Thanks Dad

Growing up, I was always self-conscious of the genes my Chilean father bestowed upon me. Instead of the straight, shiny, blonde hair, green eyes, and long legs of my mother, I was a short, frizzy haired, brown-eyed mini replica of my dad. One of the traits I was especially resentful and painfully aware of was the long, dark hair that covered my arms. It was always on display in my short sleeved, Catholic school uniform shirts. It was a major reason I never felt “girly” or “feminine” as a young teen. One moment that burned into my still shy and insecure, 14-year old mind was a particular afternoon in freshman algebra class. I felt so lucky to be placed in a small group with Ernie, the most popular boy in our class, and one I had a crush on since the first week of school. After a few minutes, he acknowledged me for the first time, exclaiming, “Oh my god!! Why are your arms so hairy?! You’re like a man!” I instantly turned bright red and covered my arms, trying to mumble or laugh off the comment. But that day after school, I shaved my arms for the first time, and have been doing it ever since.

For all girls growing up and coming to terms with their own identities, it can be very disheartening when we don’t fit into the established norms and expectations for feminine beauty. The reason I didn’t feel beautiful as a girl was because I didn’t look like the girls in my class who were deemed beautiful and therefore, popular: blond hair, colored eyes, feminine features. I was a tomboy not only in my personality but also because of how I looked. My embarrassment of my hairy arms was a reflection of my naive embarrassment of being colored. Although I am only half Latina, I have always taken after the genetics of my father and have been assumed and considered Latina, not white. In middle school and early high school, I still felt awkward because of my looks and my mixed identity. Never feeling fully white nor fully Latina, I shaved my arms as a way to disguise the less attractive features of my Hispanic blood. I no longer think that the only way to be beautiful is to be light-haired, tall, with colored eyes like my mother and the popular white girls I’ve always gone to school with. I love the features my father gave me, especially my eyes and my dark wavy hair. I still shave my arms, not trying to hide my Latina blood, but to feel womanly. I still haven’t shaken the influence of hairless expectations of American society, but I’m ok with that. Overall, like Cherrie Moraga in “Loving in the War Years,” I feel more connected to the culture of my Latina half. I love and embrace my mixed-race, mestiza, white girl look. It’s fun because no one can ever guess what my nationality is. I enjoy being unique and am so grateful that, as my mom tells me, I am a carbon copy of my father. If only I felt that way in high school!

La Niña

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOgbbR0lcCc&w=420&h=315]

Lila Downs is one of my favorite musical artists out there. Her music is totally distinct, full of culture, and it tells stories. Lila Downs as an individual also really interests me. From different interviews I’ve read and watched (read: I really like Lila), her mother comes from Oaxaca and her father is Scottish-American. She’s what Cherrie Moraga calls a half breed, but that’s just me calling her own. Anyways, I think that Lila Downs is fascinating because she is mixed. Again from interviews I’ve read/watched, she lives in New York part-time and in Oaxaca the other half of the time. She’s got the privilege to, as Moraga put it, “speak [in] two tongues.”

This song, La Niña, gives the listener a picture of what it is like to be a young girl working at a maquiladora. Chicana feminist writer Gloria Anzaldúa wrote about the maquiladoras in Borderlands/La Frontera. Anzaldúa writes “Currently, Mexico and her eighty million citizens are almost completely dependent on the U.S. market. The Mexican government and wealthy growers are in partnership with such American conglomerates as American Motors, IT&T and Du Pont which own factories called maquiladoras” (Anzaldúa, 32). Anzaldúa also points out that one-fourth of all Mexicans work at these factories. This book was written in the 80s so these numbers may have changed, but even so these percentages are huge. An important point that Anzaldúa also points out is that most of these workers are young women.

In the song Lila Downs gives a face to a young girl and the nightmarish reality that exists by working in one of these maquiladoras. The girl is longing for a way to get out of her situation,”buscando vives tus dias y noches una salida.” The song, it’s imagery, Lila Downs’ voice, all has this affective quality to them. Downs is really humanizing this situation which truly lacks humanity. I’ve heard this song hundreds of times before taking this class, but when I stopped to think of these young women that have to work in these factories and what their coming of age stories must be like, it sort of snaps me back into reality. This song actually showed up at the end of the movie Real Women Have Curves. It played during the scene when Ana leaves for NYC. I’m not sure how well it fit considering the story of the movie vs. the story of the song. But then again maybe it shows the privilege of women like Lila Downs, or Ana have to speak up for themselves.

Work Cited
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999.

