January 19, 1926:
José Alfredo Jiménez, one of México’s most well-known singer-songwriters, was born in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato

Yeah, yeah, I know Jiménez is not technically a Chicano. He’s as Mexican as you get being born in Dolores Hidalgo, known to all Mexicans as La Cuna de la Independencia Nacional. For the Spanish language challenged, the Cradle of National Independence.

While Jiménez wasn’t around in the 1800s and didn’t contribute to the fight for Mexican independence, one can argue that the dozens of songs he’s penned have influenced Mexican identity on both sides of the border.

As a kid, I listened to a lot of Jiménez. I remember watching my dad sing “Camino de Guanajuato” at the top of his lungs with various other family members. I’d sing along too, even though it was probably inappropriate for a kid to sing a line about life being worthless. In my 20s, “Camino” began to mean more as I explored my roots in Salamanca, Guanajuato and actually traveled and visited the roads and landmarks mentioned in the well-known song. One of my most vivid memories of being on my uncles’ ranch just outside Salamanca was singing “Camino” with about 40 other family members, with such pride and joy. It was pretty amazing.

For Chican@s, knowing or singing some of Jiménez’s most popular songs may show you’re not too much of a poch@. It might be a fun way to bond with the older generations or make you look like a badass at mariachi-oke (yes, that’s mariachi + karaoke) night when you don’t need the words to get through “Ella” or “Que Te Vaya Bonito”. Or it just might make a good buzz even better.

Six ways to celebrate José Alfredo Jiménez’s birthday:

1. Drink some tequila, but not too much as you don’t want to end up with JAJ-like liver issues
2. Sing your favorite Jiménez-penned song, if you need an idea for something else besides “El Rey”, check here.
3. Request the roaming musicians play a romantic song like “Serenata Sin Luna” or “Si Nos Dejan” while out on a date
4. Make a playlist of JAJ songs interpreted by old school artist and re-imagined by newer artists. Example: “Te Solte La Rienda” by Maná
5. Watch one of the movies he acted in. [IMDB]
6. Try your hand at writing a torch song.

It’s a school night, so no tequila shots for me. Plus, I’m all out lime. Instead, I’ll make a playlist of the four versions of “Camino de Guanajuato” and put them on a loop while going through my photo sets from trips to the motherland. As always, I’ll ignore Jiménez’s warning to avoid Salamanca, mi pueblo adorado.

¡No te rajes Guanajuato!

[Thanks to Think Mexican for the heads up about Jiménez's birthday.]

Tía Ofelia, descanse en paz (rest in peace)

A while ago, I wondered what it was like for my father to grow up stateside while all his extended family was in Guanajuato. I felt like my father had been cheated of the relationships with his cousins, aunts and uncles I had thanks to proximity. I teared up thinking about how lonely it must have been for his parents and siblings without the support of their extended family nearby.

Despite this, my father is actually quite close to his cousins. You wouldn’t know that they didn’t grow up in the same town or ranch if you saw them interact. Well, my dad would stick out. He doesn’t look like he knows the first thing about driving a tracker or managing a ranch. But the resemblance between him and his cousins is uncanny.

In 2004, I took some time to get back to my roots in Mexico. As I prepared for my first trip in a dozen years, my parents were jealous. They told me I’d be treated like a rockstar. And I was, even if I was the only kid from the LA side of the family to visit. Everyone wanted to see me, take me to see the sites, made sure I ate well and overall I enjoyed my trip. A few of the kids started calling me Cindylandia. I loved it and in a short time developed a connection to people I was meeting for the first time as an adult — I didn’t remember much from my trips as a kid, and nothing from the trips as a baby.

One of those people was tía Ofelia, who lived on the ranch just outside of Salamanca. She was always much quieter than her many brothers (nine in total!), but she was kind and inviting. When we last visited in 2007, she accompanied another uncle, Max, and my parents on a short road trip to Morelia. We spent the day there with my great aunt and her children and grandchildren.

I knew tía Ofelia was gravely ill, but was still surprised to learn of her passing (via Facebook, oddly enough). My dad got a call from nephews in Houston.

Rest in peace, tía Ofelia.

In the afternoon, shortly before I left work, I saw Daniel Hernández’s tweets about several deaths after arsonists started a fire Monterrey casino.

“Four armed persons entered and began to say: ‘Everybody leave! Everybody leave!’ ” she said. The woman said she ran out a door to a parking lot, but many others fled to the second floor of the casino.

