The non-fiction anthology, OUR CREATIVE REALIDADES, conceived and overseen by lead editor by Scott Russell Duncan, is a call to action for all Chican@/Latin@/Raza writers to take back what is rightfully ours: our narrative. In his Preface, Rendón sets the stage for the entire book by reminding us how the mainstream has historically created “distorted and damaging versions of our history.” ​
        Furthermore, in “American Dirt and Cultural Hegemony” Salazar helps us reflect on how these narratives have, undeniably not been written by us, but by those who have perpetually denied a complete and heterogenous version of our stories. Including those who have also profited quite nicely from those versions—profits that could have been invested in Chican@/Latin@/Raza writers: the only ones who can authentically capture a complete and robust experience. But just writing our narratives is not enough. Salazar also urges the need for more Chican@/Latin@/Raza publishers and better marketing for those of us who are taking on the task of reclaiming our narratives. 
        In his essay You Are What You Read, Alvarado Valdivia highlights how our absence from the literary table denies our very existence. In short, we are rarely included in the mainstream and when we are included, we are reduced to harmful stereotypes. 
        When it comes to Chicanas/Latinas: a double-whammy. Nieto calls us out on just how much further we have to go to dismantle misogynistic views which have completely abolished our seat at ANY table. She begs us to break the shackles of religious and patriarchal oppression with her emancipating call: “When we liberate Mary, women will liberate themselves.” 
​        All in all, the contributors to this anthology encourage, motivate and inspire us to pick up our most powerful pièce de resistance: our pens. The time is here. The moment is now. We MUST write to right the wrongs and this book can be one of our guiding lights. 

The Secret Emissary by Roberto de Haro 
Gatekeeper Press, 2024: 414 pages 
 
The Secret Emissary is a novel about a fictional Jesuit priest, Luis Esquerre Calella de Valderano, born in Guaymas, Mexico, in 1893, an exceptionally talented offspring of a wealthy, well-connected Mexican-Spanish family. It is the story of his becoming and being a priest and, in his words, “a secret agent for the Pope and the Jesuit Father General and a co-conspirator with a French woman responsible for an underground network.”  By the time of his elevation to the rank of cardinal after World War II, he has been embroiled in many major dramas of the first half of the 20th century and worked with major players in them. 
In his Foreword, Haro describes his novel as “the story of a young man’s life, his personal beliefs, and his commitment to the Catholic faith. It follows his life as a priest, and the factors that drive him to become a secret agent and contribute to the resistance movements in Europe against the Fascists and Nazis. He is forced to make choices that reveal his altruism and strength of character…. The dangerous risks that might lead to arrest, imprisonment, torture, and death, assumed by Father Luis reveal courage and bravery. It is to such altruistic people that we owe so much.” 
The book takes the form of a first-person narrative penned during the Fall of 1948. On the first page, Cardinal Valderano writes: “I will share a tale that has remained untold for many reasons. It is a story that pays tribute to people who during a time of crisis and danger were courageous and determined to help and save others at the expense of personal injury and even death. I played a role in this history and will be your narrator. What I am about to relate involves the commitment of many people, among them clerics and laypeople who risked their lives for others.” 
In this regard, the book serves the worthy goal of being a bit of an antidote for the cynicism, skepticism, disenchantment of our times, as intent as they have been upon destroying ideals and heroes. Think of Bob Dylan, often called the “spokesman of his generation” who, when asked whether he thought he had a purpose and a mission, replied: “Henry Miller said it: The role of an artist is to inoculate the world with disillusionment.” The time is indeed overdue to destroy the icons of the iconoclasts, restore ideals, rebuild a sense of heroism. 
In these days of fake and adulterated news, mendacious scholarship, the continuing aspersions of the leyenda negra, etc., often aimed at discrediting the very people, institutions and events portrayed in this slice of 20th century history, it is refreshing to find Haro underscoring in his foreword that “a novel is fiction” and a statement on the back of the title page acknowledging: “This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.” 
Haro’s novel is composed of four parts divided into 22 chapters, each beginning with a thought-provoking epigram, the sources of which are so illustrious as to merit being listed in full. They are: Dante, Thomas Mann, Einstein, Epictetus, Edmund Spenser, the Book of Revelations, Milton, Buddhist scripture, Edmund Burke, Shakespeare, Josh Billings, Marcus Manilius, Richard Crashaw, Disraeli, Unamuno, Gaston Pierre Marc, Sun-tzu, Hitler and Dostoevsky. Within this work these epigrams are enigmatic enough to invite deep reflection, thus raising it to a higher intellectual level than is usually found in historical novels. They also make it a more challenging read for those seeking to decipher their meaning in it and are revelatory of the breadth of the author’s erudition and the depth of his thought. 
The book’s first chapters describe Luis’ childhood and the awakening of his vocation. Decisive were talks with his great-uncle Simon, a bishop, who explained to the eleven-year-old boy that some people have a special feeling of God in their heart that make them want to know more about Him, His teachings and His purpose for them in life. He arranged for Luis to have a personal tutor, Brother Tracey, through whom he learned about his faith and love of God. For Luis, his tutor’s first Mass was a “marvel,” “like a message from God, an invitation to something mysterious and compelling” which captured his heart and soul and left him “spellbound.” When he was fifteen, his mother (a brilliant, attractive, well-educated, headstrong, outspoken woman inclined to idealize progressive and some radical causes), told him that she, his father, Bishop Simon and Brother Tracey saw something special in him, that he would become an important person and should go to Spain to find his mission in life. 
Luis’ “love of God and belief in the Catholic Church opened a door” to his future when Bishop Simon explained to him: “To be a priest is a noble calling that involves loving God, extending our faith to others, and making our Church strong and resilient. Within the priesthood spokespersons are essential to discreetly open pathways to promote our Church, our beliefs and mission.” When asked what was required to be a priest, the bishop replied that one must feel a desire in one’s heart and mind to serve God and the Church. “To follow God’s way requires strength, love, and dedication… you must search within yourself for the dedication and perseverance to become a priest…. If necessary test your faith to know if you are making the right decision.” When Luis asked what was meant by testing, Bishop Simon answered: “Meditate, learn about what is expected of someone who wants to devote his life to God and the Church, speak to those you love and express to them your desire to become a priest.” So, with the help of his family’s “generous financial contributions to the Vatican,” Luis entered a seminary in Spain, where he was the “top student” in most of his classes. 
In 1914, Luis moved to Rome to prepare for the priesthood, where none other than Fr. Achille Ratti, the future Pope Pius XI, praised him and encouraged him in his desire to earn a doctorate in philosophy and become a professor. He oriented him toward diplomacy and encouraged him as an organist and pianist. He (who in real life was not yet a bishop) ordained him. Generous monetary contributions from his family smoothed the way for him to study at the Gregorian University to become a Jesuit. Fr. Ratti introduced him to Fr. Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII (who was not yet the nuncio he is portrayed as being here). 
During the winter of 1917-18, Fr. Luis became a prolific writer of letters, through which he shared his thoughts and feelings about his faith in words revealing the strength of his devotion to Catholicism in a “personal and intrinsic manner.” Believing that loyalty to a faith often requires explaining why, he wrote about the courage to believe in its traditions and mysteries. He stressed that his faith was deeply personal and sustained him even when dismissed or challenged by others, that dealing with antagonists required humility, understanding and patience, but resolute commitment to his beliefs and open-mindedness often helped him to prevail. He was anchored in the conviction that by believing fervently and remaining true to one’s principles one would persevere. ​

​He enjoyed exceptionally close ties with his older brother Ruben, who became famous for his achievements as a military leader and authority on modern warfare. They were brothers “who cared deeply about each other and were willing to sacrifice all they had for the other.” Ruben told him, “aside from Mama, I am your proudest and most supportive friend and ally. Whatever you may require as a priest, or in your assignments, ask me and I will do my best to help.” “You are a man of God who thinks first about others. I love and admire you.” 
In the midst of World War I, Ruben was appointed military liaison and combat observer in Mexico’s European Consular Service. In March 1918, when Fr. Luis was preparing his doctoral thesis on Vatican international relations and diplomacy, Ruben sent him a life-changing letter inviting him to meet with diplomats in Paris. Fr. Ratti privately advised him: “God has made available, through you, a valuable insight into the diplomatic circles that operate in Paris. There is much to learn about foreign affairs maneuvering in Paris. Record as much as you can.” 
This is when Fr. Luis met one of the most prominent members of French society, the stylish, beautiful, brilliant, well-educated Nadine Desnoyers, a well-informed, successful businessperson, clear thinker and articulate speaker having “a prudent and rational approach to business, politics, and human nature.” She was from a wealthy old aristocratic family and the wife of a French diplomat. She and Ruben would be his premier collaborators in the covert activities into which he was increasingly drawn. Their financial transactions enriched his family, who repeatedly made opportune generous monetary contributions to his causes. As Cardinal Luis recalled: “I had my faith in God, the love and support of Ruben and my family, and the good fortune to be Nadine’s friend.” He once whispered to her: “My mother and family have done so much for me. But you, too, are responsible for my accomplishments and successes. I am forever in your debt. Trying to hide her tears, she embraced him saying that no friendship was stronger….” 
There is no question of impropriety in his friendship with Nadine, about whose infidelity to her unfaithful husband and child by another man, Fr. Luis is surprisingly complaisant. When Pius XI later inquired about their relationship, he described her as “a remarkable woman, a sophisticated patron of the arts, a successful business leader, and genuinely admired and respected by political leaders in France.” He explained her role as an entrée into the highest levels of society in France, the Church and the Faith, her financial support for his Church assignments. The Pope told him to enhance their important and valuable relationship. 
Fr. Luis left Paris in 1918 with his head “swimming with possibilities” involving international relations and diplomacy. More than ever he wanted the doctorate. He prayed to God for help and a chance to participate in Vatican diplomatic relations. Then, once his thesis was completed, defended and approved, by Pope Benedict XV himself, he was told to report to the Institut Catholique in Paris to prepare it for publication, teach, minister to the wounded, learn Portuguese and secretly exchange information with the Mexican ambassador. 
Back in Paris and “determined to establish the unsanctioned diplomatic ties and to do all that was necessary for their success,” Fr. Luis sought to obtain reliable information about the dismantling of the old European empires and the creation of new nations after the war so that the Church could prepare for changes affecting her. Future American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, then serving as legal counsel to the American delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference read his thesis, which he judged: “an outstanding treatise on international relations, and the Catholic Church’s use of diplomacy to establish and develop its dogma in the Americas and the South Pacific.” 
Part Two of the book commences when Fr. Luis is called back to Rome upon the completion of his book, an immediate bestseller, whose publication led to numerous speaking engagements and invitations to meet senior diplomats. Recognizing this great service to the order, the Superior General of the Jesuits, Fr. Ledóchowski, instructed him to act as a liaison between the Jesuit provinces and the Vatican diplomatic corps while continuing his research, writing, teaching, piano and organ playing and being trained as a diplomat for the Vatican. He was to write a book on the Jesuit order in the Americas. His next mission was as a researcher, scribe, historian for a Church commission journeying throughout South America for over a year. The authorities in Rome were impressed by his reports, which awakened considerable interest. 
Mussolini was rising to power. At the end of 1925, Ledóchowski confided that he could not remain silent while their people were being persecuted, arrested and tortured. He needed Fr. Luis’ help to contact and coordinate with resistance groups in Europe and engage people of their faith and persuasion to challenge the Fascist threat. He wanted him to be his “secret agent” in a covert process to challenge the sinister evil of Fascism. No one must know of their pact. This work with the resistance must never be revealed. 
Pope Pius XI, formerly Fr. Ratti, also assigned him missions, including secret ones. He was to endeavor to improve diplomatic relations with the Americans to enhance the faith where they exercised influence and control and to learn everything he could about how they viewed and treated Catholic immigrants and helped them to settle in the United States. He would go there as a member of the Vatican Diplomatic Corps and covertly as a secret Church emissary. He was also to think about how the Church could help the persecuted escape “the Fascist tentacles.” 
This was also a time of intense religious persecution in Mexico, about which Fr. Luis could provide important intelligence through Ruben, who knew of the brutal treatment, arrest, imprisonment and killing of priests, the violation and murder of nuns by the Mexican authorities. In Santo Domingo Fr. Luis interviewed survivors who had been beaten, maimed, violated, tortured, arrested. The Bishop of Havana told him of the loosing of the forces of evil in Mexico. Some had endured horrific cruelty and could not erase the terror seen and endured. Lives had been shattered. From there, he traveled to the eastern United States, where lecturing and concertizing served as a cover for his covert activities. 
He was then assigned additional covert activities, some of them involving helping persecuted people to flee Italy as Mussolini tightened his grip on the country, ruthlessly persecuting, incarcerating or killing his opponents. He, Ruben and Nadine, a brave, “clever and resourceful partner,” developed and expanded secret underground networks about which only the Pope, Ledóchowski, Pacelli and a certain Cardinal Ulzana were privy, but of which they could never openly admit any knowledge. 
Sent to review missionary activities in the South Pacific in 1930, he visited Vietnam, where he found “collusion between Church clerics, French landowners and businessmen and military leaders,” who “ruled with an iron hand” and “clearly room for improved treatment of the people.” Next, he journeyed to Macao, where his overall impression was one of rampant vice and sin and the exploitation of women and children. During his next stop in the Philippines, he was attacked, tortured and nearly killed by bandits. 
Returning to Rome, his health seriously impaired, both Ledóchowski and Pius XI assured him that he was a favorite of God. Pius even caressed his “head tenderly” saying: “God has spoken to me about you. Our Lord has important plans for you, my son.” He later told him: “God in his infinite wisdom has given us a new light to illuminate our progress. You.” When he was admitted into the diplomatic corps in 1924, Pacelli similarly told him: “God has imbued you with an inner light that will illuminate our path to enhancements favorable to our Faith and Church.” Fr. Luis in fact continually receives head-turning compliments and is ever self-confident. With prescience bordering on omniscience, he accurately time after time advises the Popes about the turn events will take. ​