Navy West Pac / Blog Post

Navy West Pac

I came across my old military year book when I came across some old boxes this Sunday. When I look through the pages of this book I started to remember the people that I had the pleasure and horror of serving in while in the Navy. It was funny looking at the pictures of the places we were able to go to while I was stationed on the U.S.S. Denver (LPD-9). I know a lot of people want to travel the world at a young age and party, but I was lucky enough to be able to travel the world at a young age. But at the same time I was very dumb to the fact that I was in harm’s way while serving in the Navy. The reason I say this is because we spend three and a half months in the Middle East where they hated military personal.

I remember being a nineteen year old traveling the open sea with a convoy of Navy vessels heading towards our final destination which was the Middle East, but along the way we were able to visit a few ports before we arrived our assigned destination. But before we could hit any ports we had to cross a storm in the middle of the ocean. It was thanksgiving week and our captain volunteered our ship to cross the eye of the storm in order to show the other ships that the passage was a safe one. But once we enter the storm our ship took a beating! The other two ships decide to go around the storm to avoid any damage. But it was too late for us we were forced to ride out this hellish storm. It took us four days to cross that whole storm. We had our thanksgiving dinner while in the center of the storm. I remember this as if it was yesterday, because I was working in the galley as the dish washer at the time. My friend was working the line and while carrying a tray of pudding the ship took a roll and Boo dropped the whole tray pudding all over himself. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Well we survived that hellish trip because I’m here today writing this blog about my event.

I grew so much while being away from my family during my first West Pac. I was a young man entering a world of men. I was scared but excited at the same time. We hit many ports that showed its hidden beauty and horror of the countries. I was able to drink with a monkey and watch a Lakers game in one country, while in another I was able to surf the sand hills. I was able to get drunk in our beer gardens and then go out an party in the awesome clubs from other countries. But I think one of the funniest things I ever did was walk a one thousand step pass that lead people to a temple on the top of a mountain. The legion was that if a person was able to climb all the steps they were wearty enough to enter this temple. Well I and a few friends decided to take that adventure after a night of drinking. So we walked the one thousand steps with a hangover and tempeture rising above 90 degrees.  We made it to the top and the temple was small and not open, what a bummer that was for us. To be young and not realizing what’s going on is such a great thing, but now as I look back at what I was doing I’m surprised I was not injured while being out in foreign countries.

These are just the places I went while in my first deployment Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Jebel Ali, Bahrain, Kuwait, Muscat Oman, Jordan, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, Manila Philippines, Hong Kong, and Hawaii.

Fifteen seconds of pure childhood. / Blog Post

 

Fifteen seconds of pure childhood.

 Have you ever come across an old box or tube that you stored items from your pass? Well this weekend I had that exact event happen to me. I was getting Christmas stuff out of storage for my mother this weekend, when I came across a few boxes that had items from my past. When I opened the boxes it was like a little kid opening present on Christmas morning. I reverted to being a child for fifteen seconds jumping up and down, while I clutch the box of classic horror movie figures oh so close to my chest. Not realizing that my parents and wife where their looking and laughing in surprise of the actions I was doing at the moment I found my long lost box of horror figures.

 

We all have items that take us back to a time of innocence and childhood wonder. I was able to experience this event thank to my parents. As I kept opening these boxes I started to come across things that I thought I had lost due to all the moving I did after I got out of the Navy. It was very exciting finding autographed items from my beloved teams, the Oakland Raiders football, and Los Angeles Kings goalie mask. I also was surprised to see my West Pac cruise book from 1995-96. But it’s also the funny thing you might have stored from you passes. Or the old records, tapes, pictures that make you realize how fast time pass by once you start getting older in life.

 

It’s really cool to take a trip back in time when you come across old boxes that you put a way. I never realized how small little things can take a person back in time and remember childhood memories or open an imagination that you have forgotten about as we get older. So hopefully you will be able to be lucky enough to find an old box with items that might take you back in item, just like I was able to experience this Sunday afternoon.  But the people I really had to thank for being a great were my parents. If it was not for them I would have not be able to take a trip back in memory lane by them keep my stuff in their storage area. They could have thrown my stuff away but they took care of it no matter how long it was stored.

Viva Fernandomina!!!!! / Blog Post

Viva Fernandomina!!!!!

I grew in a pretty large family; I have three older sisters and two older brothers. My father was an avid soccer fan, due to the fact that he played semi pro soccer back in Mexico. But while growing up in the United States during the 1980’s soccer was not something that many people liked in our area. But my father tried very hard to have us have fun during our childhood, so he entered us in Lennox little league. We all played baseball and softball while we grew up and our parents were very involved in little league with them being a baseball/ softball coach, or team parents. But my fondest memory was the fund raisers we had in order to win cool stuff. There was once a fund raiser we had in which the top two grossing participants would get the opportunity to walk on to the field of the Los Angeles Dodgers stadium and be announced in front of the home crowd.

