La Cultura, la Comunidad, la Familia, y la Libertad

Esta mañana, like most Sunday mornings, I went to my parents' home for breakfast. For the avena con canela hecho por mi mama, and nowadays, even my papa. He tends to experiment combining oatmeal with Cream of Wheat because he likes the different textures. Y algunas veces quema la avena because, as they explain, this too was a way to prepare the avena, even considered a delicacy. I don't know if I should believe them, porque para mi, cuando esta quemada, esta quemada, and I don't eat it.

As we eat breakfast, escuchamos la musica y hablamos. I wait for the stories. Today, the musica brings up the stories. ¹ We listen to chotis, the German schottische mezclado con nuestra cultura Mexicana, and my mom describes dancing with señores viejos as a little girl. They told her that she was light on her feet. I wonder, does anyone still play this music? Does anyone dance this baile anymore? How can we program musicians and dancers to teach this in San Antonio? I become desperate to pull myself into millions of pieces so that I can do all the work that we need to do, antes que se nos mueran nuestros ancianos.

Each day, many viejitos pass away. Each day, I mourn the loss of their sacred stories and regret having failed to learn all the traditions, not knowing how to create the delicacies of dulces y comidas, not understanding the critical role of cultural grounding of our people hasta los ultimos anos.

I hear the music again:

Damisela encantadora
Damisela por ti me muero,
Si me miras,
Si me besas,
Damisela seras mi amor ²

I grew up hearing esta y muchas otras canciones on weekends. That's the way Dad would wake up his children, by playing various records—Maria Grever, Agustin Lara, Lobo y Melon.

I need to remember—Canciones, poesia, tradiciones, cuentos.

Not as an anthropology project. Not as a ritual prescribed to me by my parents or grandparents, but because it is essential to my survival. And I like how the words feel:

Los Maderos de San Juan
Piden queso, piden pan
Los de troque alcantroque
los de trique alcantriqu
los de triqui, triqui, tran
triqui, triqui, triqui, tran ³

How they sing.
How they made me move.
But young chicanitos aren't suppose to be smart.
They're not supposed to know how to read
in English.
Much less in Spanish.

My parents understood the power of cultura. They understood that knowing these poems, songs, and rituals, knowing how to converse and think in the language of our ancestors was important; that knowing about our history, and culture, and traditions would help their children develop a better sense of themselves. We learned to like ourselves. We learned to love each other. We learned to respect ourselves and our neighbors who, as working-class Chicanos living in the barrio, were no better or worse than other people in the city. That was essential to my survival.

And I'm one of the few who has survived.

What other songs, what other memories fight for a place on these pages?

Cucurucucu, Paloma.
The Alameda Theater and its red velvet curtains.
Going out with the family, including my abuelita, who rarely went out since she had arthritis and was wheelchair bound.
Coca Cola Grande, te da mucho mas!

We grew up in San Antonio; that's where my mom grew up and where Abuelita Teresita, my great-grandmother, was one of the Chili Queens who worked downtown in the market area, selling food to the men who worked in el mercado until the businessmen complained and kicked them out. Today, the Chili Queens are a fond memory, and the businessmen who ran estas mujeres out of business have a yearly celebration each spring to honor these mujeres. But hey, let's...