Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

Zacapu, México, 1972–79

47 We descended on a half-completed corner building in Colonia Miguel Hidalgo. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla had been the priest who in 1810 stirred the Mexican people into action, which eventually lead to México’s independence from Spain in 1821—300 years after the conquest of Hernán Cortés over the Aztec empire. México had one long history of battles and it seemed appropriate that los González arrive to start some trouble of their own. The construction of the second story of our house had been halted by a lack of funds but the ground floor was complete enough to inhabit. On the top floor we kept the dogs that barked incessantly at passersby through the ghost windows. The eight rooms below were purpose-shifters, always changing function. One year’s kitchen became next year’s living room. A bedroom became a rented storage space for the corn harvested in the field behind our house. Once, my grandfather briefly ran a small bodega from one of the rooms. The Pepsi logo outside the service window was still visible for years after it had been painted over. The main dining room became my father’s rehearsal studio when he had his short-lived band. Although it had undergone a number of transformations over the years, the house always had the nicest garden in the block. My grandparents have always been skilled gardeners, and they successfully grew everything from medicinal herbs to papaya plants, from chile habanero to figs. 6 Zacapu, México, 1972–79 At one time they even kept a talking parrot that made its home in the lime tree. This pet was the cause of my mother’s consternation for months because my uncles had only taught it to cuss. The bird spewed out obscenities at every unsuspecting visitor. It never discriminated, squawking out ¡Chinga tu madre! at the neighborhood drunk with the same conviction as the insults he swore to our teacher-nuns from the parochial school, coming by to collect the monthly tuition. It took a stone’s throw from a furious passerby to silence the bird forever. As a reminder of my family’s failed enterprise, the outdoor cement stairs led the way to the unfinished second floor where the dogs with an irrepressible hatred for strangers watched over us. This house was my world. My world was Zacapu—the place of my father’s birth. His mother, a full-blooded Purépecha Indian, had been born in nearby Nahuatzen. My mother and her father were born in nearby Janamuato . Her mother was born in nearby Morelia. Only my father’s father had been born outside of the country, in the north, like I had been. In Zacapu (once Tzacapu) we also had the beauty of the surrounding mountains and not far off the enchanting Lago de Pátzcuaro, where Janitzio salutes from the center with its giant statue of José María Morelos y Pavón, the other famous Mexican priest who led the independence movement after the execution of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. The name of our town comes from the Nahautl word for rock, but the area was actually lush with the lumber-producing pino, encino, madroño, and to a lesser extent, tocuz and capiz trees. The greenery was ripe with apple, capulín, membrillo, zapote, and avocado trees. In the fields, corn and coffee were abundant. Much later I learned that the farmers were replacing the old crops on the fertile hills with the more profitable marijuana planted by the acres. And nearby was Anguangueo, the famous monarch butterfly sanctuary, where the fiery invasions took place in early springs. We’d walk around wearing butterflies like appliqués on our clothing. And when they fluttered by the dozens so close to the ground, I’d run through the sea of them, disappearing behind the bursts of light coming 48 childhood and other language lessons 49 Zacapu,México1972–79 through their wings. I have never come across such intensity of breath and beauty since, and when I see a monarch pictured in a magazine or television screen I’m swept back into the strange but comforting intimacy of their winking paradise. I tried many times to claim a snippet of this spectacle by hiding a monarch in my pocket, hoping I could recreate the marvelous sputter in the privacy...