So my brother and sister started to sell candies in order to try to make it on to the field of the Los Angeles Dodgers and be announced in front of the home crowd. So we all started to work hard to sell the candies, we would go all over town selling these dam candies. We would be outside of the supermarkets, laundry mats, gas stations, you name it we where outside selling these dam candies like a drug dealer selling his smack to crack heads all over town. Every week my parents would get four or five boxes of candies, I never knew that my parents were selling candies at their jobs too. So this was a whole family venture that we all entered to win the gold prize of being able to be recognized in front of the Los Angeles Dodgers crowd. A dream comes true for an illegal family at the time.

So the week before the major league season started, Lennox little league announced the winners of the candy fundraiser and low and behold we the Zavala family won.  The coolest thing my brothers and sisters did was to put all their candy sells in my name making me a winner by a landslide. I was the chosen one that was going to be able to walk on the field and have my name announced. The coolest thing ever to happen to me at such a young age.

The day of the big event my whole family bought tickets on the upper deck to have the whole family participate in the event of me being able to be on the field. My father was allowed to be next to me before they had us walk on to the field. I remember seeing all these white kids with new baseball gloves and bats with markers. I had no idea what was going on with all these white kids having markers and equipment with them if they said in the letter we received that no sporting equipment was allowed. But while we waited for us to be allowed into the field, Steve Garvey, Mike Scioscia, and Fernando Valenzuela came out and started to sign all the white kids’ sports equipment and all I had was my bare hands. My father franticly struggled to find something for these Dodger players to sign for his son. The only thing that he was able to find was a napkin from his front pocket. I was the happiest child in the world having my napkin sign by these players, which at the time I had no idea who they were. So to this date I love that my father only had that napkin for these legendary players to sign. It just lets me remember of where my family started out in life, and how far we have came in life.

Welcome to your past./ Blog post

 

Welcome to your past!

Yesterday I went out with my wife and parents for an outdoor adventure to downtown Los Angeles. We went to China town to enjoy the sunny day and get some fresh air. Well okay I’m not sure how fresh the airs in Los Angeles,bt we went out there any ways. While taking our walk in China town my father had a urge to walk down La Placita Olvera and enjoy the Mexican vibes of this area. While we walked down the little puestos that sold Mexican candies, piggy banks, and all the stuff that you can buy Tijuana. But I can’t stop from admiring all the Die de Los Muertos stuff that they sell around this area. So my father saw the adobe house museum in the center of Olvera Street that stated that it was the oldest adobe house in Los Angeles.

When we walked in to the front of the museum the first thing we saw was an adobe oven in which both my mother and wife started to tell stories of how they used these types of ovens. My mother was telling me stories of how my grandfather and grandmother had an oven that they used when she was a young girl growing up in the farm, and having her mother cook bread and other things in these types of ovens. While my wife told me that her father in the small farm land they have still has an adobe oven that they still use once in a while. It’s funny to see an oven on display as a sign of something old, while my wife still has something that old in use still in the state of Sinaloa Mexico.

While walking around this little museum we found an outdoor grilling area where the posts on the walls would tell the people of how these types of thing would be used during this era. But again my mother and wife started to tell stories of how they both used these types of comales while growing up. My mother started to tell me of how she would cook food and other stuff while growing up in a small farm back in Mexico. My wife told me stories of how her mother would cook fresh corn that had just been picked off the stock.  It was very sweet to hear these stories from two women that I love and hold dear to my heart.

I really love spending time with people I love because they start to tell stories of their pass that we might have heard many time in our lives, but the older we get these stories are more than just people telling us what they have seen. But these are stories of our history, where we come from and how we got to where we are today in life. These are experiences that family member share with us not because they want to brag about what they have seen, but it’s about our history. Our Mexican history that need to be kept alive with stories that we pass down from one generation to the next.

Commitment to Excellence? / Blog Post

Commitment to Excellence?

Being a loyal sports fan is a hard thing to be, and I have to say it has not been a good decade for my beloved team. I am an Oakland Raiders fan since the day I can remember. I grew up loving the Raiders always thinking that they would bring home the super bowl trophy and show the rest of the league how superior my favorite team was during the good old days. But teams get old, owners pass away, and a fan base get stereotyped into being thugs or bullies which I am neither of, well okay maybe not all the time. But the love I have for my team does not sway; I will die an Oakland Raiders fan.

