Through high school, my family’s Sunday morning was rather routine:

6:00-7:45: scramble to get six people ready (with one shower!), out the door and into the car. If my dad or Danny had to be early for choir or altar boy responsibilities they would leave earlier.

8:00-9:15: Spanish Mass at St. John Vianney, our home parish. Dad played bass with the choir. Mom was a Eucharistic minister, which means she handed out the host (consecrated bread) during Communion. Danny, Lori and I were all altar servers. Adrian just sat in the pew and pretended to be ill. He was always fine as soon as Mass ended.

9:15-9:30: help dad pack up his bass and music books, greet fellow parishioners, say hi to Grandma, Grandpa and tío Rick before they left (they always sat toward the back of the church while my mom preferred the first pew).

9:30: drive out to West Covina and wait in the Mariposa Inn (sometimes we’d go to another restaurant) parking lot or on the front patio until the doors opened at 10.

10:00-11:30: brunch at Mariposa Inn. Greet the owner, Raudel. Exchange pleasantries with our server — usually Nacho or my mom’s friend Mary. Then stuff ourselves silly on fresh fruit, Mexican breakfast dishes, giant burritos, fruit-filled pastries, chocolate-dipped strawberries. Wash it all down with Shirley Temples (kids) or coffee (adults).

11:30: say ‘bye to the grandparents, go home and take care of the ‘itis with a nice nap.

Sunday brunch hardly happened once Grandma got sick with complications from diabetes. After her recovery, we resumed the usual Sunday morning routine, but this time with the wheelchair in tow. The trips ceased after Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer and passed away a few months later in 1996. The restaurant held too many “tristes recuerdos.” Plus, Sunday brunch for a family of six was too pricey and we were going through some tough times.

Nowadays, our trips to Mariposa occur on special occasions. It’s the go-to restaurant for birthdays, anniversaries or other special occasions. The last time I went was for Lori’s birthday in January. The guys turned into gluttons and feasted on giant burritos. My mom had machaca, dad had huevos rancheros, Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni shared a dish. I had chilaquiles.

Once again, Nacho was our waiter. Nacho was the kind of guy who could make you feel better with his infectious cheerfulness. During Sunday brunch, he usually tried to cheer up Lori who was grumpy for some reason or another. This time, he didn’t have to cheer up Lori because she was in a good mood for her birthday. Instead, he plopped a sombrero on her head, placed a piece of flan in front of her and called the rest of the waiters to sing “happy birthday, Panchita.”

Before we left, we made sure to greet the owner, Raudel, always gracious and friendly. My parents met Raudel way back in the ’80s when they first started visiting the restaurant. Our neighbor, Mary (Summer’s mom) was a waitress and bartender there. Raudel had worked his way up the chain and at the time was the assistant manager. By the early ’90s he was the owner. I suppose he and my parents had a connection. They were all Mexican immigrants, and moreover he was a Zacatecano who loved tamborazo like my mom.

Even though the staff got older, just like we did, they never stopped making us feel welcomed even if we stopped visiting for months or years at a time. Some things just don’t change.

Except, they do.

Last night, my dad informed me that Raudel Guerrero, 57, passed away early in the morning on Thursday June 26th. He gave a busboy a ride home and fell asleep at the wheel. His van slammed into the rear of an 18-wheel tractor-trailer in Chino (link).

Services were held Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in Rowland Heights. Unfortunately, my parents learned of Raudel’s passing after the services and did not attend.

Raudel Guerrero is survived by his wife Julieta and their four children.

Lately, almost all the Hacienda Heights Google News alerts popping up in my inbox have been stories about the recently renovated McDonald’s near the intersection of Hacienda Boulevard and Gale Avenue. The interior designers adopted feng shui elements to relate to a “mostly Asian*” community which also is home to a large Buddhist temple. I find it annoying that so many news sources have reported on a stupid McDonald’s.

Yesterday’s singular alert was far from frivolous:

POMONA, Calif. — Three men pleaded not guilty Thursday to the October 2002 slaying of a 17-year-old Baldwin Park girl whose body was found on a Hacienda Heights street.