Next, Fr. Luis is ordained a bishop and assigned to serve as a special diplomatic envoy at the pleasure of the Pope and Ledóchowski, who called him his “secret agent.” He was to be the Pope’s eyes and ears, a special envoy assigned special missions involving sensitive matters with hidden agendas requiring the utmost secrecy. Bishop Luis would in fact end up having his finger in more pies during critical moments in those momentous times than can be discussed here. For example, aware that he served as a secret conduit to resistance groups, at the end of 1938, Ledóchowski recruited him to collaborate secretly with them to counter the despicable actions of the Fascists in Europe, to undermine Fascist governments in Italy and Germany and resist their repressive activities. Then, there would be the Spanish Civil War and negotiations with Generalissimo Franco in its aftermath. 
In Part Three, Bishop Luis discovers how complex, secretive and dangerous his roles in the diplomatic corps will be. Alarmed by the dangerous nationalism sweeping Germany, he expressed his deep concern over this to Secretary of State Pacelli, who asked him whether he foresaw problems. To his affirmative reply, Pacelli answered: “I pray your assessments of Hitler and what might happen in Germany will not materialize. However, there is little we can say or do publicly. Besides… it is premature to speculate about such matters. We must pray to the Lord for guidance and a positive outcome in Germany…. We must be patient and hope that reason will prevail.” Bishop Luis despaired that Pacelli “would not say anything negative about Hitler and the Nazis.” 
By underscoring the The Secret Emissary’s fictional nature, Haro has covered his bases. However, because of all the pseudo-scholarship and lies surrounding this subject, it is vital to connect some historical dots using facts drawn from extra-fictional reality, because Bishop Luis gravely misjudged Pacelli, who was an implacable enemy of Hitler and Nazism from the start. For example, on May 1, 1924, he wrote to Secretary of State Cardinal Gasparri that in his opinion nationalism or National Socialism was “perhaps the most dangerous heresy of our time.” The German philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, an early vocal critic of the Nazis, who finally sentenced him to death in absentia, often spoke with Pacelli, who stressed that Nazism and Catholicism were irreconcilable, that they were as opposed as fire and water. In words almost echoing Bishop Luis’ opposite impression, Ivone Kirkpatrick, a British diplomat at the Vatican who met regularly with Pacelli, reported to the British Foreign Office on August 19, 1933, that when asked about his opinion of the situation in Germany, Pacelli did not hide his disgust at what Hitler was doing. There was no word of excuse or palliation. He deplored the German government’s action domestically, the persecution of the Jews and political opponents, the reign of terror to which the whole nation was subjected. He saw no reason for easy optimism. To French Ambassador Charles-Roux’s frequent questions about what the future would bring, Pacelli would reply that he did not expect the situation to improve, but rather that it would grow worse. In a lengthy note of protest dated October 19, 1933, Pacelli enumerated the virtually intolerable persecutions and difficulties which the Catholic Church was enduring in Germany. On April 29, 1935, the New York Times quoted him as having said that the Nazis were “really only lamentable plagiarists who cover with new trumpery errors quite old. It matters little that they mass around the flag of social revolution. They are inspired by a false conception of the world and life. Whether they are possessed by superstition of race and blood, their philosophy, as that of others, rests upon principles essentially opposed to those of the Christian faith. And on such principles the church does consent to form a compact with them at any price.” 
In September 1935, Bishop Luis began teaching at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., where his books and lectures had generated excitement among the faculty and students. For Nadine and Ruben, now a political refugee in the United States following an assassination attempt, he was to gather intelligence to transmit to core operatives, meet and seek the support of influential Americans with the ear of the President and key members of Congress and find benefactors to help persecuted immigrants. For the Vatican, he was “to establish a process of goodwill and cooperation” while secretly enlisting support for the Church’s needs. For Ledóchowski, he was to promote Jesuit activities and attract benefactors. 
During the stay, he discovered disturbing situations in parishes, particularly numerous instances of predatory practices by priests, including child abuse. However, upon returning to Rome in late 1935, he was disappointed and vexed to find that, while praising his reports, Pacelli had nothing to say about scandalous clerical misbehavior. 
Here again there is a need to defend the real-life Pacelli who, in his address to priests on April 26, 1935, at the Basilica Our Lady of the Rosary in Lourdes, France, had decried the painful spectacle of the disgrace and scandal of shameful, sacrilegious priests, who were to work for the salvation of souls, but had become instruments of Satan, other demons, for their ruin. Moreover, as Secretary of State during those years he had to deal with the highly publicized “immorality” trials in Germany, where hundreds of priests, monks, brothers and nuns were being charged with sexual crimes and child abuse. For instance, on May 28, 1936, the New York Times reported that in Coblenz, 276 Catholic monks had been sentenced on charges of immorality, on June 6, 1936, that a priest had been sentenced to eight years of penal servitude for 45 immoral offenses, and on May 15, 1937, that another priest had been sentenced to five years in prison for immoral conduct with several young girls. On June 7, 1937, it reported that pastoral letters about the immorality trials had been read in several dioceses and pamphlets distributed recognizing that sin and weakness had always walked alongside the Church and unqualified persons sometimes became priests or members of religious orders, that the Church had never denied that some priests might be bad, but that they were only a very small percentage of the clergy. On May 31, 1937, Time Magazine reported that according to official figures published in Germany “numerous” priests and more than a thousand lay brothers had been charged with immorality and 53 convicted, and on June 14, 1937, that the Berlin diocese had ordered a pamphlet read from pulpits in response to a tirade by Josef Goebbels about the general shocking decadence of morals among priests. 
In 1938, Germany annexed Austria, negotiated the Munich Pact and invaded the Sudetenland, after which, Pacelli, Ledóchowski and Pius XI relieved Bishop Luis from his duties for ten days to meditate and commit himself to a course of tactfulness, restraint, patience and forbearance because of intemperate remarks he had made about Hitler’s dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. A sad, weary Pacelli told him that he appreciated his passion, but men of faith and the Church had to be tactful and meditative in coping with enmity and conflict and not let emotions obviate their vows. A tired, irritable Pius XI patted him on the head and told him that he understood his frustration, but certain proprieties had to be observed. Ventilating anger and frustration in public was never productive. Bishop Luis felt frustrated about the way the Church was distancing herself from the danger Hitler posed. 
Yet, in extra-fictional reality, in early 1937 Pacelli had supervised the preparation of Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety), Pius’ 15,800 word anti-Nazi encyclical, which was read at Palm Sunday masses throughout Germany unleashed both furor and applause. A member of the French Academy who heard it read said that it struck like a bomb. French Ambassador Charles-Roux called it a major blow in terms of substance and a thunderbolt in terms of launching ?     . Newspapers throughout the world analyzed it. 
The reverberations in Germany were immense. Hitler was furious. His authority had been defied publicly before the whole world. The Nazi leadership was outraged. It was an act of treachery, a subversive act, a direct assault on the state. The Nazi Foreign Office said that the German government considered it a call to Catholic citizens to rebel against the authority of the Reich. For Schwarze Korps, the newspaper of the SS, every sentence was an insult to the new Germany. In a sermon, Bishop von Galen quoted from a letter from the Gestapo saying that it endangered the public order and contained treasonable attacks on the National Socialist State. All copies were to be seized, its reproduction and distribution forbidden, the printers’ shops closed. ​

​In his memoir, Cardinal Luis confessed to having felt discomfort about withholding pertinent information from his closest collaborators about the Pope’s concern for the Allied cause, which had to remain secret. Once again, it is important to point out that Pius XII’s concern for the Allied cause was no secret. For example, on December 23, 1939, President Roosevelt, met during his visit to the States in 1936, wrote a letter to Pius, whom he said he had “the privilege of calling a good friend and an old friend.” In it, he expressed his desire to send a personal representative to the Holy See to assist their “parallel endeavors for peace and the alleviation of suffering.” Pius ended his Christmas Eve broadcast by expressing his joy and congratulating and thanking Roosevelt for his noble and generous gesture. He said he could not have received any more pleasant news for Christmas than this opportunity to collaborate to establish a just and honorable peace and act more effectively and extensively to alleviate the sufferings of the victims of the war.  
In reply to what he called Roosevelt’s “exemplary act of fraternal and hearty solidarity,” Pius called the letter a “courageous document, inspired by a far-seeing statesmanship and a profound human sympathy” which had “brightened with a ray of consolation, of hope and confidence, the suffering, the heart-rending fear and bitterness of the peoples caught up in the vortex of war.” He acknowledged “with grateful joy” that sign of “providential help” which he saw as “an exemplary act of fraternal and hearty solidarity… in defence against the chilling breath of aggressive and deadly godless and anti-Christian tendencies that threaten to dry up the fountainhead, whence civilization has come and drawn its strength.” In a later letter, Pius wrote of feeling “a distinct sense of comfort in the thought that We shall not be without the powerful support of the President of the United States.” 
Their exchanges were followed by major newspapers throughout the world. For example, on December 28, 1939, the Palestine Post noted that the Allies’war aims and the Pope’s terms were basically the same. On March 18, 1940, Time Magazine wrote of how the Pope had “made it pretty clear that on the moral issues he is with the Allies.” On June 26, 1940, the Gazette de Lausanne wrote that, down to his acts, Pius XII had not hesitated to take sides clearly before the chaos of the forces unleashed in Europe. On September 28, 1939, the New York Times had reported that the Vatican’s friendly attitude toward Roosevelt was more evident than ever, that it was impossible not to perceive the almost literal identity of Roosevelt’s essential points and the Pontiff’s principles. On January 23, 1940, when the Soviet Union and Germany were allied, it reported that the Soviet newspaper Izvestia had called the Pope “a tool of Great Britain and France,” on December 25, 1941, that the Pope’s program was basically in agreement with the Roosevelt-Churchill eight-point declaration, and on October 4, 1942, that the similarity between Pius’ and Roosevelt’s conceptions of international order was so striking that no explanation was necessary.  
Cardinal Luis never hides his admiration for outstanding women. Besides the nearly superhuman Nadine, he liked and admired Eleanor Roosevelt whom he wanted as a friend, something he credits God for having brought about. He considered her a special person with a keen mind, well-informed, socially conscious and imbued with progressive idealism. Through her, he met her husband, who appreciated his work to gather intelligence difficult to obtain through official channels. She also introduced him to other accomplished women, notably Roosevelt’s long-term Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, who gave him valuable advice and assistance with job training efforts for immigrants and exiles. 
On two occasions, Cardinal Luis alludes to his knowledge of Pius XII’s secret direct line of communication with Hitler about which, given today’s unpardonable, or feigned, ignorance of so much that transpired between the Catholic Church and the Nazis, it is worth being more expansive. He was probably remembering Pius’ early exchanges with Prince Philipp von Hessen, the King of Italy’s Nazi son-in-law, when the Pope was trying to avoid the outbreak and then the spreading of World War II and also maintaining the now well-documented secret line of communication with German military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel and civilians conspiring to kill Hitler, something Cardinal Luis also alludes to when writing that as a confidant of the Pope he had been sworn to secrecy regarding Pius’ liaisons with the German resistance and their plots to eliminate Hitler. 
Part Four is the story of how the defeat of France in June 1940 changed Bishop Luis’ life. On the last page of Part Three Cardinal Luis had written: “I had served as a covert emissary for the Pope. But with the Nazi victory, it was necessary to do other things to eliminate the Nazi cancer that threatened to destroy democracy in Europe and beyond.” He redoubled his efforts to rescue people from Nazi terror. Nadine decided to modify their network’s activities to make it an escape route for refugees and to gather intelligence for the Americans about German civil and military activities and Nazi international relations. He was to select and train operatives, develop liaisons with resistance groups and act as a secret conduit between the Vatican and their sources of information.  
Without consulting his superior or the Pope, whose approval he eventually received, he decided to relocate to Lisbon to establish a center to assist refugees to leave Europe. Brisk sales of an album of his piano playing led to invitations to play recitals in various countries, notably Switzerland, Portugal and the United States, the income from which he donated to aid the real-life rescue efforts of Fr. Hugh O’Flaherty, whom Haro cites in his Foreword as having exemplified the altruism and strength of character attributed to his novel’s protagonist. In February 1942, Pius XII encouraged him to engage in new covert activities to assist the Allies. General George Marshall, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was to become an invaluable, lifelong friend. After the war, Bishop Luis would be part of a group that Marshall created to advise President Truman and himself “during those hectic and busy times” when as U. S. Secretary of State he developed the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the NATO Pact. 
Certain of Bishop Luis’ actions during the war later led him to experience a ghastly nightmare “encapsulated by” his “dual role as a man of the cloth and a covert instrumentality of mayhem and death. It became indelibly seared in his memory, and he would never be able to reconcile his dual roles. He berated himself and asked for God’s forgiveness. 
Haro did well to cover his bases in his Foreword by stressing that writers should always challenge the imagination and reality, because his novel does sometimes stretch the imagination. For example, the ease with which Fr. Luis falls in with the great movers and shakers of his time may seem contrived, or the lucrativeness of Fr. Luis’ books may seem unlikely to a real-life author. However, I have had done enough research on the subjects dealt with here and had enough experience on the fringes of elite milieux of the Cold War variety to find much of what Haro describes plausible.  
The coincidences are far too many to relate here. So, I will just mention three. For one, had Fr. Luis been a real person, he might have known my spiritual director of 23 years, the Jesuit philosopher Jacques Sommet, who was deported to Dachau for his work in a network helping people escape over the Pyrenees into Spain. And, while working with Basques to help people flee over the Pyrenees, Bishop Luis might have worked with my Basque-New Mexican cousin, Armando Larragoite, who spied for the Allies in the Pyrenees. He told me how collaborators of his were found and killed while he was away praying in a church as his mother told him always to do. Most astonishing to me is that among those whose company he enjoyed in Paris in 1918 were Albert Lebrun, a minister in the French government, and his wife, who were the great-grandparents of one of my best friends. Mysteriously, however, Lebrun is never again mentioned in the book, although he was the president of France from 1932 to 1940, Pius XI awarded him the Supreme Order of Christ, the highest order of chivalry awardable by the Pope in 1935. Mrs. Lebrun and their daughter visited Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, and she and her husband received Pacelli during his visit to Paris in 1937. ​

By Álvaro Ramírez
                                                   I
 
Signora Tattaglia sat in her small wooden porch waiting for the newspaper that she wasn't going to read. I walked up the steps and smiled as she greeted me in Italian: ‘Buon pomeriggio.’ I nodded my head to acknowledge her greeting and handed her the paper. She then asked me to sit down on the plastic folding chair across from her and handed me a sandwich. This time it was meatballs with red sauce. ‘Mangia, mangia,’ said Signora Tattaglia. And I took a big bite of that wonderfully delicious food.

Her green side-paneled house was on the lower part of Elberen Street where the Italians had bought just about every house. With the exception of Beep-Beep and his mom, Jumbo's family and Mr. West, a black man who lived at the bottom of the street, on the corner with Waverley, everyone else on Elberen Street was a De Chellis, Lalama, Tattaglia, Naples. Proud descendants of the Romans from the south of Italy and Sicily, they had traded forging iron swords for the production of steel that built the cities of the American Empire. 

I ran into some of their sons and daughters at Chaney High School. Many of the boys excelled in sports especially American football, though this fact baffled me. Italy was a perennial powerhouse in soccer and had recently lost the World Cup final to Brazil in Mexico City, yet none of these Italiano boys played soccer! They would rather run around with a ball in their hands into walls of people than handle the ball gracefully with their feet. Their women were beautiful, but off limits to us non-Italians. We knew that well and never went near them. Fruta prohibida, if you know what I mean. Elberen Street was a super Catholic enclave where you felt the presence of the Pope. Saint Joseph was always hovering watching over everyone, even me, the Mexican paperboy. For abstaining from those beautiful pasta-fed Italian girls, He rewarded me with lots of great newspaper customers in that small replica of Italy.
 