The witness said the attackers, wearing white masks, did not fire weapons or hurl grenades, as some early news reports had suggested. “They started to throw gasoline. There was no grenade attack,” she said.

A line from Rivera’s poem came back to me “… their bodies burnt.”

#yabasta

During the fiestas de San Rafael, the patron saint of El Cargadero, the ghost town comes to life with migrants who have returned for the festivities. I’ve never been there for the feasts in October, but 4 years ago my parents went with Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni. During the day, they went through the bureaucracy of signing over the grandparents’ house to my mom. In the evening they joined the festivities in the Plaza del Migrante or watched the borlote (commotion) from the balcony. My grandparents’ – well, now mom’s – house overlooks the main plaza. This was great for people watching, but not great for making international calls.

My dad called me one evening during the trip. Even though he was inside the house with the windows closed, I could still barely hear him. It wasn’t the connection; the background noise of drums and horns from down below was drowning him out.

The sound was familiar. I’d heard it several times before at anniversary parties, weddings, birthday parties and any other special occasion. Pretty much every big party on the Zacatecano/maternal side of the family featured a tamborazo zacatecano.

I must confess, I’ve always been ambivalent to tamborazo, which sounds a bit like a marching band^[1] sometimes. It might just be the Guanjuato/paternal musical influence, but I never warmed to the music. For backyard parties, the tamborazo was always too loud. Sometimes, the horns and woodwinds sounded out of tune and the musicians weren’t that good. There was no singing; and after a while songs started to sound the same. Like the rest of my cousins, I was usually glad when the band took a break and the DJ played pocho-friendly music. Despite my ambivalence, I danced, especially if my 91-year old tamborazo-loving grandpa pulls me out to the dance floor. I love dancing with Papá Chepe and will take every opportunity I get while he can still dance.

I feel a little bad for feeling this way. I’m supposed to be proud of my culture and champion it, right? Even if it hurts my ears?

A few weeks ago my fellow Cargaderense, OC Weekly editor/food writer, and sometimes profe Gustavo Arellano posted on Facebook:

Wonder when Mexican intelligentia will champion tamborazo like they do son jarocho. That’s right: NEVER—chuntis^[2] ain’t cool enough to save our traditions.

I commented that I’d be championing my homeland’s music at my uncle’s birthday party later this month. But then I got to thinking and I’m not sure it’s about tamborazo being chunti or less worthy of saving. However, it’s easy to see tamborazo doesn’t enjoy the same cultural capital of son jarocho and other Mexican musical genres despite despite a large number of Mexicans in Southern California originating from the state Zacatecas. When was the last time you met a Veracruzano in LA? Zacatecanos? They’re all over the place. Zacatecas is one of the Mexican states that sends the most immigrants to the US.

I don’t know why tamborazo doesn’t enjoy the same popularity amongst the intellegentia – young, college educated, hip Chican@s – but I can make some educated guesses.

First, um, maybe some of my peers just don’t like the music. That’s easy to understand. As someone who grow up listening to tamborazo (through hands over my ears), I should champion the music. Still, I can’t see myself hiring a band for my birthday party or wedding. Tamborazo is my grandparents’ music, not mine.

Second, son jarocho has been championed in pop music well before this current intellegentia trend. There’s Ritchie Valens’ classic rock cover of “La Bamba.” Unfortunately, he never recorded a rock version of a tamborazo classic like “La Marcha de Zacatecas”. His hit was rooted in son jarocho. Later, the padrinos of Chicano rock, Los Lobos, recorded an album featuring son jarocho tunes. There was no “El Sauce y la Palma”. Los Lobos even played a modified version of “Canelo” on Sesame Street. It’s neat. There are many more examples of the budding popularity of son jarocho in pop music and culture (see: Café Tacuba’s cover of “Ojalá Que Llueva Café”), and Chicano groups popping up these days are putting their own twist on the genre. I could go on, but I think we got the pop music angle covered. Son jarocho wins there.

Third, other cultural centers and practices include son jarocho. I’ve heard of cultural centers offering jarana classes. In ballet folkórico, I danced to music of several Mexican states including Veracruz. I didn’t know the music was called son jarocho, but I danced to it. Our routines never included any dances choreographed to tamborazo songs. I guess here it is about culture.

