Literary El Paso

Lucy Fischer-West

454 Lucy Fischer-West Born in Catskill, New York, Lucy Fischer-West was raised in El Paso and attended school on both sides of the border, receiving her B.A. from the University of Texas at El Paso. A career educator, Fischer-West has taught classes at the university and high school level and was a finalist for the Mary Jon and J. P. Bryan Leadership in Education Award for the Texas State Historical Association in 2008. Her articles and essays have appeared in such publications as BorderSenses; Password; The Family Saga: A Collection of Texas Family Legends; and Both Sides of the Border: A Scattering of Texas Folklore, both published by the Texas Folklore Society; and an essay on audiotape from Writer’s Audio Workshop titled The Best of Texas Folklore Volume I. FischerWest ’s book, Child of Many Rivers: Journeys to and from the Rio Grande, evolved from a 2003 presentation for the Texas State Historical Association and has won a varietiy of awards, including a Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association, a WILLA Literary Award Finalist Award from Women Writing the West, and a Violet Crown Special Citation from the Writer’s League of Texas. FisherWest was the associate editor of the American Folklore Newsletter from 1972-78 and is a member of Women Writing the West. She has presented papers at the Southwest Popular Culture Association, the Texas State Historical Association, The Border Regional Library Association and the Texas Folklore Society, where she serves as vicepresident and program chair for the 2009 centennial meeting. From Child of Many Rivers: Journeys to & from the Rio Grande: Food Between the Waters Whatever time of day it was, whether you were walking, skipping, or roller-skating up and down my street in El Paso in the mid-1950s and 1960s, the aromas wafting out of most homes were unmistakably Mexican. Freshly rinsed rice hitting hot skillets sizzled; 455 comino- and cilantro-seasoned caldo de res was a weekly staple; menudo with its dried oregano and freshly chopped onions was the Saturday or Sunday special; and when you smelled caldo de pollo you knew someone was sick. There was a molino de nixtamal within walking distance if you had a craving to make gorditas or your own tortillas de maíz. You got the masa to make tamales for Christmas from the same place. It was in my mother’s kitchen in that small adobe home that I learned to cook. There that she passed down to me her knowledge of foods and herbs; there she fed my body and nurtured my soul. The house I grew up in sits on a former riverbed. Paisano Avenue, the main thoroughfare to go downtown, and the site of the river’s old channel, was the first street beyond ours, the last street before the fence separating El Paso from Juárez. The Rio Grande had changed courses several times over the years. Those occurrences flooded the poorest parts of the city, particularly the Segundo Barrio, and wreaked havoc with international boundaries. In time, a concrete channel contained the Rio Grande, and the Chamizal Treaty resolved the issue of where the border lay. A park with rolling hills of grass came to commemorate the peaceful settlement, but most of the time I lived in that house, the desert beyond the fence was our only vista. The Franklin Canal behind our house carried the river’s water from the base of Mount Cristo Rey down the valley to feed the farmers’ cotton and chili crops. The fertile riverbed we lived on explains why everything my mother planted grew. From the trees alongside the house she picked peaches, apricots, plums, and apples. All of these had sprouted from seeds or pits she had nonchalantly tossed out. Against the wall of the canal she built a raised bed to grow vegetables. What time she didn’t spend on the garden, she spent inside, mostly in the kitchen because she loved to cook. The kitchen was about eight feet square and on the east side of the house. Outside, between it and the chain-link fence, was just enough space to walk sideways, holding your breath. One day when I came home from school she was standing inside the sink, with chalk and yardstick in hand, marking out an outline on the wall where she intended to put a window. There would be nothing to see from this window save the neighbor’s back screen...