                                                 II
 
Signora Tattaglia waited in silence while I ate the meatball sandwich. Through the front screen door I could make out vague sounds of an afternoon television show. She seemed to enjoy watching me eat. The questions were on the tip of her tongue. I took a sip of the lemonade and she said: ‘Tua madre, come sta?’ ‘Bien,’ I answered. ‘Tuo padre, labora?’ ‘Sí.’

The questions and answers flowed easily, almost naturally. The kinship between our languages was a pleasant discovery we had made the first time she asked me to sit with her to rest on the porch of her house on a hot smoggy afternoon. ‘Siediti, perfavore,’ she said making a gesture with her hand. Her voice sounded like a gentle melody I somehow understood and gladly dropped the heavy burlap bag full of newspapers I had been carrying. ‘Gracias,’ I said seated in the chair that would come to know well my scrawny butt. She must have felt pity for me when she saw me walking in the searing heat trudging up to her porch to deliver the afternoon paper. I was bathed in sweat, my T-shirt sticking to my boney ribs.

She and I sat there in a friendly silence looking at melting cars pass by on the infernal street. ‘Aspetta un minuto,’ she said, and I heard ‘Espera un minuto.’ She went inside the house and I waited in the warm shade of her porch, the rattle and hum of the steel mills in the far background. A hummingbird was rummaging through the bushes and plants pecking here and there, searching for nectar in wilting flowers.

Presently, she returned with a large cold glass of lemonade and handed it to me. ‘Gracias,’ I said cordially. She sat down and leaned a bit toward me. I looked into her gleaming eyes, small mirrors reflecting tiny images. She asked me slowly: ‘Come ti chiama?’ She repeated the question, and I got the sense she was asking my name. ‘Álvaro,’ I responded. She repeated my name. It sounded strange as she stressed the wrong syllable. No big deal to me. It's still my name, I thought, but in Italian. The lemonade felt like a piece of paradise in my stomach and lifted my spirits. ‘Alvaro, io sono Signora Luciana Tattaglia,’ she said, pointing an index finger toward herself. ‘Mucho gusto, señora.’ I drank another draught of the dreamy, sweet lemonade and I felt her kind soft gaze on me. ‘Dove vive la tua famiglia?’ I told her we lived on the corner of Salt Springs Road and Broadview Street. Then, there was a barrage of simple questions in Italian that I understood with some effort: your country, your father, your mother, sisters, brothers? And my brief answers in Spanish: México, works in the railroad, my mom at home, eight brothers and sisters. She approved each of my responses with ‘bene, bene,’ and a nod of her head. Finally, there was a pause. I stood up and handed her the empty glass and told her I needed to go finish my route. ‘Gracias por la limonada.’ I heard one more ‘bene’ and her wonderful smile sent me off.
 
                                                 III
 
It became common for me to make a brief stop at Signora Tattaglia's house whenever she was sitting on her porch. Always, she had a treat for me: a large slice of pizza, sandwiches filled with sausage or meatballs, and those wonderful glasses of lemonade. I feasted on all that food like a Mexican thinking he was a Roman god.

During these short visits we learned about each other's lives in bits and pieces that the familiarity of our languages allowed us to share. What I knew for sure was that she was from Calabria and her husband had been a steelworker at Sheet and Tube. She had a granddaughter and two grandsons, one of which I saw in school. ‘Tu lo conosci?’ Yes, I did know him, Sal, a shy, quiet boy who kept to himself. Despite the linguistic limitations, little by little I began to form a picture of her life in my head and, I suppose, she was also creating a picture of me with all the questions she asked about my hometown, my family, and our move to the United States. 

What seemed to interest her most was my life in Michoacán. I remember when she asked me what my father did in Messico and I told her that he worked in ‘el campo,’ a farmer that grew corn. ‘Poco, no mucho,’ I clarified to make sure she understood that we didn't own a hacienda or some Ponderosa Ranch like the family in ‘Bonanza,’ the TV show that she may have watched. She leaned forward, her face lit up with happiness, and told me her father also ‘laborava sul campo in Italia.’ And then she went off speaking in a fast and beautiful musical madness. I only half understood that it was in a small town, and there were mountains, and it was olives that he grew or harvested. She sat back with her hands clasped under her chin and smiled with wonder at me as if she had discovered something of great importance, a revelation. ‘Agricoltura,’ said Signora Tattaglia, nodding her head with an air of nostalgia. ‘Anche noi.’ I mirrored her warm campesino smile.
                                                                       
                                               IV
 
As I walked away that afternoon, I thought to myself: these Italians are farmers, country folk just like us. Why hadn't I thought of that before? Like all her neighbors, Signora Tattaglia's house had a lush green appendage: a vegetable garden that took up most of the space in the backyard. No playing football or soccer back there, that's for sure. It was a sacred spot that received the most tender care. Hell, I knew that. Every time we played baseball with the Broadview boys over on Billy's field, we made sure not to hit the ball into Bambina's garden next door. If we did, Mr. Bambina would march over like a Roman praetorian guard, retrieve the baseball among the tomatoes and peppers, and slice it up into pieces with a huge knife right before our eyes. You couldn't mess with their women and you couldn't mess with their gardens. Both were sacred to them.

I began to feel a tinge of regret. All those times I had joined with other mischievous friends to raid someone's Italian garden pushed by the dark boredom of summer nights. My conscience was suddenly uneasy. I hoped Saint Joseph would overlook those misdeeds and not take my customers away from me. I even thought of going to confession, though I walked that back when I realized I didn't know how to do the ritual in English! I would just have to change my evil ways on my own and hope it would atone for my past sins against my Italian paisanos.
 
                                                 V
 
The next time I saw Signora Tattaglia I still felt pangs of guilt in my conscience. As usual she asked me to sit and rest a bit, and gave me a piece of tasty pizza with an extra dose of garlic. She looked overly happy and eager to converse. When I finished the pizza, she handed me a picture: “Sono io,” she said, smiling peevishly. ‘Quatordici anni.’ In the flood of words she let loose on me, I heard Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, New York, and Mario. I looked intently at the black and white image I held in my hand. It was a picture of a young, beautiful Signora Tattaglia and a man whom I eventually figured out was her brother. They were just off the boat in New York City, staring at the camera lens as if looking into the unknown.    

“¿Es usted?” I asked while pointing with my finger to the picture and to her. I wanted to make sure I had understood her long explanation. “Si, sono io.” “‘Muy bonita,” I said, almost coquettishly. She smiled and specks of afternoon light glinted in her eyes. “¿Cuándo llegó aquí?” “Nell'anno dicianovi venti.” She had been in this country since 1920. A long time ago that was unfathomable to me. She had arrived before all the wars, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, even the Great Depression. All the new history I was being fed in school so I could be a good civic member of this country.  

I gazed at the picture intently, drawn by the reality that was there, a moment of her long life in my hands, captured, as they say, in an instant and frozen forever. “Estaba muy joven,” I murmured, still looking at the image. Hell, I thought, she was my age, an Italian teenager. A lot of questions were swelling inside my head, too many to ask. I probably would only catch bits and pieces of the story if I asked them. I raised my eyes and noticed Signora Tattaglia smiling, gazing at me with tenderness that I could feel reciprocated in me. It was a far-away look of a woman coming face to face with the realm of memories. I felt enveloped in her nostalgia. Presently, I remembered my paper route. I gave her back the picture. We didn't say good-by. We just smiled at each other as two people who know they share a wonderful secret.
 
                                               VI
 
The picture got a hold of me real good. For days it floated in my mind, wouldn't go away, and soon it began to distill a story dripping slowly from my imagination: the story of Signora Tattaglia. I put together a string of images in my head. I saw the young woman and her brother leaving a rustic mountain Italian village; madre e padre, relatives, friends, the town priest, all together for the last hugs and blessings; baggage filled with clothes and memories, the grief of departure; the last look at the familiar world, the mountains and valleys bathed in sad sun morning light. Weeks on a crowded boat, the blue Mediterranean and Atlantic. Slowly drifting by the awesome Statue of Liberty, the tumultuous line of people and mazes of authority at Ellis Island. Anxiety and trepidation alternating as she made her way through the concrete heart of New York, the glistening skyscrapers tearing into the blue skies of the new country. Finally, the trip by train she and her brother made to the Mahoning Valley where jobs awaited the men in the steel mills and railroads of America.

Signora Tattaglia knew every picture tells a story. You don't need words to tell it. She was right about that. All roads didn't lead to Rome. Histories converged in unexpected places. We had traveled similar paths from different countries that led to the same destination. My journey had been with a family of ten, in crowded, smelly buses, jumping like in a hopscotch game from city to city in Mexico. The watery crossing hadn't been as spectacular as hers, just the dirty waters of the Río Bravo, which the gringos insisted in calling the Río Grande. No welcoming statues with poetic words in hand greeted us, or an Ellis Island. Only the gray Greyhound bus station in Laredo, Texas, that assaulted all the senses accustomed to a different environment, natural not artificial. Strange smells, odd sounds, and the mixture of Spanish and English wafting over the air while we waited to board a bus with an image of a long thin dog running on its silvery side, a bus that slowly meandered its way into the heart of the Midwest cutting its way through mysterious, enigmatic vistas of deserts, prairies, and thick forests of green, as my Mexican world and language receded into the background.

I wished I had a picture of my brothers and sisters in the bus station in Laredo to commemorate the moment when we crossed into the Promised Land, a magical image that eternalized the moment of arrival. But I had nothing. No pictures of my hometown, the voyage, la migra checking our papers. It was frustrating that I couldn't share any of that with Signora Tattaglia, the way she had shared it with me. I soon realized it wasn't really necessary. It didn't matter. After all, in some way her picture included my story as well. 
 
                                              VII
 
I accompanied Signora Tattaglia on her bilingual porch again on the warm days of summer. We repeated the same social ritual, the same brief questions and answers and the food and lemonade interspersed with moments of silence. Sometimes Sal or his sister came out to the porch and joined us for an awkward minute, then went back into the house. I'm sure it was a bit odd to them that their grandmother liked to sit in silence with a Mexican kid with whom she didn't have much in common.

They had no idea their grandma and I were joined by a bond of experience they would never have. Half a century earlier, she had left her home to start a new life in a land far from her patria. Now she saw me replicating that pivotal moment of her past that she had ensconced away in her memories, which time now rekindled by way of a Mexican paperboy at the beginning of the same journey. Nostalgia of the crossing had come down like the Holy Spirit and thrust Signora Tattaglia in a game of reflecting mirrors. The more you looked the more the images multiplied.

It sure as hell was ironic that I was in school with Sal but it was his grandmother with whom I felt so much alike. Our stories entwined and comingled like the wine grape vines hanging on the fences separating the backyards in the Italian neighborhood. If followed  the vines back long enough, you would discover that the root of our experience, the source of our need to wander was the same.   
                                                           
                                            VIII
 
On one afternoon, I posed a question we had never discussed: “¿Signora, usted visita Calabria?”’ I made rudimentary gestures with my hand, as if I were playing a game of charade, to get the meaning across to her. “¿Ha regresado a su pueblo?” She fell silent for a moment. The question had come out of left field and she needed time to think, to weigh her memories and sort them out. A slight breeze was pushing the afternoon light down the street.  She emerged from her thoughts, gained her composure and as usual leaned a bit toward me and said with direct soft words: “Alvaro, la mia vita è qui”’ She opened up her arms slightly to emphasize her words: “Il mio mondo è qui.” She leaned back into the chair as a gust of wind came into the porch and made a whirlwind. Two birds chirping away flew over the green hedge by the side of the porch; they hesitated an instant and turned up the street.   

The answer should have been obvious to me. She had never returned to her hometown. Who could blame her? After all, Italy wasn't just on the other side of Pennsylvania. What’s more, the gamble she had taken as a teenager had paid off far beyond her dreams. In Ohio, Signora Tattaglia had recreated her world shaped by her memories of joy and sorrow of Italy, where she raised a new breed of proud Italians despite the distance that separated them from la madre patria. But make no mistake about it, they were also Americans who wore on their sleeve their faith and loyalty to the new country.

Signora Tattaglia had learned how to cross boundaries and succeed. In a word, she had cut off the national umbilical cord and survived. You had to admire her for that. Did a similar future await me? I had my doubts. My cord was still intact. Mexico was close, real close. If I wanted, I could easily return to the Mexican womb. Still, I did wonder if fifty years down the line, I would be repeating the cycle, caught in the hall of mirrors, watching myself in another fresh, young immigrant starting anew in the United Immigrant States of America.
 
                                                 IX
 
Time moved on and I found myself traveling in Italy. I had received a scholarship to study in Spain in a summer program from the University of Southern California. After finishing my literary studies, I journeyed by train to many of the free countries of Europe, harvesting new experiences and memories. None of these places was as meaningful to me as when I arrived in Italy.