Fourth, forming a tamborazo zacatecano means you need musicians who know how to play instruments like trumpet, tuba, saxophone, clarinet and drums. You’ll also need decent practice space. You can strum a jarana in your tiny apartment and probably not piss off your neighbors. Blast away on your tuba and play tab on your snare drum? Um, you’ll probably piss off your neighbor. I’d also venture to say that there are a lot of the intellegentia who never had a decent music education in school where a lot of people learn to play woodwind instruments. I was lucky to have great music teachers and a decent marching/concert band program, but my school was in the suburbs and my band traveled internationally. If you already have experience playing a string instrument, playing jarana might not be such a big leap. There are some barriers to entry in to tamborazo that might not exist for son jarocho.

Fifth, it’s male dominated. I’ve never seen a tamborazo group which includes a woman. I don’t know if this turns anyone away, but it might be a reason some might not be attracted.

Sixth, there’s no singing. I love singing and telling a good story through compelling lyrics. You can’t do that with tamborazo as there’s no singer in the bands. Even if they play a song with lyrics, you just have to think of them in your head. This could draw some away.

Gustavo may be right. Maybe tamborazo gets no shine because it’s associated with the new, poor, non-English speaking, likely undocumented immigrants. Or it could be that the intellegentia just like singing, playing and dancing at fandangos.

Notes:
^[1]Ironic considering my band geek days.
^[2]Chunti is a derogatory term for new, unassimilated Mexican immigrants. It’s short for chuntáro, which I first heard from Juan, a Mexican day laborer my family befriended. Even at 11 years old, I knew I didn’t want to be called a chunti.

Last year when I interviewed Papá Chepe at the East LA StoryCorps booth I asked him about his proudest life achievement.

I was a little surprised by his answer.

He admitted that he was proudest to have donated his home in Tijuana (what I call the Tijuana house) to an orphanage, Hogar San José de Calasanz (HOCATI). My grandparents came to this decision after their home had been on the market for years. They’d had some problems with the house too. There were break-ins, and a car crashed in to the garage (no one was hurt). As they aged, they spent less time in Tijuana and their other home in El Cargadero, Zacatecas and more time at their LA home, also known as my family’s home.

I grew up going to Tijuana frequently. Each time my family went, we’d have birria downtown in a restaurant with stuffed cow heads mounted on the walls. Aftweward, we’d go shopping. I usually came home with a shiny pair of patent leather shoes. I’d scuff them up the next weekend chasing kids and imitating my mom’s dance moves at the next party.

For us kids, the Tijuana house was a bit boring. We couldn’t watch our typical cartoons. Instead we explored the house. We’d rattle Papá Chepe’s collection of Miller High Life glassware and neon signs as we ran around the second floor. We’d run up the cool metal spiral staircase in to Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni’s room. We’d crawl in and out of the tiny door in to the garage… until we got scolded by Mamá Toni or my mom. We’d have Azucaritas for breakfast and churritos with limón y chile from the store down the street for a snack.

Sometimes, we’d sit out on the second floor balcony and stare at the thousands of homes crowded on the Tijuana hillside. We’d walk down to the third floor, which had been made to apartments, and explored the outdoor laundry area and small garden.

I was too young to understand why my grandparents had three homes in Tijuana, East LA and Zacatecas. I didn’t know that Papá Chepe built the house nor that when Papá Chepe came to the States to work, he moved his family to Tijuana so that they’d be closer to him. It was in this period that my tío Chuy got lost in downtown Tijuana. He was just a little boy, no more than six years old. The family was rightfully worried and looked for him everywhere to no avail. That evening, he was brought home by a mysterious, short and chubby man. My family thinks it was the Santo Niño de Atocha. When extended family migrated north from Zacatecas, they often stayed at the Tijuana house on the way to the states.

While the Tijuana house was a significant part of my childhood, it was less so in my teens and almost absent in my 20s. I’ve only been to the Tijuana house once in the last 10 years. In 2005 I stayed with Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni for a couple of days before flying out with them to Zacatecas for Christmas. Rather than run around the house, I spent it going through old albums identifying tías and tíos as children and teens. The house was like a museum of my family’s history.

All of that history has been removed from the house. The furniture stayed. The home is large enough to house about 15 children. Currently, it’s being readied for teens to move in. My family is very committed to HOCATI. My grandparents and parents have visited the children and taken them toys. When they donated the house, my family knew we’d be supporting HOCATI for a long time. Last fall, my mom sold all of the avocados on our tree and donated what she raised. (There were a lot of avocados, at least 300.)

This Saturday, March 19th, my family will host a fundraiser for HOCATI at our home in Hacienda Heights. It’ll coincide with el Día de San José, which we always celebrate as it’s Papá Chepe’s saint’s day.