Abraham Ruben Acuña, 33, Matthew Andrew Garcia, 26, and Victor Manuel Monge, 31, are each charged with murder for the October 12, 2002, killing of Gloria Gaxiola.

Authorities have not disclosed how the girl was killed. Her body was found on Hacienda Boulevard, north of Colima Road.

The three defendants were named in a felony complaint for arrest warrant filed less than two months ago.

They remain jailed pending an April 1 hearing in Pomona Superior Court to determine if there is enough evidence to require them to stand trial. (Source: KNBC)

A little over a year ago, I wrote about the sunny Saturday morning Lori and I came upon the crime scene where Gloria Gaxiola’s body was found after being dragged four miles by a car (link). The gruesome murder shook us up. In 2006, Gloria’s murder was described as a cold case.

I hope there will be justice for Gloria and her family.

*Hacienda Heights has about an even number of Asians and Latinos.

October, 2002

Saturday morning, 7:30 am. I should have been asleep. But instead I was assigned the honor of driving my 18-year old sister to work.

“Should we take Colima or Hacienda?” I asked Lori. Both routes would get us to the Whittier dealership where she was a receptionist and cashier.

She shrugged.

Her indecision didn’t matter, because a few seconds later we came upon a crime scene on Hacienda Boulevard, the main north-south thoroughfare through Hacienda Heights. Ahead of us, other drivers turned their cars around rather than crash into police tape, LA County sheriffs, their vehicles and a conspicuous coroner’s truck.

It was the first time I had seen one, but I knew whatever had occurred on Hacienda Boulevard that night or early morning was not good.

“I wonder what happened,” I told Lori. She seemed as lost as I was.

Lori and I made our way around Hacienda Heights and five minutes later arrived at the intersection of Hacienda and Colima. Once again, we didn’t need to decide which road to take. Colima Road was also closed off to traffic.

I got Lori to work that day. We took Hacienda Boulevard south to Whittier and pretty much forgot about what we had just seen.

Later that week, Lori called me.

“I heard on the news about what happened last Saturday. Remember when you took me to work?”

She filled in what she knew. A woman had been dragged by a car east through Colima Road and then north on Hacienda Boulevard.

The woman was young, about Lori’s age. The thought of such a gruesome murder in my hometown freaked me out, but I forgot about it.

(more…)

When I got to UCLA, I realized that half the people I met who grew up in the LA area had no clue where Hacienda Heights was located. I had to mention the general region of my small, unincorporated corner of Los Angeles County in order to erase their blank expressions. Once I explained, “it’s about 20 miles east of downtown,” or “it’s in the San Gabriel Valley, northeast of Whittier” a little light bulb of recognition lit up behind their eyes.

The people who actually knew about HH had one basic response, “oh… you’re from the suburbs. You must be rich.” I’d then have to clear up their misconception, at least about my family being rich. HH is a suburb and plenty of middle and upper-middle class families call it home, but my family isn’t one of those. My mom always used to say, “we don’t live in the heights of Hacienda Heights.” Translation? We’re not rich or comfortably middle class.

Sometime around my senior year at UCLA, I got a different and unexpected reaction.

“Oh, Hacienda Heights… hmmm,” my friend said. “I have to drive my uncles there all the time. They like going to the strip clubs.”

“Oh.”

The strip clubs.

The exotically named strip clubs popped up about ten years ago. Ironically, I first heard about them in church. Of course, as Catholics we didn’t like the idea of strip clubs in our community. I think someone organized picketing or a petition, but I can’t remember and it doesn’t matter since the protests were unsuccessful. A few months later, the garish neon signs appeared.

After high school, I moved away to college and never really gave much thought to the fact that there was a strip club half a mile away from my house, and another one about 1.5 miles away. That all chaged early this summer as I made one of my frequent trips home to play with the puppy, have some home-cooked meals, and do laundry.

