and admire my own mother’s beauty. Lori and I had to get our looks from somewhere, right?
13. Attitude. Some people think que es creída, or stuck up. I think it’s just the way she carries herself. When she walks into a room, people notice. I love her attitude. I noticed that in the rancho with my dad’s family, my mom was pretty much the only woman (of her age) joining in the festivities. I noticed she’s not afraid of what other people think of her, and when I was a kid this embarassed the hell out of me, but now I’m trying to learn from her.
14. Sense of humor and youthfulness. She can play practical jokes and tell “fibs” like the best of them. Once she started a food fight at a slumber party I had when I turned 12. I love to hear her laugh. My tío Armando in Salamanca calls her Lucifer, this should tell you something about her mischievousness… no wonder my dad’s hair is almost all gray.
15. Love. It’s unconditional. Mom tells us constantly that she loves us. She babies us as if we were still toddlers and not teens or twenty-something’s.
Mil palabras: La plaza
I know this picture is cheating, but it tells me so much about the little pueblo my mother’s family is from, El Cargadero. Located about 10 kilometers from Jeréz, the pueblo seems like a shell of what I remember as a kid.
Plaza Cívica el Migrante (El Cargadero, Zacatecas)
On my second day there, I asked Papá Chepe about how many people lived in El Cargadero. He didn’t give me a number and instead said that it was very few. “Three fourths of the homes here are empty.” Then he pointed, to several homes around the plaza belonging to his neighbors. They visited just as often as Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni, a few times a year for a couple of weeks. Papá Chepe continue, “This place is dead.”
He was right, or at least that’s what it felt like during the day. During the day, I saw few people walking around, maybe two or three kids playing in the plaza, and a few older men gathered at the corner of the plaza. At night, despite the cold, teens and kids and adult men came out to the plaza to play volleyball and talk about who knows what.
The above photo shows the name of the plaza that I played in so much as a kid. Now, it notes the connection El Cargadero has to thousands of its children scattered across el Norte in cities and states like Anaheim, Chicago, Washington and North Carolina.
More sources:
Gustavo Arellano, an “investigative reporter” for OC Weekly, has written a lot on el Cargadero and especially its connection to Anaheim. We can both count ourselves among the 1,000s of descendants with direct links to the “mountain hamlet.”
My mother comes from El Cargadero, a mountain hamlet in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas that over the past century has hemorrhaged more than 1,000 residents to Anaheim.
I could have written that sentence.
Answer: Because Mexicans Never Return to Mexico
For years, the only phone in my mother’s hometown of El Cargadero, nestled high in the mountains of the desiccated central Mexican state of Zacatecas, was in the house of Salvador Barrios. Whenever someone received a call, Salvador had to jog up and down El Cargadero’s hilly streets and let the person know that someone wanted to talk to them. It didn’t matter if it was night or day, heat or rain: Salvador ran.
I’ve made and received calls with Salvador o “Chava” during this trip and before. My grandparents still don’t have a phone in their home.
E for El Cargadero
There are more than 1,000 Cargaderenses in Anaheim. I’m sure a few hundred are related to me.
The El Cargadero Social Club by Nick Schou
Appropriately for such a club, the roster reads like a who’s-who list of El Cargadero’s most prominent families: Saldivar, Barrios, Fernandez, García, Ureño, Gamboa, Miranda, Casas and Viramontes. Ninety percent of the Cargaderenses have at least one of those names somewhere in there family trees.
(Italicized apply directly to me.)
Affection is in the genes
As a kid, I never really liked going to the Tijuana house. The place bored me, tremendously. Once was enough to take in the virtual museum of Ureño Saldivar family history all in. For some reason, I stayed away from this home for years, I think about six. There was no reason to make the trip, so I didn’t.
Now that I returned with Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni the house feels different. There are all kinds of locks on the doors to the bedrooms, but I doubt thieves would want to steal the real treasure in the house: old photographs.
The house always impressed me as a kid. It is three stories tall. The garage, master bedroom, a bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and apartment are all part of the top floor. The apartments on top floor and bottom floors are all rented out to various tenants. The middle floor features a large living room, a smaller sitting room and two bedrooms. I stayed in one of these rooms. Outside of the middle floor is a balcony I never went out on because it was rather cold. Every one of these rooms is full of 60 plus years of family memories as it has expanded from 2 to 10 to 80. Photos sit in frames and albums, recuerdos from weddings and quinceañeras made of yellowing lace and plastic figurines grace tabletops, and religious icons look down at you from their place on the walls.
The photos have always been my favorite. You could look at three different family trees on display in the house, but those are just names. The photos on display and in albums show a different perspective aside from sheer growth, the affection and love we have for one another.
My favorite set of photos is that of my young parents, tías and tíos holding their first born. All the pictures are the same size, look like they were taken at Sears, are reddened by exposure. In one photo, circa 1974, tío Beto and tía Ana hold their oldest, Elizabeth. She’s the cutest kid in the photo and the only one the photographer was able to get smiling. In the next, taken in 1978, tío Chuy and tía Luisa hold their eldest son, Eric. In the last, Danny sits between my mom and dad in a picture taken sometime in 1979. My mom is dressed in casual clothing and my dad still has his work uniform on with the name tag that reads Carlos.
I wondered if other tías and tíos took portraits as young families. Later, I found a similar studio portrait of tío Pancho and tía Martha with Nancy in 1986. The picture is larger, better quality and not reddened. I’d like to see similar photos with my Padrino José and Madrina Chilo holding Bibi; tía Socorro and tío Hector holding Sandy; and tía Eva and tío Manuel holding Evangelina.
My favorite snapshot is of my mom on her wedding day in between Chepe and Mamá Toni. She looks ethereal and has a quality I’ve never seen in any other bride: the ability to look gorgeous on your wedding day without a ton of makeup. On her face she wears a touch of blush, light blue eyeshadow and lip gloss. The blue compliments the white of the veil and small daisies. A 57 year-old Chepe kisses my mom on her left cheek while Mamá Toni is frozen less than an inch away from her right cheek intending to plant one on her sixth born. My mom’s thin lips are spread taut as her smile goes from from ear to ear. She shows off a gorgeous smile of large, straight, white teeth that I’ve inherited. She’s a perfect twenty year-old bride with her mommy and daddy showing that even though she just exchanged vows with her new husband and should “become one with him” and his family, she is still very much a daddy’s girl integrated in her family.
The photo reminds me of all the other beso photos I’ve taken. The best is the photo where Lori and I put Papá Chepe in the middle. On his face is a smile and look of joy equal to that of a young bride 25 years earlier. Affection in our family doesn’t get old.
So this is the new year
I’m home.
For all the complaining I did about the big changes in weather — very warm and sunny days, very cold nights — I would rather have that than the rain.
I’ll be back with stories and pictures soon… I have many.
Hope you all had a good and happy new year. I was in bed watching a movie while my parents and grandparentes tried to get some rest for the long drive back early the next morning despite the gun and firework blasts going off in el Cargadero and the roaming band.
I had no one to kiss at midnight except for Ozo (the monkey, not Oso the blogger).