As I wandered south by train through mountainous region, I took a break from Virgil's Aeneid, which I had been reading to pass the time from station to station. I was quiet and pensive, looking at the beautiful Italian countryside. Words from sporadic conversations in the train compartment flew out an open window never to be heard again. Images of the past were flipping in my head like the pages of a calendar in reverse. I was returning to the realm of memories.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Jim, an American from Indiana I had met a few hours before when we boarded the train in Rome. “Newspapers,” I said and he laughed at my strange answer. I faded back into the mountains out in the distance. The picture of Signora Tattaglia and her brother Mario flickered in the landscape. I wondered if the town from where they had set out on their voyage to America was one of those towns I saw elegantly attached on the side of the mountains like swallows’ nests. The thought brought a smile to my face. Then, it suddenly hit me. Swallows sometimes leave and never return. It was the enigma of people changing countries. I felt a tinge of sadness.
‘Mangia, Alvaro, mangia.’ Her soft melodious voice rang in my head and I saw the green house on Elberen Street, the balmy porch, pizza, sandwiches, lemonade, and Signora Tattaglia sitting on her plastic chair smiling like a saintly Madonna who had learned how to make ends meet in a country far from her swallow's nest.
​

The vivid imagery I encountered at the start of Pedro Iniguez’s debut poetry collection, Mexicans on the Moon, instantly drew me in. As I read about machines replacing farmworkers in verdant fields, because “robots are much faster,” and an old man, selling roses to afford boarding a spaceship to escape immolation, I felt a sense of both nostalgia and fear overcome me. I knew this story, and yet, I didn’t. I heard Iniguez give voices to refugees, migrants and minorities, but amidst futuristic landscapes, skillfully casting the familiar into extraordinary, sometimes eerie settings. Poem after poem—complete with a tribute to the sacrifice made by braceros “who perished to make this rock a home,” in “Dia de los Muertos” (p.32)—I sensed the power of resistance literature flowing through them, which, ultimately, contained more hope than horror. 
          With his characteristic facetious humor, ethical commentary and uncanny ability to seamlessly fuse the two, this prolific, multiple award-winning author’s first poetry collection does not disappoint. Iniguez’s work is replete with thoughtful commentary on class and privilege, extraction and exploitation, and other lingering effects of colonial hegemony. In “Transhumanistic classroom,” (p.39) avarice becomes synonymous with inhumanity, as flesh is replaced with technically enhanced body parts. In “Scabs: A Capitalist Love Story” (p. 48) nameless refugees become “laborious undead;” industrious heroes that “toil to build a Utopia for all.” And on page 60, “The Things That Killed Us: A History Through Art,” creatively paints a doomsday picture of the circuitous senselessness of violence. From a writer with mucho corazón, implicit in the narrative, is an exposition of how brown gente resiliently negotiate heartlessness, even as they make their way to the moon.    
          Among those Iniguez gives a voice to is planet Earth, as many of the offerings in this collection ring like loud warnings against ecological negligence. This thoughtful emphasis meaningfully—and horrifically—accentuates the ultimate impact capitalistic values are having on the land: values contrary to those of Iniguez’ ancestors, who lived in harmony with nature.  
          “Intergalactic Rest Stop” (p.27) depicts planet Earth as a “lowly” place that space travelers use as a trash dump. Looking through a similar portal on page 64, Iniguez imagines how we humans must appear to a higher species who portray us as “zealots who came to the landfills / offering their waste as a tribute to cruel gods… / until there was no sacrifice left to offer, but the planet itself.” The book is full of potent, sensitively crafted, speculative ecopoetry set in future space in direct dialogue with the environmental crisis we face today. 
          Like emergency sirens, the theme of dangerous departures from ancestral values—and the imperialist apathy required to sustain them—resounds through much of the collection, ingeniously sprinkled with humor for easier digestion. Nevertheless, have a tissue handy, for tearjerkers like “The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End.” (p.11) that begs readers to “Think of the children, / screaming.” 
          Ultimately though, like all powerful resistance literature, this book is mostly about hope, and the cultural nourishment that makes hope enduring. Like the taco buggies darting through space on page 29, or the new burial rituals depicted in “Cadaverous Cumbia” (p.31), replacing lamentation with celebration. Iniguez captures an unshakable ability to dream, even amidst tragedy. Like in the poem “Martiacans” (p. 23), which begins with living in “slums” and ends with “here too shall rise great pyramids.” There is an unmistakable uplifting buoyancy to this collection: one we glean only became possible after Iniguez dove deeply into the heaviness in his own heart. Not just for los que sobrevivieron tanto, but in relation to his relationship with his own father.
          In his preface, Iniguez recounts a time in his life, as an enthusiastic third-grader, when he eagerly shared his first poem with his father, only to be “shut down” by emotionless critiques. Harboring resentment in his heart, it took Iniguez nearly 20 years to write another poem. But not only did Iniguez write another poem, he wrote a whole book of poems! And lovingly dedicates it to his father, whom he credits for introducing him to the world of science-fiction. In the author’s words: “Science fiction is about possibilities: the possibility of better tomorrows, the possibility to love, the possibility to heal, and to forgive. That there is still time to change the outcome of our lives.” 
          Sometimes, letting go of resentments can feel as difficult as reaching the moon. And yet, the author achieves it, on both counts. Very likely a metaphor for a soft heart, Iniguez’s moon is made of masa just “waiting to be shaped.” The moon’s craters, instead of hollows, become symbols of abundance: “like clay bowls / overrun with food.” We hear Iniguez triumphantly describe the transformative power of love as a radiance that “warms that cold, dead rock / until it is a home,” to the familiar and festive sound of mariachi music.
          Mexicans on The Moon, is not only fantastical visionary poetics narrated through a Mexican American lens, but also a story about possibilities born of forgiveness and healing. Through the example Iniguez sets, this work acts as a testament to the great distances reached when unhindered in one’s journey—creative, or other—by emotional baggage. 
          There is a palpable love-thread woven through this collection: Fathers can be forgiven, Mexicans do reach the moon, and in the interim, while enduring long and dark intergalactic travels, Iniguez compassionately reminds readers that we are never alone. In “Together Through the Void,” (p.61), a man prepares to leave Earth’s wasteland in a cryopod, when a dog hobbles up to him: “no better companion / in all the cosmos.” Together, they “depart for new worlds,” the dog’s pregnant belly a sweet symbol of hope in the future. 
          In the end, I can’t help but think of little, precocious Pedro, watching science-fiction films with his father, noticing his gente missing from the depictions of the future glowing on his T.V screen, asking himself “Did we die out in those futures?” The fifty speculative poems in Mexicans on The Moon affirm that we didn’t. That we will, definitely, make it hasta la luna, and beyond! As Pedro says, “Sometimes, we must write ourselves into the futures we want, before we’re left out of them by someone else. So I did.” 

Luz Schweig
​Editor, Somos Xicanas 

by Gloria Delgado

Late afternoon: Tuesday 10/10/23, single vehicle accident on I-25 near Glorieta, about 5:30 p.m., still daylight, no weather problems, light traffic; subject vehicle, a Toyota FJ Cruiser, driving the speed limit in right lane, observed by multiple witnesses to suddenly collapse onto its right side, spin out of control, slide across both lanes; front end dips into median culvert which causes vehicle to flip over at least twice more across opposing traffic lanes, come to a stop in upright position off road, facing oncoming traffic. Four adult occupants all wearing seat belts, and a dog. No visible injuries.

***

The last thing I remember clearly that afternoon was the sound of my son’s voice, calm and collected as always. “Something feels wrong with one of the new tires, so I’m pulling over to the side as soon as…” And then everything turns dark.
 
I open my eyes to see the right rear passenger window next to me shattered into dozens of shiny bits of glass, almost like a mosaic, reflecting varied shades of blue, green and black, gray and brown. A sagging net or membrane holds all the now separated sections of glass loosely together. The blue must be the sky, but the gray and black? Oh, that’s the color of the road, the asphalt of the highway. The car is sliding towards something close by, the edge of the road, or maybe the culvert that divides the opposing lanes of the highway? Whatever happens, into the culvert or over the edge, it will be interesting. Wait and see, just wait and see. No fear.
 
But how can I see through the shattered window? And why does everything seem upside down? An old expression, “topsy-turvy,” comes to mind. Does anyone really say that anymore, or even understand what it means? My mind is active but calm; there’s all the time in the world to think logically about what is happening, while outside the car’s concurrent slide towards the edge of the road seems slow, unending, interminable. I can see the approaching highway edge because a portion of the mosaic window is missing. Ha, that’s actually funny, the window has a window of its own! I open my eyes wider to a sudden alert on my new watch, a gift from the same son, warning, “It looks like you’ve been in a crash,” with further instructions, but I’m unable to respond. We’re about to die. Or live. Wait and see. No fear. And everything turns dark again.
 
But what’s wrong with dying? Every living thing must come to an end. “It’s a good day to die.” Where did that line come from…an old ‘70s movie, wasn’t it? One with Tom Cruise…no…Dustin Hoffman! Little Big Man, that’s the name. Now I remember, the phrase, credited to the Lakota people, was spoken by Chief Dan George, who played the elderly Indian. My brain is still calm, my eyes still closed, I’m waiting to see if I live or die, and here I am thinking about movies. How stupid! If I survive maybe I’ll write about this, but no one’s going to believe me. Tradition insists on us experiencing profound solemn thoughts at death, not ones about old films!
 
Out of the darkness comes the buzz of voices, the whine of distant sirens, someone sobbing, anxious people hovering. “My God, they must be dead, how could anyone be alive after rolling like that!” “No, look, she’s in shock, but still alive, all four of them are still alive, they were wearing seat belts, she can even walk by herself!” They’re talking about me, I realize. Multiple car doors open, slam shut. The soft gentle touch of a woman guides me into another vehicle where I sit, shivering, but not with cold. It must be a small car, not an ambulance, as I get in the back easily without a stepstool. She wraps something around me, a blanket, or maybe a jacket, but something warm and comforting. I still can’t open my eyes.
          
Motion, commotion, scurrying, activity, blaring sirens, excited voices, rumbling motors, more slamming car doors, jagged rough sounds of metal (car doors?) being pried open. It’s all too much. For a few brief seconds I open my eyes, see my husband outside, waiting, sitting on a nearby car’s bumper, looking worried, dazed; but thankfully he doesn’t appear injured. No blood anywhere. Then he gets up, walks around the car, out of sight. I try calling to him, but no words come.
          
My son’s voice cuts through the confusion. “Mom, we had an accident. For some reason, I don’t know why, the two right tires burst one after the other, even though I just had them looked at! That flipped the FJ on its side, we slid across the freeway, hit the edge of the culvert, turned over about two or three more times, then slid across the other lanes. But nobody seems seriously hurt, just bruises, maybe a few broken bones. Paramedics are here to check us out.”
 
“Are you sure, you’re not just saying that to make me feel better? And what about the dog, is she ok?”
 
“No,” he answers, “it’s true, everyone, even Coco, made it.”
 
“And what about your father, will you find him for me? He was here a moment ago, walking around, but I don’t know where he went.”
 
A different woman interrupts, waggling her hand in my face: “How many fingers am I holding up?”
 
Leave us alone! How can I count if you keep moving? That’s what I want to say, but instead guess, “Three,” just to shut her up. I can’t seem to, or want to, focus on her hand or on her fingers. Turning back to my son, I again ask him to look for his father.
 
“Mom,” he answers, in a strange, strained voice, “Dad is dead, he died late July in the hospital, remember? We just held his funeral! There were only four of us in the FJ, you, me, your brother, and your sister-in-law. And Coco. Dad wasn’t with us.”
 
I insist: “He was here, I just saw him!” A pause. Now I remember, my son is right, Dave is dead, but I know he was at the accident scene. I saw him! My eyes fill with burning, unshed tears. I’ve lost him again! My son speaks softly to the paramedic, but I can hear him despite the rapidly engulfing shadows. “She may have some memory loss or brain damage because…” And everything turns dark once more.
 
Another broken window? No, I briefly awaken to a chill wind, vibrations, whirring blades, a large open space, maybe the door, not the window, of a…helicopter? How strange. Last night I was flying home from Canada, riding in the first-class section because of an unexpected upgrade, and now this. What happened? Oh - the accident. It must be very late, because the open space is cold, dark, full of stars. Damn! I’ve always wanted to ride in a helicopter, but not this way, I can’t see a thing!  
 
Startled awake…It’s about 3 a.m. by my watch, I’m now lying on a narrow metal bed, tethered by multiple tubes and wires to an upright rolling stand holding blinking medical equipment, listening to a complex array of irritating sounds. Outside, distant sirens, the squeal of a car doing ‘donuts’ in a nearby parking lot; inside, a mix of clicking, beeping, clattering machines, weeping voices crying out for their mothers, quick laughter, hushed chatter, the sudden too-bright flash from a partially opened door just as quickly shut again, unanswered signals calling for help. Obviously, I’m in a hospital, but what happened in all those in-between hours? And where are my brother and sister-in-law? There’s no one around to ask. I gradually fall asleep feeling no real pain, except for a slight but increasingly bothersome headache, a few new sore areas on my shoulders and hips, blurred vision in one eye. My glasses are missing.
            
Morning’s warm light shines through the narrow window of a hospital room crammed full of relentless buzzing equipment. My son is there, waiting in one corner. His welcome voice cuts through my confusion to fill in missing gaps in time and memory. I’ve been diagnosed with multiple intercranial subdural hematomas and two (re)broken lower vertebrae. My brother and sister-in-law are out of danger, with several cracked ribs each, but my son is unharmed, the dog, too. That helicopter ride was not an illusion. When a neurosurgeon was unavailable at the nearest hospital in Santa Fe late that first night, they transported me by medivac to a hospital in Albuquerque. Two days later, after being fitted with a brace to protect healing ribs, and after another long delay in finding a surgeon to sign off discharge papers, I’m finally released. My son is there to take me home. We find the missing glasses tucked in one of my shoes.
          
The first thing I do at home is review and alter my ‘end of life’ choices from hospitalization to hospice. Although it had seemed “a good day to die,” and I felt ready, as with Chief Dan George it wasn’t to be, not just yet. I had been granted more time on earth, more time to finish pending tasks, to reconcile problems and connect with family and friends. Ultimately, I was grateful, although to be honest, most gratifying was just getting away from all the infernal noise, away from that relentless beeping of impersonal machines. Whatever happens, it will be interesting. Wait and see, just wait and see. No fear, just a wish and a prayer: May God grant me a peaceful serene death at the end of my time.

Gloria (Calvillo) Delgado, born and raised in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, is the daughter of a Mexican father and a Hawaii-born Puerto Rican mother. She and her late husband David lived for many years in Albany, California, where they raised their family. One of her stories, “Savanna,” was included in the Berkeley Community Memoir Project's recently published collection, “A Wiggle and a Prayer.” She has had four stories printed in Somos en escrito, including “El Parbulito,” a first-place winner in Somos en escrito’s 2019 Extra Fiction Contest and included in El Porvenir, ¡Ya! - Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl - Chicano Science Fiction Anthology. Recently widowed, she now resides with family in a rural community outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she has resumed writing.

Note from the editor: We are proud to have debuted Éric Morales-Franceschini’s poetry in May of 2019. Since then, we congratulate him for going on to win the Anzaldúa Poetry Prize for his chapbook, Autopsy of a Fall (Newfound 2021), and for having been awarded the Philip Levine Poetry Prize, (selected by Juan Felipe Herrera) for his debut full-length poetry collection titled Syndrome, (Anhinga Press, 2024), and reviewed here: 

Syndrome is a relevant, appropriate, and universal collection of experiences, emotions, factual data, and poetry written by life and the world, presented to us by Éric Morales- Franceschini. This celebrated debut collection is resistance literature at its finest, full of rich and compelling testimonio sure to evoke depth of feeling that resonates with readers. 
 
Titled to reflect a psychological pathology of racialized and nationalized Otherness-- a kind of “Puerto Rican Syndrome,” these poems issue forth in bittersweet cantos from the geopolitics of trauma, reverberations of the author’s isla invaded, the screams of hysterical mothers, the love of a precious daughter and the insidious echo of settler colonialism through the Boricua psyche and corazón.
 