As I slowed my car at the intersection of Gale and Stimson, I noticed the new sign. Suddenly, it was no longer Cathay Bank Plaza. The half circle at top featured “Showgirls” in pink against a black backgrond. Right below that, “Deja Vu Plaza” was written in pink above a pair of pink stilettos in fishnet stocking-clad legs. An electronic sign announced the opening of a new adult store adjacent to the strip club. Below the LCD screen several smaller rectangular signs showed the names of neighboring businesses.

The strip mall is just half a mile away from the home where I grew up and my parents and siblings currently live. My mom used to work at the intersection of Gale and Stimson as a cross guard for children walking to Glenelder Elementary School. I’ve eaten several times at the greasy spoon, opened an account at Cathay Bank, had my hair cut at a small beauty salon and visited my old dentist just a few doors down from the strip club in the corner.

I was never comfortable with a strip club at that location, but at least back then there was no huge sign and the neon lights only blinked on and off at night. It was never hidden or discrete, but at least I could ignore the strip club.

I suppose my mild outrage comes from a bit of feminism mixed in with Catholicism and a healthy dose of NIMBYism [not in my backyard]. I hate the sign and the fact that a small part of Hollywood Boulevard, Market Street or Times Square has been transplanted to my neighborhood. I don’t want to one day take a precocious child to visit his/her grandparents only to hear “mom, what’s a showgirl?” coming from the backseat.

Sure, my hate for hideous sign, new store and strip club come from the -isms listed above, but I know the greatest one is my general opposition to change. The conservative in me is coming out, and it’s not in the way HP would like. I simply want to conserve my hometown just as it was when I was a kid… when Hacienda Heights was known more for it’s suburban way of life and large Buddhist temple rather than strip clubs.

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.

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.]

I found out late last night that my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Stringfield had passed away over a month ago and no one told me.

I called home today in the middle of the day. My sister, Lori, answered the phone. I asked her if she knew about Mrs. Stringfield, also one of her former teachers, and she admitted that she did.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I asked annoyed as always that my family doesn’t tell me things I would like to know (yet tells me other things I really don’t need to worry about).

“Well, because you’re over there,” she replied listlessly.

I didn’t tell her that I felt rather sad when I got the Google update featuring something about my hometown of Hacienda Heights. I don’t live too far from HH now, but for some reason news about former teachers and other people I grew up with just doesn’t get to me. I guess it slips my mom’s mind or they don’t want to worry me. Still, I think they would have told me about Mrs. Stringfield. They told me when she fell and broke her hip, but that was probably because my mom still worked at the school.

I did very well at Glenelder Elementary School. I never intended to be the teacher’s pet, but somehow I frequently wound up being a favorite. I had all woman teachers and Mrs. Stringfield sticks out because she was not nearly as mean or scary as Ms. Butcher (eek, even her name scared me) nor as austere as Mrs. Miller. She really was a kind woman, but she sticks out more for her longevity. She was the oldest white woman I had ever met at 10 years old. The paper says she passed away at 75 years old which means that she was only about 60 when she was teaching me and my brother. Even then she seemed ancient.

I don’t know if it was Mrs. Stringfield or Mrs. Miller that recommended I be tested for the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program. Either way, I know that I would not have been in GATE without Mrs. Stringfield. She was a good teacher and all I gained in that class manifested itself in some way through random bubbles on a Scantron. I scored high on the state assessment tests. In hindsight, I know that the test scores and good grades helped Mrs. Stringfield (or Mrs. Miller?) decide that I was a child whose talents should be nurtured.

I was admitted to GATE. Each Friday morning I would leave my school on a bus with a handful of other kids to go to Dibble School where other students around the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District would gather for enriched courses in things like Shakespeare, art, and investing in stocks. Once I graduated from Glenelder and went on to middle school and high school, GATE students were tracked into honors and advanced placement (AP) courses. These courses prepared me very well to be ready for postsecondary education.

Mrs. Stringfield was instrumental in tracking me and recognizing potential. There were definitely other teachers along the way and even before, but I didn’t even know I was gifted or talented until 4th grade. Although tracking can be very problematic, it essentially worked very well for me.

Thanks, Mrs. Stringfield. May you rest in peace.