But every September the new season starts and I feel the pride and passion of the pass start creeping up my spine and into my heart filling it with confidence that they will be a great team once again. When the start if the season begins I feel like no team can overpower us or even come close to matching our superior play calling. But then reality slaps you hard around week four or five and I start to realize that my favorite team sucks still to this day. I wonder of the possibility of switching to another team, but my heart will not allow it! I have been down this road several times and my passion for my lovable loser team has not waiver.

So every year it’s a new coming of age for me, due to the fact my team is not moving in the right direction. I start to wonder if I still have the passion to put all my emotions in to a team that is down on its luck. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I love losing teams?? But I can’t abandon my favorite team that I grew up loving, but I can’t help to start wondering if I will become the new loser team on the block. Just like the Boston Red Sox where, a team that took one hundred years to win its next championship. I don’t want to died before I get to experience the celebration parade of the next super bowl championship. But I always wonder if I’ll be alive to experience something like that.  I just hope and pray that I’ll be alive to see my beloved silver and black parade down the streets of Oakland with the tinsel falling from the building and the crowds of Oakland Raiders jerseys lining the streets. But till this date it’s still a mirage that seems so close, but in reality it is something that will take a long time to repair.

Tia Lupe

My Tia lived in Mexico with her first husband and had a son with him. One day there was an accident at his work and he died leaving her a widow. She tells me how painful it was for her and that she never thought she could find love again. Eventually she came to the United States with some of her other siblings that were already here. After living in the US and working here for a while, she started dating someone and got remarried.

My Tia says that her second husband did not treat her well. He was a “mujeriego” or a womanizer. They had a child together and she loved him even though she knew she should not be with him. She tells me that she knew he was bad for her but could not bring herself to leave him. Every night she would pray, “Dios! Quitame ese hiombre!” “God! Take this man away!” She would pray to God and ask, “please, make him find another woman and leave me because I don’t have the strength to leave him.” Eventually her prayers were answered and he did. He found someone else and left her.

Even though her prayers were answered she felt the most horrible pain. She had got what she wanted. God had answered her prayers, but it felt more like everything was taken away from her. She says, she felt like she could not breathe. She would be sitting in her bed and hold her hand to her chest and gasp for air. She felt as if she were going to die. It felt like her life was over and that she could not go on living anymore. Why did it hurt her so much? She got what she wanted. She knew it was the best thing for her, but still it was the worst pain she could ever experience in her life.

She managed to go on with her life. And eventually one of her friends wanted to introduce her to a guy. My Tia was not interested at first, but her friend told her that she was attracted to the wrong type of guys and that she should give him a chance. She gave him a chance and now they are happily married and have a son. He is a good man and takes care of my Tia.

Mi super Abuelita!

My grandma’s mother was a school teacher. And during this time they had just separated religion from schools in Mexico. There were a lot of people that were very upset that this happened. There was a group of people that were taking it out on the teachers. They would go around and kill the teachers in school. My grandma’s mother decided to teach regardless and one of the men came to the school where she was teaching. My grandma tells me that her mother was extremely beautiful, and she must have been because the man claimed her for himself. She was already married at the time and pregnant with my grandmother as well. This man took my great grandmother with her son and my grandmother still inside her. The man said that he would take her son as his own and if her new child was a boy then he would take him as well. The only thing was it was my grandma. So the man wanted to give my grandma away to some lonely old woman with a bunch of cats. Luckily, she ended up being raised by her grandma instead.

My grandma eventually became interested in boys in her early teens, but her grandma did not like that very much. She thought it was very unusual and did not like her hanging around boys. Her Grandmother would hit her behind legs and on her back with a bicycle tire. She tells me she got some rough beatings. Not liking my grandmother hanging out with boys, my great great grandmother decided to take her out of school and move to another town to solve this boy obsession problem. My grandma had just gotten out of the car in her new city and a young man couldn’t help but notice her. He immediately asked about this new beautiful girl who just moved to his town. Of course that man would become my grandfather. My great great grandmother’s plan had backfired.

My grandma had a lot of kids to take care of. She had to cook and clean their clothes every day. They were poor and especially with so many mouths to feed could only have meat on rare occasions. One of my grandma’s children got married and had five kids and they also lived in the same house. In total, there was 21 of them. My grandma took care of them all. They did not have much money for clothes but thankfully there was a generous short fat gentleman who would give my grandma a lot of his old clothes. Of course because he was a big man all of my aunts and uncles would be drowning in these clothes and because he was short the pants would end way too high. My grandma luckily had a sewing machine and took in all the shirts and added some material to the bottom of the pants. One day my grandma got a little lawn of her own on their property, but no lawn mower. Pero, mi abuelita was a resourceful woman. She would use a kitchen knife to cut the grass all by herself and make it pretty. She tells me that those were some challenging times but she said that everything she did “con amor” or with love because she loves her family more than anything. She always stayed positive through her challenges. She tells me, “If you fall, what are you going to do? Just stay on the ground and cry? No, you got to get back up and keep going.”