A former construction worker, Morales-Franceschini, continues to engineer structures with his stories; stories from his childhood are presented both straightforwardly and metaphorically. In a lyrical and didactic unpeeling of identity’s complex layers, Morales-Franceschini weaves personal remembrances, which, like Boricua ballads, convey a sense of almost belonging to Puerto Rico—in his Abuelo’s bodega, the “baptismal” love of his Abuelita—together with the indisputable data of disproportionate power. From the dark and vulgar views of imperialists--they would make fine servants—to beautiful survival lyrics— fidelity to all things incandescent— Morales-Franceschini’s poems traverse the distance from the head to the heart in resilient literary leaps that, at times, resemble anthems. 
 
The author’s literary background is evident throughout the book by the use of endnotes, sidenotes (through parentheses), etymology, vocabulary, and a host of literary devices as Morales-Franceschini tackles issues and themes brought forth by colonialism and its changes: confusion around self-identity, well-intentioned disaster, the celebration of such disaster, religious guidance, eugenics, and the day-to-day. He builds bridges between the subjective experience of one Boricua to all Boricuas, and from there to all peoples who have been affected by colonization (read: all of us). 
 
In Confederates in the (Global) South, Morales-Franceschini says in response to his neighbor saying they should bring down the confederate flag:

...her supposition is
that there is a symbol
already at hand, one
to which she can pledge
her allegiance
– guiltlessly, unequivocally
which really just means
that my neighbor is beset
either by bad faith or
simply doesn’t know that
other history in that
other South; what that
other flag means to us
other Americans.
 
We are constantly taught new hystories*–that is to say, new to us. Hystory can be written and rewritten in so many ways. We hear or read stories and hystories from the subjective experiences of those present. Unfortunately, it is often the case that the hystory we hear has been changed to fit another’s narrative, like the party game “telephone.” There are those who can’t remember what is being said and say it a slightly different way, and those who, for another reason (e.g. humor, control, power) change what is said to whatever suits their needs. The hystory presented here is one that is not contested, and parts of it indeed can’t be. Morales-Franceschini uses statistics and quotes as rhetoric, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions from the objective truths presented.

These are the hystories that are far too infrequently told. For example, plenty hear of the Buffalo Soldiers along Bob Marley’s electric organs and guitars, but not of the proportionately high per-capita numbers of Boricua, American Samoan, and Chamorro soldiers in the US armed forces. We are told that D.C. should have representation in the government, as it would be larger than two currently existing states, so why not that of Puerto Rico, whose population is currently over three million, placing it higher than over a dozen states? Could it be because people consider those from D.C. to be Americans, while people from Puerto Rico are Puerto Ricans? What of the millions of indigenous Americans, and their federally recognized tribes? These sentiments, skillfully embedded in Morales-Franceschini verse, are not meant to cause a divide, but to ask genuine questions–to provoke thought. 
 
This obra literaria gleans force from its experimental interdisciplinary approach reframing history—lest it repeat itself—with moving vistas of ontological fragmentation in which we are all girasoles, hungry for more, deeply rooted into a lost terra nullius, yearning for “a yesterday that never came.” Through this easeful interplay between stolen worlds and reclaimed realities Morales-Franceschini poetry does more than validate, it communicates a sense of urgency, infusing verse with revolutionary potency to spark overdue conversations surrounding race and the reclaiming of dignity. 

With the use of a little research and a valuable notes section, the book remains far from recondite to those with different backgrounds. It conjures epiphanies, the appreciation of beauty, and a plethora of emotions: empathy, sympathy, frustration, solemnity, and inspiration. Morales-Franceschini allows us to take a peek into the childhood that developed into what may presently seem to be bold, unflinching pieces aimed at unraveling the syndromes that surround us, but will surely be seen, retrospectively, as the zeitgeist of what is to come. As is mentioned in the book: our work here is not done. 
 
In brief, it’s very easy to see why Eric Morales-Franceschini’s obra was chosen by Juan Felipe Herrera for the prestigious 2022 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. May Syndrome become a diaspora literature classic helping usher in a new era! 
 
*   *   * 
​
*I am choosing to use the word hystory as it was introduced to me in this book: “It is to [Patricia] Gherovici that I owe the neologism “hystory,” and the notion thereby of: a story hysterically overwrought by History.”

The title introduces the readers to Caló or Chuco talk by the use of “Mi Carnal,” and more words later in the text (p. 48-49). “Carnal” means brother. Frank was Juan’s older sibling. By using “Amá” in reference to his mother and “Dedi” for his father, that is Spanglish, a combination of English and Spanish. Some Caló aka Pachuco is still used in contemporary slang.
 
In Caló, it would be “totacha del Chuco.”[1] This Chuco talk dates to the Pachuco era of the 1940s across the Southwest among early Chicanos. It was the counter-culture movement against being traditional Mexicans by that generation. Originally, Caló is derived from the language spoken by the Roma in Spain. He also introduces some Ladino dating to the 16th century explorations in the Americas by Spanish Sefarditas. Ladino is Sephardic Spanish for such words still used today by Chicanos such as “chingar,” “güey” or “buey,” “tú,” “ellas,” “kerido,” “chante,” “ruca,” “canton,” “truje,” “ajeno,” “humo,” “vato” or “bato,” “haye” and more.[2] Chilangos, as residents of Mexico City are called, and now spreading across into the U.S., is the use of the ubiquitous “buey” or “güey.” Almost any sentence uttered includes this word. The author occasionally inserts some words used by the Payaya tribe, first settlers of Yanaguana or San Antonio some 15,000 years ago. He provides a story on our indigenous roots as mestizos, one of 18 castes imposed by the Spanish during colonization of the Americas (p. 14). He also uses Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica or Aztecas (p. 243).
 
In so doing, the author is opening the door for us to correct the ignorance about the rich heritage and history inherent in our Chicano Spanish of today. Despite what traditional Spanish teachers in high schools, community colleges, and universities teach, our current language usage finds etymological roots in Arabic and Nahuatl, not just Castillian Spanish. For example, words used today beginning with “al” are from the Arabic language: “alfombra,” “algodón,” “almuada,” “alamabre.” Words also still used today ending in “te” such as “tomate,” “mesquite,” “chocolate,” and “molcajete” are from the Nahuatl language.[3] The narrative is the most readable, clear, engaging, interesting, and very adoringly detailed story about the older brother, el Frank.
 
There are several “freebies” in the book besides the traditional Contents which are set out by years not chapters (pp. 6-7); Las Gracias or Acknowledgements (p. 241); and the Author’s biography (p. 263). See a detailed Timeline of Frank Tejeda’s life (p. 245); a Photo and Document Index (p. 250); and a Spanish and English translation of words the author used in the text (p. 256).
 
Juan writes about his book, “Our children and young adults need to see and read these stories in their schools and libraries” (p. 12). So true. Biography is still a neglected field of study, especially about us, people of Mexican origin. Even in Chicano Studies programs and Departments, biography as part of the curriculum is missing. The Big Lit people in New York ignore us.[4] The Anglo-centric academic presses seldom have such an interest.[5]
 
This book is actually three in one. It is, as the title suggests, both a family memoir and a biography (pp. 14-18, 20-29). It also is the beginning of an autobiography of the author, Juan Tejeda; woven into the narrative of the family and his older brother. The author reveals his birth certificate name was John, but he changed it in the 1970s to his current name, Juan (p. 39). He began work on this book in 2019 and at the same time preparing for release a CD of Chicano music, Raiz XicanX by his band, Conjunto Aztlan (p. 11).
 
In the detailed analysis of the 1982 election, Juan inserted a paragraph about Amá and Dedi, their parents, as babysitters to four grandchildren with a photograph from 1990 showing twelve members of the family (p. 126). Another example of family history discussing the playing of Conjunto music en route to Austin for Frank’s swearing-in ceremony as state senator in 1987 (p. 154). These paragraphs also discuss Celia, Frank’s wife, their kids, and the marital problems between them (pp. 154-155), and on the passing of Dedi, Francisco Mariano Tejeda, their father on August 4, 1987 (pp. 159-160). One last example on family history is the text on the beginning of the end of U.S. Congressman Frank Tejeda (pp. 198-203). He died from a brain tumor three years later on January 30, 1997, at age 51 (pp. 245-248).
 
Frank, the first born of the Tejeda family, was a remarkable and determined fellow. He never graduated from high school, instead he enlisted like so many Chicanos of the time, in the Marine Corps during the Viet Nam war. While in the service, he earned his GED. He did graduate from St. Mary’s University, then law school at Berkeley (1974) and even an MBA from Harvard (1980) and an LLM degree from Yale (1988). He was among the first Chicano law professors hired at St. Mary’s Law School (pp. 129, 133).
 
I first met Frank Tejeda on the campus of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas in January 1967. We both were majoring in Political Science but it was called Government back in 1967. He was a freshman and I was beginning work on a master’s degree. We also both worked as youth counselors for the local War on Poverty agency, known by its acronym as SANYO. We had to work to pay for the expensive tuition at St. Mary’s. Frankly, we did not get along too well. He was a proud Marine veteran, highly decorated with a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and later posthumously the Silver Star. His father was also highly decorated and wounded during World War II’s Battle of Cassini (p. 28).
 
I was against the war in Viet Nam, as was his brother Juan (p. 105). We organized several anti-war protests by Chicanos. We both, however, were in the U.S. Army Reserves. Frank, as Juan tells us, not only was highly decorated for his valor and exemplary service but his organic leadership. Frank worked his way up the military ranks like a hot knife on butter. He went from Private First Class to Sergeant at age 19 to Staff Sergeant by 21.
 
He developed a passion for electoral politics, especially when he helped Edmundo “Mundo” Zaragosa win a school board seat on the Harlandale School District, southside of San Antonio, the first Chicano ever (1971). Mundo was another former classmate of mine but at Texas A & I University in Kingsville, Texas. Together, Zaragosa and Frank, as Democrats, began to build a potent electoral machine in San Antonio’s southside. Others and I, as members of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), were affiliated with County Commissioner Alberto Peña, who controlled politics in San Antonio’s Westside.[6] We were forming our own political party, La Raza Unida, to oppose the one-party dictatorship of the Democrats that began in 1873 after Reconstruction, and lasting until 1994 when Texas began its one-party dictatorship by Republicans.
 
In 1973, Frank entered Marine Corps Officer Candidate School and graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant, made 1st Lieutenant by 1981, and Captain by 1985. Not content yet, Frank entered and completed U.S. Army Airborne School a Ft. Benning, Georgia. He became a paratrooper in 1988. He became a Major in the Marine Corps Reserves in 1994 (pp. 246-248).
 
Beginning in the mid-1970s, Frank sought his own political destiny. He was the first Chicano to win a state representative seat in southern Bexar County, District 57-B. He took office on January 12, 1977 (p. 116). This span was 72 years since the very first Mexican-origin state representative was elected in Texas, José Tomás Canales in 1905. Frank served for eleven years before being elected to the state senate in 1984 (p. 129) then the second U.S. Representative from San Antonio (p. 186). Henry B. Gonzalez had been the first by appointment in 1961.
 
These sections on the three state and federal political offices Frank Tejeda held are most informative on the nuances of campaign strategies, electoral politics, legislative bill writing and policy making, winning and losing battles, and public leadership. This work should be a recommended text in all Texas politics and government and Chicano Studies classes. The work done by Juan on these sections is excellent material for class units and individual lesson plans to be prepared for high schoolers.
 
The legacy and public recognition of Frank Tejeda are the last pages in the book with many photographs of this moving, richly detailed from extensive research and personal knowledge, biography of a great Chicano leader. This narrative is very engaging, passionate, intimate, and sorely needed.
 
Juan in his own right is also well known, certainly in San Antonio where most of the Tejeda clan still lives. He is a celebrated musician of Chicano-style Conjunto music, author of several books and composer of songs, and a retired academic from Palo Alto College teaching Chicano Studies and Music (p. 10). Neck to neck with Rogelio Nuñez in San Benito, Texas, they began and continue to organize the annual Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio, 42 years, and the Narciso Martinez Conjunto Festival in Los Fresnos, 31 years. They are keeping Conjunto music alive.

[1] Dagoberto Fuentes and José A. Lopez, Barrio Language Dictionary: First Dictionary of Caló, La Puente, CA: El Barrio Publications, 1974. There are more recent dictionaries on Caló.
[2] Elli Kohen and Dalia Kohen-Gordon, Ladino-English/English-Ladino Concise Encyclopedic Dictionary, New York: Hippocrene Books, 1999.
[3] Actually, the ending sounded like “tle” but that was difficult for the Spaniards so they dropped the “l.”
[4] Michael Nava, “Big Lit Meets Mexican Americans, Study of White Supremacy,” in the Los Angeles Review of Books, January 2, 2020, at https://admin.lareviewofbooks.org/article/big-lit-meets-mexican-americans-study-white supremacy/ Accessed February 7, 2024.
[5] In the past eight months, I have submitted queries and prospectus to eight academic presses on a biography of José Tomás Canales, the first Mexican American State Representative in Texas (1905), only to be turned down as not a fit for their series.
[6] Albert A. Peña Jr. Dean of Chicano Politics, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017.

Jose Angel Gutierrez is the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Greater Dallas Legal and Community Development Foundation. A licensed attorney in Texas and several federal jurisdictions (www.joseangelgutierrez.com), he is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and founder of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas-Arlington. He is an experienced oral history interviewer. See his two oral history projects: https://library.uta.edu/tejanovoices/ and https://crbb.tcu.edu/.
 
During the Chicano Movement he was considered one of the Four Horsemen of that era. Author and co-author of 18 books plus three children’s books; his last three are available at: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B09R52RSQS. He has received many professional honors, including the 2019 National Hispanic Hero Award from the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute in Chicago, Illinois, and the 2016 Distinguished Alumni award from Texas A & M University-Kingsville.

​by Patricia R. Bazán

​Editors’ Note: The original Spanish version of “Silencio” appeared in the anthology Nébulas peruanas, published by Grupo Editorial Caja Negra in Lima, Peru, in October of this year.

Despite the fact that her days were all the same, the sleeping pills helped her stay in the clouds, avoiding the shock of an undesirable reality. Alfonso had no choice but to take their daughters to the United States, where he would process their paperwork required to apply for permanent resident status. Nevertheless, she sometimes wondered if leaving her behind in Lima was a punishment for failing to obtain a tourist visa. She was still relishing her farewell at the airport with masochistic bitterness. For the love of her offspring, Gracia knew her tiny body had to find enough life to endure a great sacrifice. Her husband was clear: she had to cross the border if she ever wanted to lay eyes on them again.
 
The pills gave her a truce because they lengthened her life of an automaton. “Work like a bear, do something to kill time,” she repeated to herself. She didn’t even know how she was getting home: “See you tomorrow, mates”; the Metropolitan bus; walk three blocks and enter without being seen; go straight to your room; throw yourself on the bed surrounded by stuffed animals; fall into the void; a pill to fall asleep, then another, one more, a last one before finally passing out. The unexpected call broke her reverie; she felt compelled to answer, and a hopeful smile emerged from her lips: “Don’t worry, Gracie. I already spoke with Cristian and we have arranged that I will pick you up in Colorado.” Gracia. Full of grace. The grace of God. 
 