At the fundraiser this Saturday, we’ll have lots of great food for sale as well as entertainment. If you’d like to stop by for some tacos, sopes, tamales, or enchiladas or would like to know how to donate to HOCATI, let me know and I’ll send you the invite.

My roots are showing right now. This is typical. Since I first started dying my hair five years ago, I’ve never gotten the recommended touch up six weeks later. I typically wait 3-4 months to get rid of the grays after a little prompting from my mom.

This time around, I couldn’t pass up my mom’s offer to set up an appointment with her yoga buddy, Sylvia.

Mom picked up her cell phone, made the call and made an appointment for the following morning while Sylvia’s children would be at school.

The next morning, I made the 5-minute drive from my mom’s to Sylvia’s house. She greeted me warmly and invited me in. Her home looked as I remembered it, sans children and with a young woman, let’s call her Alicia, sitting at the dining table examining various items of gold jewelry.

At first, I thought Alicia was a family member or close friend because she and Sylvia were talking about mutual friends. I didn’t realize they had just met moments earlier when Alicia had knocked on her door asking if she had any gold to sell. Sylvia found some broken bracelets, lone earrings and other items to sell. While Alicia inspected and weighed the jewelry, Sylvia started dying my hair.

After getting the pesky gray roots and dying the rest, Sylvia put up the wet hair on top of my head. She removed her gloves and for the next half hour while the dye set she made calls to friends and neighbors. Earlier, Sylvia had promised to help Alicia find some more people willing to sell gold.

In quick Spanish, Sylvia explained why she had so much confianza (trust) in a stranger whose named she didn’t even know. Shortly after meeting Alicia, Sylvia discovered that she was from Jalisco. Not only that, she was from a neighboring rancho to Sylvia’s hometown. The people they were talking about when I arrived turned out to be mutual contacts. It was a coincidence that made a big difference for Alicia. Without the hometown connection, she likely would have not had much success going door to door.

I marveled at Sylvia’s instant trust and desire to help out Alicia, someone almost from her hometown. As a 2.5 generation kid, I’m slightly removed from the immigrant experience. I know my grandparents, Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni, temporarily hosted recent arrivals from El Cargadero in their Boyle Heights home. My mom told me she sometimes had to give up her room for the newcomers. I’ve never had such an experience. I’ve been to El Cargadero a handful of times, but I still feel a connection to other Cargaderenses like Gustavo Arellano.

On a more macro sense, I know hometown connections are key in settlement patterns thanks to chain migration. I’m also well aware, thanks to my neighbors, about the role hometown associations play in raising money for public works and recreation projects back in Mexico. Two years ago, the little girl I used to babysit was named the Señorita Zacatecas for the Federación Zacatecana (an organization of all the hometown associations). Her parents had been leaders of the association from Jalpa for several years.

As the dye seeped in and covered up my roots, Sylvia focused on helping a woman who shared hers. Pretty cool.

France 0 – México 2

That was for Puebla, fools.

¡Vamos, Henry!

I was in Mexico during the 2004 Athens Olympics. It was strange. Rather than have several athletes considered favored in marquee sports, Mexico only had a few. I was so used to seeing the US on top of the podium and in the medal standings. But Mexico, not so much.

In 2004, the hype was all about Ana Guevara, a sprinter favored to win the 400 meter dash. While out dancing one Friday night, everyone in the club stopped to watch one of the preliminary heats. Everyone cheered loudly and ordered celebratory shots when Ana won that heat. On the day of the final in 400 meter, my cousin woke me up cheers of “¡Vamos, Ana!” Almost all Olympics commercials featured Ana. It was pretty exciting. But Ana didn’t win gold, she won the silver. Belem Guerrero, from Ciudad Neza south of Mexico City, surprised everyone with a silver in cycling’s point’s race. Finally, the last two silver and bronze medals were won by siblings Oscar Salazar and Iridia Salazar in taekwondo.

I wondered if Mexicans watched athletes like Oscar de la Hoya (aka the Golden Boy) and if they claimed them. I wonder if Mexicans will claim Henry Cejudo, the son of undocumented immigrants from Mexico City. He was born in LA and moved around with his mother and siblings.

Henry just won the gold medal in the 121-pound freestyle wrestling event. He reminds me a little of Oscar de la Hoya, especially posing with the US flag draped around his shoulders.

Will he be the new Golden Boy?

Photo credit: Elizabeth Dalziel/AP

A night out in Tijuana is really not the same without Oso, but it was still fun. I joined Nathan, his wife Rosario, and several of their friends for a Tijuana run to celebrate his birthday. I haven’t been to Tijuana since the last time I went with Nathan and Rosario in June, 2006.