There can never be too much Hope

One of my favorite novels when I was growing up was Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. I was reminded of the book after we read about the second main character named Esperanza this semester. Just like House on Mango Street, and Picture Me Rollin, Esperanza Rising is a coming of age novel about a Latina girl.  If you have never read it, the basic plot involves a “riches to rags” story, set in 1930, in which Esperanza grows up in a wealthy family on a ranch/vineyard in Aguascalientes, Mexico, only to have everything taken away when her father is killed and his brothers take over the ranch. The only option for Ezperanza and her mother is to move to California with their former house servants to become farm workers. They move together, but Esperanza’s abuelita stays behind due to health, and Esperanza and her mother plan to save up for abuelita to eventually move up with them. Obviously, life becomes very different and difficult for Esperanza, because although she is only 13, she has lived her whole life basically as a princess, and within a few weeks becomes a migrant worker in a foreign land, with no money and no respect.

There are several moments of coming to age for Esperanza in this novel. The first being the tragic murder of her father, with whom she was extremely close. When he was killed, the day before her thirteenth birthday, “Esperanza an only child and Papa’s pride and glory” (4). His death changes her life drastically, forcing her into a new life with new values. When her father was still alive, and her family was extremely wealthy and respected, all Esperanza looked forward to do was the huge, extravagant birthday celebration her parents threw her every year. Once her father is killed, and she moves to California with her mother, her values and hopes eventually change. All she looks forward to is working and saving enough to bring her Abuelita from Mexico. Once her mother gets sick with pneumonia after a few months of work, Esperanza becomes the sole worker and provider, and she shows a selflessness that only comes from growing up. When she visits her mother on one of the rare occasion the doctor allows it, Esperanza tells her mother, “Don’t worry, Mama. Remember, I will take care of everything. I am working and I can pay the bills. I love you” (184). Even at 13, she is beginning to work for her and her mother. A few months later, with her mother still in the hospital, Esperanza reveals that she has been buying money orders to save until she has enough to send for her grandmother. She also buys a small pinata that resembles one her mother gave her once as a child: “I bought it for Mama. I’m going to ask the nurses to put it near her bed, so she’ll know that I’m thinking of her. We can stop by the hospital on the way back. Will you cut a whole in the top for me so I can put caramels inside? The nurses can eat them.” These lines show how caring and selfless Esperanza has become. She no longer thinks of herself, but only of making her mom happy and even doing little nice things for the nurses caring for her mom.

On a side note, its interesting to see how the quinceanera tradition was viewed in 1930 as Esperanza describes it: “They still had two more years to wait, but so much to discuss – the beautiful white gowns they would wear, the big celebrations where they would be presented, and the sons of the richest families who would dance with them. After…they would be old enough to be courted, marry, and become las patronas, the heads of their households, rising to the position of their mothers before them” (8). This was before Esperanza’s life changed forever, and its interesting to see that although she didn’t have the ceremony, dress, or marriage, Esperanza did in a way become the head of her household as she worked to support her, her mother and abuelita. And she didn’t have to wait two years either. The quinceanera is a symbolic coming of age, but what Esperanza went through was a real life coming of age.

More coming of age moments come for Esperanza as her eyes are opened to the harsh realities of illegal immigration and unjust prejudice against minorities. Just like “Las Hijas de Juan,” and “Barefoot Jesus,” Esperanza witnesses people being forcibly taken by la migra, families broken apart, even sometimes legal citizens with papers. She becomes frustrated with the injustices of her people and confused as to why nothing can be done. In Mexico, her privileged life never involved the trials and harsh realities that her life in Mexico did. Just like Josie in “Las Hijas de Jaun” she constantly pines to return to Mexico, where life was actually wonderful in comparison, ironically even though so many came to America for better lives.

Translating, into “hope,” it is no surprise that the name Esperanza is common in chicana or latina coming of age stories. Each girl with the name lives in situations where the odds are against them, where they often to have to fight very hard for a chance to escape to a better life. In their own way, they each symbolize hope because they each prove that beauty and possibility are still present in their difficult and often heartbreaking circumstances.