She carefully observed the room of her future pollero, the man who would guide her throughout the journey: The Peruvian flag of monumental proportions clumsily hung on the wall, a squalid coffee table artfully decorated and holding three pre-Inca huacos with gloomy faces; a colonial-style mirror with wooden borders on the opposite wall. The old furniture fought against the plastic laminate to free itself, a decoration that pointed to a life in transit, ready to flee at any moment. Just as she was beginning to nod-off, Cristian entered, greeted her, and went straight to the point: The journey would be arduous, long, and dangerous, but with a good chance of success. The future leader of the expedition was part of a silent and efficient network of experts in the border geography between Mexico and the United States. First, she would travel alone to Nicaragua, where she would meet her contact, who in turn would pick up future walkers from Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. The rest of the trip would be made by foot, boat, or in multiple vehicles through Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, until they reached their final destination: Phoenix.
 
Cristian stressed that, with the help of Providence, everything would be done in a sacred and inviolable silence. A sigh overtook her. She had kept silent all her life, and she didn’t mind continuing to do so, as long as she could see her daughters. Her mother was forced to remarry after her father abandoned them, an experience reflected in the dullness of her graceful eyes. Yet, she never said anything. She had mastered the art of remaining quiet with her head down, and perhaps at long last her silence would serve a purpose.
 
Her suitcase was almost empty to pretend like she was used to traveling. As planned, a Nicaraguan man, one of her many connections on the trip, was waiting outside, as was Cristian, the leader of her expedition. After a courteous greeting, they asked her to step aside in order to spot two other travelers. Gracia thought it would be the beginning of a ruthless journey, a journey her battered body would have to endure. Onward.
 
She considered that, apart from the vicissitudes life had thrown at her, she had had a happy childhood. On one occasion, she was sent to summer school to retake a math class, an excuse that justified a trip to the beach. She told her mother that classes were cancelled, but a classmate gave her away. She actually remembered very few details, as this episode had become somewhat nebulous over time. All it had left was the burning sensation associated with the slap’s imprints. A severe man, her stepfather administered harsh punishments, no matter how light the offense: strappings, slaps, kicking, and being made to eat with the dog on the floor. Her mother watched in cautious terror, as any attempt to protect her daughter would bring dire consequences for her and her youngest. Such long nights were also reserved for the wife, who would face the same repertoire of atonements for having failed to properly raise her daughters, with the added variation that he would make love to her on her reddened maternal body.
 
After a long wait, all twelve left the airport and boarded a minibus, traveling inland until they reached Chinandega, a city whose colonial value they did not have the opportunity to appreciate. That is because they arrived at the most impoverished part; dilapidated wooden houses, unpaved streets, and an intense dust that would welcome all foreigners. They spent the night in a one-room den, something that would become a constant. The next day two more arrived, then three, until the group was complete. There were eighteen: eight Peruvians, five Colombians, two Bolivians, and three Ecuadorians. Sixteen men, one of them lame, and two women. The eldest was sixty years old, and the youngest eighteen. The only other woman in the group was twenty-three years of age, married and childless. She was traveling with her father and her brother; she had left her husband back home in Peru and was excited about the idea of a reunion in El Norte. The Dirty Eighteen.
 
They remained there for a month. In the morning they would wash their clothes and the women cooked for the group, and when there was fried fish, it tasted like heaven. In the afternoon they would either go to the market or to the beach, play soccer, and eat only once a day to stretch the little money they had on them, as if to keep themselves slim. At night they rested on the ground on rickety mats, covered in stained sheets that had seen better days, being careful not to be stung by snakes or scorpions. By now, everyone had mastered the art of communication without uttering a single word. The septic tank was a lair of huge flying cockroaches that would land at night on the visitors’ bodies, only to be plucked during the day from their heads, the palms of their hands, and from in-between their legs. The worst affected were always the unfortunate who slept with gaping mouths. During the time that she remained in this little town abandoned by God and immigration, Gracia could not sleep, not just because she missed her pills, but because the constant effort to protect herself from the formidable brigade of winged insects was eating at her state of mind. The kindness and smiles of the townspeople, however, inspired an inexplicable tranquility.
 
To pass the time away, they would sometimes gather and play cards, making bets on the soap. That was how Gracia came to learn about the lives of the other travelers, fictional lives they had invented to protect themselves from the unknown. Eighteen fabrications, all interwoven by silence and despair. One boasted of having been a sailor who had traveled to Japan where, according to him, he had left several girlfriends; another made up the story of having killed his wife’s lover for being unfaithful, leaving him no choice but to escape from Ecuador; Gracia recounted that her husband had taken away her two daughters for contracting AIDS in one of her many illicit love affairs, a lie that would prevent her from being raped; a certain Ángel told he had a talent for soccer and swore that one day he would be part of the El Norte national team; one named Sebastián, stocky, with straight hair, dark-skinned and who wore glasses, nicknamed El Feo, and with good reason, said that he would meet his girlfriend in Seattle and get married as soon as he arrived in order to conceive children who wouldn’t be as ugly as he. Each story was part of a transparent and sinister tapestry of eighteen intertwined pieces with a sole objective: in El Norte they would be reborn from the ashes of a merciless desert, and its ruthlessly effective police.
 
Cristian distributed the group in such a way that Sebastián would always stay close to Gracia and protect her. She had deteriorated to the point of looking scrawny, ailing, and unthreatening in appearance as a shield against the harsh and inhospitable reality that awaited her. El Feo became her guardian angel; all the others slept in the same fetal position, night after night, like mummies, with the strange premonition of having embarked on an endless journey.
 
At the end of the month, Cristian announced that they would soon leave for the port of La Unión in El Salvador, but not before demanding that they accept their invisibility from then on. They got up early, carefully folded their mats and donned their life jackets before boarding the speedboat where they traveled at a very velocity for two hours, dodging immigration boats. Suddenly, one of the Bolivians unintentionally undid the rope to which he was tied and flew away while the others witnessed his involuntary release, stunned by his unexpected wet death. Gracia would never forget Cristian’s face when the unhappy traveler disappeared; in a matter of seconds, he had lost five-thousand dollars. Once at their destination, the travelers jumped off the boat and dragged themselves to the shore with their backpacks. They did not know if the moisture on their faces was due to the sorrow of having lost a traveling partner or the freshness of the sea water. They arrived at eleven in the morning and began an endless walk. Invisible. Illegal. Silent. Now they were seventeen, doomed.
 
They walked to the border of the mountains where they moved in a single row, becoming one with the soil when the helicopters descended in search of inopportune travelers. It was difficult to distinguish if the fear came from the threatening noise of the propellers or from the supernatural mosquitoes that slipped through their clothes stealthily, without offering them the opportunity to defend themselves, daring them to remain immobile. It was six in the evening when they arrived at a cottage in an abandoned town where they would stay for forty-eight hours. Wet and sandy, the rancher smeared them with horse dung as protection against the flying monsters, holding their breath to avoid contact with the fetid smell. Life was not offering them a truce, but they were closer to El Norte.
 
Gracia had cuts and bites on her legs and feet, and her private parts were scalded from the endless journey in wet clothes. She only had ten dollars, but she was wearing a silver bracelet and earrings, a gift Alfonso had given her for their marriage. The owner asked for them in exchange for clean water and ointments for the wounds on her feet as the nearest pharmacy and well were ten hours away. She spent the night as best she could with four others in the same bed with their feet dangling. A few hours later, two vehicles arrived and they were placed, one on top of the other like a sack of potatoes, covered with a tarpaulin, so they would not arouse suspicion:

“If the women want, they can get in the front to be more comfortable…”
 
They formed a human wall, and the men in the group refused to hand Gracia and their traveling companions over to the predatory hyenas. They would rather endure the body heat and the dust than be separated from the group; the collective silence had taught them to distinguish individual breaths, one more method of protection, they thought. When they arrived at a mechanic’s workshop, they were put in two rooms filled with newspapers that served as beds. Those who had money sent for food and shared it with the others, and that’s how they spent three days in a village where even the souls had vanished. At dawn, a laconic one-armed man came and gave a simple command:
 
“Follow me.”
 
He was the driver who would transport them to the border with Mexico. They got into the truck and huddled together as usual. He dropped them off at the border and they walked all night. They crossed mountains, agricultural fields, and farms; they kneaded the cow dung and felt a merciless cold inside their veins. They were invisible, even to animals. They slept outdoors, one next to the other, with their backpacks, and the only change of clothes they had. One for all, all for one.
 
Around ten in the morning, a truck pulled up, and they proceeded to get in, one by one, where they would sit, regimented, and squashed together to make room for the next partner. They rested despite the numbness caused by the other bodies’ proximity. They did not know when they crossed the great city of Guatemala, but when they saw the small room of their seedy hotel, they knew that they had reached their next destination. They ended up three in a bed, had three meals a day and bathed in hot water. Such luxuries came at a high price: Cristian asked them to burn their passports. Now there was no longer any doubt about their invisibility. To protect the two women, the leader of the expedition took the fifteen men to different brothels and in groups of three. He woke them all up at the crack of dawn because they had to be prepared in case they were arrested. They would imitate the intonation, become familiar with a few customs, and learn a national anthem that mattered very little to them, just to pass as Guatemalan.
 
They made the journey to Mexico in a public bus, but not before hearing a recommendation from the guide: if they were captured, they would return to their country, but they would do so alone, without implicating their partners. They stopped in front of a security booth, then Gracia had a panic attack, leaving her with no other recourse than to hold on to the Mexican man next to her. Without saying a single word, the stranger understood, nodded, and took her hand. She was relieved. The seventeen passed immigration control without a problem, and when they got off, they shared a mutual smile: they were in Mexico. They would meet their driver in Chiapas once they took a good bath and had something to eat. Before leaving, Cristian gave Gracia three-thousand dollars in a paper bag to bribe the immigration agents in case they were detained, and addressed the group:
 
“From now on you will meet several polleros. No matter what, don’t accept any packages, and much less cell phones, because they may contain drugs or a trap to reveal your location. Even though we will cross several Mexican highways during off-peak hours, silence will save your life and will continue to be your best friend. As soon as I give the signal, you throw your backpack first through the barbed fence and quickly run across the road. If you don’t want to be caught, you have to be quick.”
 
They set off on the journey, and after a couple of hours, one by one began to jump out of the Ford, bouncing like beach-balls and at the risk of breaking their bones. Weak as she was, Gracia didn’t land safely, and fell into a dung-filled puddle, becoming covered with mud. Since she didn’t have another set of clothes, she moved on, having to deal with her fellow travelers’ faces of revulsion. Once on the other side of the road, they waited for the car that would pick them up after a signal. Her life was at stake, and speed was of the essence. Gracia and five others ended up in a VW Beetle; rotten in filth as she was, she sat on a fellow traveler’s lap. The trip to the outskirts of the Federal District seemed like an eternity, until they finally spotted a large house on the horizon. The pollero offered her clean clothes and allowed the women to bathe first. Their faces were calm; not so much because they were closer to El Norte, but because they couldn’t stand Gracia’s stench. To the surprise of the other seventeen, that night more than fifty other travelers joined the group. Gracia observed the new arrivals with sadness: pregnant women, some with babies in their arms, elderly, nearly blind men, orphaned children, and adolescents. For the first time in her life, the man with a limp didn’t feel out of place. Everyone was crying, everyone except Gracia. At a tender age she had learned that tears were not to be wasted and should be reserved for special occasions. They scattered the next morning.
 
Upon arriving in Mexico City, the pollero informed them that they would take the subway to Guadalajara. They ended up in the home of a woman in a wheelchair ho rented rooms on the third floor to smugglers in transit. They couldn’t go out; they cooked at the house and shared two rooms; one for the women, and one for the men. The house was large, and the widow lived with her daughter, a pretty fifteen-year-old girl quite precocious for her age, who immediately fell in love with one of the boy travelers. Desperate to escape her fate, she reserved herself for someone who wanted to take her, and she flirted with anyone who would pay attention. Noticing the concupiscent eyes of her young traveling partner, Gracia asked him to feel sorry for the conditions in which the owner of the house lived; after all, she was helping them. “If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t be able to cross; no matter how much the girl insinuates herself, respect her,” she advocated. In the end, the boy chose to cross the border rather than to become involved with the girl.
 
The terror of being reported was a key factor: if the owner found out that her daughter had been touched, they would all end up in jail and one step away from deportation. When they went to sleep, Gracia discovered that the boys had jokingly entered her room. Wasting no time, she grabbed one of her trucker boots: they couldn’t yell or ask for help because they would end up at the police station:
 
“Hey asshole, what’s wrong with you?!!! I don’t like you being in my bed. Moron! Don’t you know that I have AIDS and that I can infect you?” she said while hitting him on the head.

“Don’t hit me like that, my head hurts!” said the scoundrel, as he fled to the adjacent room, where his minions were waiting for him.
 
They left them alone and apologized as soon as they got up: “That was a close shave,” Gracia murmured in relief. At dawn they began a longer stretch than the usual and crossed Guadalajara until they stopped at Villa Hermosa, a shantytown on the outskirts of the city. A seedy camp awaited them, with only one toilet, no water, where everyone defecated and left their shining fresh lumps of excrement, scenting the outdoor shower. Six boys slept on a couple of bunks, while Sebastián laid on the ground next to Gracia. They slept like this until it was time to cross. Of Cristian’s group, El Feo was the first to disappear and Gracia the first to notice his absence; she felt helpless without him. The next day six more left. The destination was Piedra Lisa in New Mexico; there, Cristian would contact some relatives to release a few, slowly but surely, once the debt was paid off. Gracia went out with eight men and the other woman in the group to take a bus. Suddenly they were stopped by an immigration officer. Cristian had warned them that all of Mexico was swarming with police officers due to pressure from the United States. They pretended to be asleep, and with deep sadness, they witnessed their own arrest. “Fifteen-thousand dollars lost,” Gracia muttered. Moving on. The wandering seventeen.
 
Once at the police station, she began to cry out of powerlessness and then remembered the three-thousand dollars Cristian had given her to bribe the immigration officers. The fear that the agents inspired in her was so great that she saw them as towering, ferocious, and ignominious. She gathered herself and thought clearly. They separated her from her companions and a female officer took her to a cold and dark room where she had to undress; The officer’s jaw dropped: Gracia’s belly was protruding, and she looked pregnant. Years later she would remember how her abdomen, the product of so many Peruvian potatoes and rice, would save her life.
 
“Do you bring something in your private parts? Are you clear? You don’t have anything? Where are you going?” the agent asked.
 
“I’m on vacation with my husband. I don’t bring much, I’ve been told that Mexico is a dangerous place so I’m travelling lightly, but I have my money. Once we visit our relatives, we return to Guatemala,” Gracia replied, imitating the Guatemalan intonation.
 