My sister drove out with me to San Diego. At my tío Beto’s and tía Ana’s house (our place to sleep for the night) she realized she’d forgotten her passport. She wasn’t willing to find out what happens if you try and cross with only a driver’s license, and I didn’t want to stay home after driving a couple of hours, so I left her behind.

I met up with Nathan, Rosario and the rest of our group of eight people at the trolley in San Ysidro and walked over the bridge to Tijuana. We had dinner again at Cantina de los Remedios. The 2-for-1 drink special made up for the cold enchiladas de mole.

After dinner, we hopped in taxis and walked off the food with a short stroll along Avenida Revolución. We then entered La Estrella, our first dancing destination. At nine something, it was already full. Except for the fact that all clubs feel rather meat market-ish, La Estrella was the exact opposite of Tangaloo, the trendy club we went to last time I visited Tijuana. I’m sure we stuck out in the crowd as too young. Most of the crowd was middle-aged working class crowd and played “música popular” (as Rosario described it). It was kinda cool to see women my mom’s age — still wearing their smocks from the maquiladora where they work — line dancing to “No Rompas Más Mi Pobre Corazón,” a cover of Billy Ray Cyrus’ hit.

We ditched La Estrella for a second more age-appropriate place. The second place, La Iguana Rana, skewed young, was much more empty and louder. They played hip hop and reggaetón. We danced for a bit before leaving around 1 a.m. to cross back to el Otro Lado.

Aside from answering a lot of the (Latino) border agent’s questions, I didn’t have any issues crossing the border.

He: Good morning.
Me: [I hand him my passport, eye his name tag] Good morning.
He: Are you bringing anything back?
Me: Just this. [I show him a bag of the wheel-shaped doritos I'd just bought.]
He: Bringing back any medications? [He eyes my tiny purse.]
Me: No.
He: [Continues looking at my passport, changes the angle to make sure it's not a fake.] Where do you live?
Me: [For some reason I need to think about this.] Um, LA.
He: How often do you go to Mexico each year?
Me: Once or twice.
He: Mosqueda?
Me: Yeah.
He: What’s your dad’s nickname?
Me: [Huh?] Charlie.
He: I had a friend with that last name, we used to call him Mosquito.
Me: Oh, yeah. I get that too.
He: [Hands me my passport.] Thank you, have a good day.
Me: You too.

Back in San Ysidro we split up and headed back to our own cars.

As I made the five minute trip back to my tío Beto’s and tía Ana’s house, I thought about the entitled feeling I had to cross that border. I take that privilege for granted.

I found myself struggling to express myself, especially when I was hanging out with my cousins. I’d understand everything they said, but I would trip up when I tried to explain what I was going back to school for, how my family was doing or whether or not I had a boyfriend (everyone asked that question). I felt more ashamed of my pocha-ness around my peers than my elders, although nobody judged me. In fact, they complimented the skills I did have and asked if my siblings — who didn’t go on the trip with me — spoke Spanish as well as I did (they don’t).

The only time anyone judged my language skills was when I spoke in English.

While exploring the colonial city of Guanajuato, my cousin’s boyfriend, Chucho, asked me if I had a car. When I responded affirmatively, he asked what kind.

“Un Dodge Stratus,” I replied.

“¿Qué?” Chucho asked. He was lost.

“Es como un Neon, pero más grande. He visto muchos en Guanajuato.”

Chucho’s face lit up and he smiled. “¡Oooo, un Estratús!” he exclaimed as he finally figured it out. “No te entendí. ¿Cómo lo dices?”

I pronounced it again in English. Chucho got a kick out of it again and told Paola, my cousin, that my pronunciation was really weird.

Huh? But I was saying it right. I’d been struggling to find the right words to express myself since I arrived in Guanajuato. My family was patient as I tried to explain something like UPS, but they never teased me. Instead, I was teased about my pronunciation in English.

While Chucho and Paola continued laughing, I silently comforted myself. My Spanish was better than their English. Most of my cousins study English in high school and college, just like I studied Spanish. Of course, I did have the advantage of growing up in a bilingual household.

Four years later, I still struggle on annual trips to Guanajuato or when I sit down and have a conversation with my Spanish-dominant tías in East LA. When I read novels or listen to music from México and South America, I have to look up words like aturdido and acatar.

But it’s okay, I understand and am understood. That’s all that matters. I’m comfortable with my pocha-ness.