“You better. This is no place for illegals here. There are too many and we don’t want you either!” concluded the officer.
 
They released them and sent them back penniless to Villa Hermosa where they found out that some of their traveling companions had been deported. At least something good came out of Cristian’s three thousand dollars. It was at this precise moment that she understood that her silence was a gift rather than a curse. When they left, Cristian took them to a clean and safe house where they stayed until January first. They sent for a roasted turkey, and for the first time, they drank tequila, delicacies that anticipated the most dangerous part of the trip: crossing the desert on the outskirts of Phoenix, a savannah that required black clothing for camouflaging in order to become one with the desert. They left their last lodging in Mexico at night for a bus stop that would leave them at a precise point to cross the border into Arizona.
 
The trip lasted six hours in total silence, dressed in black, in the darkness. The mist was thick, and on the horizon, there was a piercing light that guided them on the abandoned road they were traveling. Suddenly, the vehicle stopped and, one by one, they began to fly off in whichever direction they could. When it was her turn, Gracia, confused, didn’t know where to run. She froze and after a few seconds she realized that truck had moved on; she was in the middle of nowhere, alone with her terror. She was left facing the gray density and unable to scream because her silence had eaten her words before leaving. At that moment, an energy transformed into matter invaded her, seized her hand vigorously, and forced her to follow it. She was frightened to death: convinced that she had penetrated the unknown, she resigned herself. In the midst of this nebulous episode, she remembered Alfonso’s premonitory words: “Gracie, honey; I don’t want to scare you, but if there comes a time when they are going to rape you, leave it alone, cooperate, the more you resist, the more damage they will do to you.” She let herself be swept away by the guiding hand, felt a wooden bridge under her feet, scrambled over huge boulders, thinking she was going to an inescapable end. She continued. Once the mist cleared, Gracia realized that she was safe: the hand released hers and left. She noticed a field with many stones, typical desert stones. Her loneliness was immeasurable.
 
Little by little she began to distinguish a myriad of men, women, adolescents, children, and elderly people sprouting from the stones. Human rocks. She leaned back on something hard and immediately felt a warmth: the rock took off its mask, revealing a familiar smile. Both the man with a limp and Gracia greeted the dawn with pouring rain, and it was then that they understood the reason for the term mojado, a word invented by the rain itself as a symbol of solidarity with those who cross the desert. She felt calmer and settled in with the group, hugging the black garbage bag that Cristian had given to each of them before leaving. The sixteen pilgrims became forty-six; they were Indians, Brazilians, Europeans, Africans, and Chinese: they had crossed the border. Gracia felt an unknown tear invading her face, only this time it was not caused by a humiliating slap on the face, but by the joy of being alive. Upon resuming the trip, Gracia faced the immensity of the desert, knowing that she would remain stagnant since her aching body would not cooperate. She was stumping through mud, stumbling, physically and emotionally exhausted. She gave up twice because the cramps had taken hold of her legs until she heard the pronouncement of the main pollero:
 
“If this woman can’t keep up with us, we have to leave her behind.”
 
Her partners refused: “She is going to continue walking.” The water ran out due to the number of travelers; they resisted until the last moment to carefully drink it and savor it to the last molecule. At nightfall they threw themselves into the arms of the vast sheet of arid land and Gracia felt sick again. She had chills, a headache, and her wet blankets did not provide her any relief. She still had a long way to go, and six specialized smugglers had arrived to cross the desert as the group had grown. They had to move. In a curt and insensitive way, one of the polleros stated:


“We have to continue to the other side of those mountains. We walk during the day and sleep at night in the desert.”
 
Cristian and two other polleros led the group while the remaining four carried huge backpacks containing thick blankets, pallets, telephones, and” supplies, and withdrawing from the group at night. The polleros slept comfortably and the mojados with their garbage bags. The women had the option of sleeping in their camp, but the men begged them to stay. They protected themselves in silence. When the smugglers sensed the flight of a helicopter or a small plane, they immediately shouted: “Pretend to be a ball and don’t move.” In the distance they looked like stones, and the darkness protected them. They were stones day and night. They walked like this for three days, sensing that the desert was their magnanimous mother. Gracia began to vomit and between the pain she became delirious, “I want to continue. Give me a drug or something, give it to me because I want to continue, I have to see my daughters.” Someone gave her a Coca-Cola and her traveling partners donated their ration of bread to force it onto her, thus giving her energy. Her bleeding feet were about to burst from the blisters, but her will was stronger. Through Cristian, Gracia found out that Sebastián had been captured on an interstate in Phoenix and was going back to Mexico; she had no one. She was completely sickly and when he saw her, the lame man was the first to offer to carry her on his back: “No, you are not going to stay here!” and so they moved on; everyone took turns carrying her, and at the end of the day they would put her on a blanket to rest. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the last hill and Gracia gave up; they decided to leave her.
 
Cristian asked that they take him and Gracia to the first ranch they found, “I don’t want this woman’s death on me here,” he said. Six carried her, making sure they were not seen when the house’s sixty-two guard dogs came out to greet them, and they all fled to hide behind a broken truck. Once the mojados left, Cristian cried for help: they gave themselves up. An hour later, a blonde, blue-eyed agent came in a truck; he examined her, she had a fever and was crying, “Please I need to see a doctor.” Cristian declared: “I am her friend, and I could not leave her alone.” In flawless Spanish, the immigration officer asked if she was pregnant. “I need to take a shower,” she replied as she removed the blood-soaked washcloth. He took her information and brought them to the border near Nuevo Laredo so she could see a doctor. They went to a nearby pharmacy where they gave her medicine for pneumonia. “Don’t try to cross the border into the United States, please,” the blonde officer advised them and politely said goodbye.
 
They arrived at a hotel, she bathed, took her medicines, and slept like a log. “I’m not going to last, I can’t walk. I’m going back to Peru, Cristian. Thanks for everything.”
 
“Your husband is willing to pay, I can’t keep losing any more money. Besides, I like you,” the guide answered while he dialed a number. They went to a house where she slept on the floor: there she found Sebastián, now recovering from a heat stroke. Through his contacts, Cristian obtained false documents to enter the United States and taught him a little Mexican Spanish. Two days later, he introduced her to a pollera who had three young daughters and made Gracia their aunt. “So long as they don’t ask you, don’t say anything,” the mother advised. They got into the Mercedes Benz and Gracia caressed the girls as if they were her own. Arriving at the checkpoint, the woman explained in perfect English: “I am going to McDonald’s with my family.” The sounds of the English language sounded like a heavenly hymn to Gracia. They passed and, after eating, the woman left her at a young couple’s home. The next day, she was sent to Colorado, where Alfonso was waiting for her.
 
Gracia never saw Sebastián again, but she found out from Cristian that he, the lame man, the self-confident man who threw himself into her bed, and the Peruvian woman who was traveling with her brother and father had crossed with thirty-six other travelers. They were now gringos and they paid true homage to the phoenix: they had been reborn. It was the last trip that Cristian carried out before retiring and marrying Lauren, his girlfriend of ten years. Later on, Gracia read in the newspapers that two of the polleros ended up in Mexican jails, one for raping and the other for using illegal immigrants as mules. The travelers opted for oblivion and the experience died with them, aware of having been marked for life.
 
Thirty years after that inconceivable test, Gracia still remembered the protagonists of the nébula that had defined her existence forever. From the window of her house in Forest Hills, and before taking a sip of tea, she whispered: “Thank you, Silencio.”

Patricia R. Bazan was born in Lima, Peru. She arrived in the United States at the age of twenty-one and has been residing there for over forty years. She is a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, specializing in Spanish and Latin American literature, as well as multicultural, interdisciplinary, and Latino studies.
 
Despite having a successful academic career, her true vocation lies in writing. For the past few years, Bazan has been writing semi-autobiographical fiction. With this purpose in mind, she published Cinco nébulas de obsesión. Estelas de vida y muerte (2019) and Lazarillo en Londres (2022).
 
In the fall of this year, Nébulas peruanas, Bazan’s second collection of short stories, will be released. The themes of reincarnation, the Spanish conquest, social inequality in Latin America, the presence of the United States in Peru, and tales of the undocumented permeate the entire narrative.

by Lázaro Gutiérrez 
 
It’s a late evening in May, the sun is setting at the Heritage Trace Apartment Homes. The spring air is crisp in Newport News, Virginia, much cooler than the humid air of Cuba. The air conditioner, the soft carpet on my toes, and the smell of Gain laundry detergent are new to me and equally as pleasant. My parents and I have been in the United States of America for a few months now and we are learning the way things function here. My parents are working at a factory farm. I’m completing the third grade at B.C. Charles Elementary School, though things are not going well and soon I’ll be pulled into a conference comprised of my parents and teachers where we will be told that I’ll need to repeat the third grade. My mother will cry because in Cuba I was a star student, but here I know nothing. The language is not sticking for me and my new teachers believe that if I repeat the third grade I will learn much quicker. 
 
Looking back, I don’t know if it really made much of a difference. It’s not that I didn’t know the subject matter, I just didn’t know the language.
 
                                                         * * *
 
On the television screen, a woman from the nineties, with big dark curls and a suit with wide shoulder pads is teaching a class of people different phrases in English. My parents are both watching and taking notes. They do this often after work—when they have the time. On other nights they sit on the balcony of our apartment and play music, and drink beer. Life is better now and even though it feels as though we are toddlers in this big new country, we are full of hope.
 
Life is now a perpetual translation coupled with the repetition of signing documents. At school some kids guide me around on my first few days until I understand how things work. School here is much different than it is in Cuba. I’m fascinated by all the different food options. In Cuba, I remember having chicken at school once, and it was a special day for certain, here in the U.S., it happens often and served in many different ways. 
 
I am particularly enthralled by corn dogs. It’s a hot dog on a stick covered in some sort of fried dough and it’s delicious, especially when dipped in ketchup. And don’t get me started on the breakfast ones, it’s a weird type of meat (which in time I learned was called country sausage) wrapped in a blueberry pancake batter and you eat it by dipping it in a sugary liquid (which I later learned was called maple syrup). 
 
Our teacher is kind, she falls asleep at her desk sometimes but she gives us powdered  donuts in the morning and later she sits me down in front of this blue translucent computer that is unlike anything I have seen before. I sit there and play games all day. I am the new kid. I am mostly voiceless, and I feel out of place—but I am happier than I have ever been.
 
Upon our arrival in this new country my parents became fixated on learning English as quickly as possible. Like most immigrants they yearned to assimilate into the country they were now slowly becoming a part of in order to become the best versions of themselves. Learning this complex language was one of the requirements. My parents were in their thirties when we moved here. My mother had studied English in Cuba and knew quite a bit. She helped me learn my first few words and phrases. I remember the nights of frustration as we sat together practicing and learning with flash cards. That was the foundation of my learning.
 
One day my parents bought this second-hand language course from some of their work colleagues. It was valued at over a thousand dollars—or so their “friends” said. It was called “Inglés sin Barreras” (English Without Barriers.)
 
“Inglés sin Barreras…para los que no tienen tiempo a aprender inglés” was one of their slogans. English Without Barrier, for those who do not have the time to learn English.
 
The commercials would come on at all times of the day, sometimes during Sabado Gigante (Giant Saturday—an entertainment show that aired on Saturday nights and was hosted by the iconic Don Francisco). When the commercials came on you’d hear this music that evoked a feeling of hope. My parents both worked low-paying, hard-labor jobs but this course strengthened their faith. It gave them hope that the future would not be so challenging, that if they just worked hard enough one day they would have no barriers. At the time both of my parents were working at a factory farm called Smithfield. My father would sleep at the factory farm sometimes to get extra hours of overtime pay. I stayed by myself a lot of the times but in being lonely I learned to love literature and fantasy, and soon I made friends of my own if only in the pages of books. Harry, Ron and Hermione became my English tutors when I was alone.
​
                                                            * * *
 
“Inglés sin Barreras” was a set of video cassettes, CDs, and booklets that promised a system for Spanish speakers to learn English like they did when they learned Spanish as kids. It had this blue cover with a graphic of a city skyline, a big yellow sun was shining behind a skyscraper and a multitude of lights were turned on as the evening turned to night. I see the skyline as the buildings my parents wanted to work at. The buildings they surely would have worked at had they moved to the U.S. at a younger age. Office buildings, suits, and comfortability. I picture my parents as successful business people. My father who didn’t finish middle school was born with the natural brain of a businessman and even with a language barrier he was determined to achieve all of his goals.
 
My parents completed the entire course, but they didn’t become fluent. My mother’s grammar was excellent. But the weight of the language became a barrier for her because she was imprisoned by the thought of people judging her accent. In retrospect, I had a taste of that feeling when I was first enrolled in school here in the U.S., I was given a test in English and failed it, but when they gave me the same test in Spanish I passed it without a struggle. I was dumb in English, but I was intelligent and promising in Spanish.
 
Even now my mother’s insecurities over the English language still resonate with me as I still feel inferior to those whose native language is English. Although I dominate the language I often still wonder if I could have done more with my life if everything would have remained in Spanish or if I would have been born in the U.S. instead of Cuba. The truth is that I likely wouldn’t, where I come from opportunities are as scarce as everything else. But I’ll be honest and confess that I often feel like the dumbest person in a room of native English speakers. Why? How? I minored in English in college and still I tell myself that I am the worst writer I know. And on the other hand even though Spanish is my first language, I still feel as though I never unlocked its full potential. And even though English is my dominant language now, I still feel like I am learning it every day. 
 
My mind witnesses on the daily this strange dichotomy between the person I am in English and the person I am in Spanish. As though I am two completely different people in each language—because I am. There are parts of me in Spanish that can only be loosely translated into English and vise-versa. 
 
When I was in college I found myself lost when we read old English. The works of Shakespeare were confusing and often time I had to read the spark notes and interpretations of others to decipher what seemed as though was written in some code my immigrant brain could not comprehend. This forced me to always give the best I could, double and triple checking my work to ensure that I hadn’t made a single careless mistake. These are the remnants of the classmates who thought it was fun to taunt me when I was first beginning to learn this very intricate language. Meanwhile in Spanish, though it’s my mother tongue and the language I grew up speaking I sometimes feel that I don’t know enough of it. And when I hold a conversation with someone whose only language is Spanish I feel that I can’t express myself as well as I would want to. And the feelings of shame and embarrassment creep in.

                                                            * * *
 
One of my mother’s first jobs in the U.S. was as a housekeeper. During the weekends I’d help her clean the vacation homes of rich people. Sometimes she’d let me sit down on the couch while she cleaned and I’d watch television—something on Univision usually. Some sort of children’s program completely in Spanish. These are the last memories I have of being fully immersed in my native language. It wasn’t until the later years of my life that I rediscovered my passion for Latin-American music. It was a combination of yearning for my culture and an inherent need to go back to my roots in order to understand my composition. To this day I still find myself in a constant state of fluctuation between assimilation and the preservation of my culture and language. But something about listening to the songs I heard growing up takes me back home if only for the duration of the music. Ricardo Arjona, Marc Anthony, Marco Antonio Solis, and of course Celia Cruz, are some of the Latin artists my parents frequently listened to. These are the artists that now offer me a comfort zone when I have spent too much time immersed in anglo culture. 
 
Recently, I took my parents to see living legend Ricardo Arjona during his stop in Raleigh, North Carolina for his Blanco y Negro: Volver tour. Known sometimes as just “Arjona,” the Guatemalan musician is often described as the Bob Dylan of Latin America. With his complex lyrics on society, sex, religion, and Latin American culture and life, Arjona has cemented his name as an iconic figure in Spanish speaking countries and all over the world.
 
We were in an arena surrounded by people from all over Latin America who all gathered there with the same purpose—to watch Ricardo Arjona belt his hits to all of us. When Ricardo sang my favorite song of his, Si El Norte Fuera El Sur, (If the North Were The South) a song that sheds light on the stark differences between the United States and Latin America, you could hear the excitement in the audience, the energy of every Latino feeling empowered as Arjona sang his powerful lyrics juxtaposing two cultures. Flags from all over Latin America were being waved in the air as he sang his poignant lyrics. I felt myself singing with the passion of someone who despite not growing up in his home country still feels extremely proud of his origins and culture. I felt empowered, I felt Latino enough, Cuban enough. And when Arjona decided to remix one of his biggest hits, Historia de Taxi, with a salsa influence, my mother and I joined to share a salsa dance, and in that moment Cuba became me.
 
                                                         * * *
 
I always feel Cuban, I am Cuban enough—especially when I drink our strong black coffee which for me is tradition but for others it’s like drinking motor oil. That sweet “cafecito” fuels me for hours. I feel Cuban when I listen to salsa music, or when I curse under my breath in that very creative way we Cubans do. These bits and pieces in my structure will never be destroyed. I have tailored myself to fit the American brand, to be the best dressed form of the American dream and demonstrate to those that didn’t have to fight for freedom that I am in fact worthy of being here. That I am able to become what they need me to be. Except, I no longer yearn to assimilate. I want to be what I am—Cuban. As Cuban as Celia and rum. 
 
                                                       * * *
 
I have the entire knowledge of the world in my hands and yet I am not a millionaire. Artificial intelligence, the voices of books reading to me without the use of my eyes and yet—I’m still not a millionaire. What worth was my parent’s sacrifice if I am not the best goddamn thing to come from this family? If I don’t elevate this last name so high that the next generations tremble at the very thought of competing against my accomplishments? If I am being honest, it feels as though I have accomplished nothing. Smelling poverty’s breath left its rancid taste in my mouth and now I am on an endless search for the best toothpaste that eliminates the stain of my teeth forever. So that everyone in my lineage may have white teeth too.
 
I seldom allow myself to gravitate towards the dark thoughts that tell me I won’t become nothing more than what I already am but when I do it comes over me and sinks me to my greatest fears. Sure, I went to college, but I am no doctor, I am no lawyer, certainly no engineer. I learned a couple of things and wrote a couple of papers. I was praised here and there—but at the end of the day I still feel defeated. I still feel voiceless in a room full of powerful echoes. 
 
I have the job my parents dreamed of when they moved here. I have the comfort of working from home, sitting down in an air-conditioned room where I can get up whenever I want and grab a bite, use the restroom on my own time, and even on the most frustrating of days, I can still just walk away for a few and catch a breather. So why do I feel this way? Why do I feel…hopeless? My parents were full of hope working at the factory farms and cleaning hotels, and living in those old apartment buildings—so why do I feel so hopeless in all of this privilege when I broke the barrier of language?
 
                                                        * * *
 
I compare myself to the children of other immigrants and wonder how they did it. How did they become so much more than me? How can I be more like them? I think my mother elevated my intelligence beyond my own understanding, but that’s what mothers do, isn’t it? The truth is I don’t think I am as smart as they think I am. I always wonder how it is that my parents gathered the strength to leave all they knew behind to start all over. And here I am complaining about wasting my life away at this nine to five. I shouldn’t complain, right? I should be grateful. But surely there is validity in these emotions. I do not wish to be a prisoner to this endless cycle of selling my time for man-made value and recognition. My pain is no comparison to the sacrifice of my parents. And although I do not wish to wait until I am nearly dead to enjoy this life and it isn’t fair for me like it wasn’t fair for them, I recognize the ease in my life, that which theirs did not have. And that is what keeps me going on my saddest days, that is what keeps me going on the bluest of Mondays.
 
But I am an immigrant too. I often forget that even though I was young—I was an immigrant too. And I disregard the credit I deserve for being the first person in my family to finish college, for putting myself in the rooms I wasn’t invited to. For bringing my own chair to the committee that did not want to let me in.
 
Even with the limitations of a language barrier my parents built a life in America that many native speakers haven’t—and I say that proudly not to boast in any way. Their sacrifice birthed a business that provided for all of us, for most of our family to also be here in freedom. And I learned an ultimate lesson: that sacrifice and hard work is the key to success. That we can build our own destiny with grit and determination. 
 
I watched my mother study each and every night, practicing the questions to pass the U.S. naturalization exam. I went with her the day she took the test, I was with her the day she became an American citizen. And she went with me the day that I (thanks to her) also became a naturalized citizen. Only I—the one who speaks perfect English—didn’t have to take the test to prove I was worthy, because I was under eighteen and that meant that if she passed all I had tondo was pay and it was just handed to me thanks to my mother’s hard work and sleepless nights. Because of this I feel indebted to my parents even more. 
 
My father would become a citizen years later. He would fail the test the first time but pass it the second time around. What an achievement for a man that didn’t finish middle school. What an achievement for two people who were held back by a language but refused to give up. Those are the examples I grew up seeing. Two fearless people taking what is rightfully theirs without letting limitations stop them.
 
So, what do I do with my near-perfect English? What do I do when I have no barriers but the limited thinking I allow myself to dwell in? 
 
I fight and I strive, and I put the entirety of my soul into my dreams to bring their fruit to this reality and savor the taste of success. For my family, for my parents, for the generations to come—for me.
 
Today, when I wake up feeling like a failure, staring at myself in the mirror, bloated from last night’s drinking to stop feeling like a failure, I pray for health for my family, happiness for my lady, happiness for our son, happiness—for all of us. I tell the universe that things will get better. That in no time my worries will become whispers of the past, like the memories of hardship in Cuba. I breath, take a sip of coffee, and remind myself that my parent’s sacrifice was worth it if only I am happy. And I am happy.
 
In this very moment, I remember the theme music of the “Inglés sin Barreras” infomercial, that song that gave my family hope that in taking action we would destroy the limitations blocking the way before us. And we did, we broke them all.
The voiceover plays in my head taking me back in time to that apartment in Newport News, Virginia. Putting me in that same living room in our first home in the United States. Back when everything seemed simple and easy—but it wasn’t. My parents were just really good at maintaining their hope and they chose to see opportunities instead of limitations. 
 
I am choosing to do the same.
 
--
 
“Llame al 1-800-780-8000, las operadoras están esperando su llamada (call 1-800-780-8000, 
 
the operators are waiting on your call).

Spring Valley Elementary School, circa 1950
Photo credit: SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY
https://sfpl.org/locations/main-library/historical-photographs

by Gloria Delgado

I was 21, had earned my BA in Spanish at the San Francisco College for Women (aka Lone Mountain College), and was now working through my student teaching requirements with the goal of earning an elementary credential. Adding to the normal pressures and challenges involved, I was also overwhelmingly aware that, if successful, I would supposedly be the first Mexican student from Lone Mountain to earn a teaching credential. This made me a role model for some of my Latina lower classmates, who constantly questioned me about the realities of student teaching. They were trusting in me, relying on me to help them through the same experience.
 
I was also engaged, and planning a late December wedding.
 
Lone Mountain’s education department, although well-intentioned and nurturing in many ways, was still mired in the outmoded attitudes and mores of the 1940’s and false façades of the 1950’s. Our professors sometimes put more emphasis on proper appearance and demeanor, what we students called their “tea, hat and white gloves syndrome,” than they did in preparing us to deal with the actual education system. Student teachers had no written code of rights or duties, only unclear and nebulous obligations. One huge failing was that we had to complete our student teaching, one or more years at best, before even stepping into a classroom. Our entire education system was completely unprepared for the changing times and upcoming social turmoil of the 1960’s.
 
The first half of my student teaching had been a delight. I loved being part of that third-grade classroom of students from Grover Cleveland Grammar School. My master teacher, a warm-hearted and generous woman, had encouraged and advised me, giving me many opportunities to work with individuals or with the entire class, a chance to develop a rapport with the children. I was even assigned a special project, working with a young Chinese boy who refused to speak in school. At the end of my time this master teacher and other reviewers gave me an excellent evaluation, and she and the students said their goodbyes with embraces and best wishes for the future.
 
Enthused with how my experience had gone so far, I was eagerly looking forward to my second half of student teaching, this time in the middle of San Francisco’s Nob Hill and Chinatown neighborhoods. My next assignment would be Spring Valley Grammar School's fifth-grade classroom, and my new master teacher, Mrs. Butler.
 
Spring Valley School had a long and troubled history. The oldest existing public school in San Francisco, first established around 1852, then relocated and rebuilt at its current address after the 1906 earthquake, during its early years was reserved for whites only. When in 1885 a young Chinese girl, Maggie Tape, won a California Supreme Court suit for the right to attend Spring Valley, the San Francisco School Board simply kept her name at the bottom of a never-ending wait list, and built another public school to accommodate “other” races. The Tape family finally moved across the bay to Berkeley so Maggie could attend school there.
 
I knew something of the school’s history, but this was now 1962, and I was comfortable with the assignment and with the area. It was the neighborhood where my paternal grandparents had lived, met and married in 1904, and the narrow, steep streets and crowded neighborhood were familiar to me. Getting to the site involved a long commute, two buses plus cable car, then a stiff walk up and down hills all while wearing skirts and heels, as required by Lone Mountain’s strict dress code, which forbid the wearing of jeans or slacks and required high heeled dress shoes. Anything else would have been considered inappropriate or unprofessional attire.
 
Situated in the middle of the block, surrounded by old wood houses and stucco apartments, Spring Valley Grammar School was a several-storied brick and cement building with large windows and stone half-columns at the front entrance. Around the structure were narrow asphalt play areas barely big enough to hold all the students at recess or lunchtime. I don’t remember a cafeteria. Half a block up from the school on one corner was a small Chinese restaurant; at lunchtime both students and staff formed long lines outside, waiting to buy a plate of rice or noodles, vegetables and meat. For two dollars, one order provided enough lunch for several to share.
 
At this time the school population was about 98% Chinese; the principal, teachers, yard supervisors, secretaries were all white females. The only adult male at the school was the janitor, also white.
 
I signed the log-in book before meeting with the principal, Mrs. Mitchell. She welcomed me with a warm smile, escorted me to the fifth-grade classroom, introduced me to Mrs. Butler, my new master teacher, then left. Upon the principal’s departure, Mrs. Butler appeared somewhat imposed upon by this unwelcome intrusion, this interruption of her routine. She coolly, slowly looked me up and down with what seemed barely disguised contempt, then introduced me to her students. “Class, this is Miss—What did you say your name was?—Of course. Miss Colville, Miss Cavi—How do you pronounce that again? Oh. Yes. Miss Cal-vee-yuh, who will be with us for a few weeks. She wants to learn how to be a teacher.” Then, in an undertone, I was dismissed: “Go to the back of the classroom, take a seat, and just watch what I do.”
 
“Just watch what I do.” And that’s all I did, three half-days a week, for what seemed unending hours; I watched her do whatever she did—but without taking a seat. There was no chair, no stool, no extra desk for me to use, and none was ever provided all the months that followed. I was not allowed to speak with or interact with any of the students when Mrs. Butler was present. Banished to “the back of the bus,” as it were, I stood in uncomfortable high heels in a corner by one of the two doors to the cloakroom or leaned against the middle of the wall. These initial long hours of standing and watching did prove valuable. By moving casually from one side of the classroom to the other, I managed to get glimpses of the students’ faces, and in three days came to know them all by name and personality.
 
This was the era when the Asian school population, still labeled “the model minority” by 1950’s society, had names like Alexander, Lily, or William; none used a Chinese given name in school. All the fifth graders at Spring Valley School were attentive, polite, clean, neatly dressed, healthy, and apparently happy; that is, all except for one—Marcella, the only white girl in the class, the only white girl in the entire school.
 
Mrs. Butler was a slightly stout, imposing woman in her late 50’s with meticulously waved short dyed blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and perfect makeup. Not one for riding buses and cable cars, she rode to and from campus in a Yellow Cab, arriving and departing always on schedule. Impeccably, even modishly attired, she would sit unmoving behind her desk for long periods of time, on occasion rising majestically from her chair to write on the chalkboard or to lecture. Everything about her was carefully controlled—her appearance, her demeanor, her voice, her movements. Mrs. Butler never rushed, never raised her voice in excitement, joy, or anger; everything she did was dignified, reserved, calculated. Her teaching style, lectures, even her occasional compliments to the students acknowledging good work or a successful grade, were muted.
  
The fifth-grade classroom was attractive, a large turn-of-the-century style square high-ceilinged room filled with rows of wooden desks lined up in orderly fashion. On the left side of the room light streamed through several huge waist-to-ceiling stacked wood windows that had to be opened or closed against the changing weather with a long wooden pole, an iron hook on one end. Leafy green plants, cared for by the students, sat on the wide windowsills. On the opposite wall were two doors with transom windows. Black chalkboards covered the remaining space. A dark upright piano, apparently never touched, stood in one corner of the front wall. At the rear of the classroom was the cloakroom, a door at each end. Maps, globes, flags, some bookcases, a black clock hung high filled the space. The large oak desk presiding at center front was topped with neatly stacked books, notes, daily lesson plans. A slender vase by the handbell occasionally held flowers Mrs. Butler or a student would bring, pastel blossoms, a white camellia, or a sprig of the dainty pink sweet-fragranced Cécile Brünner roses that once flourished throughout all old San Francisco neighborhoods.
 
But the most notable article on Mrs. Butler’s otherwise nondescript desk, the only object reflective of Chinese culture in the classroom, was the reclining figure of a jovial Chinese god with a bald head and fat round belly. This large carved wooden figure was obviously valuable. Placed to the far-left front edge of the oak desk with his back to Mrs. Butler, the laughing god faced the rows of student desks.
 
“Who is this? Is this Buddha?” I seized the opportunity to ask the class one day when Mrs. Butler was called out for a moment.
 
“Why, he’s not Buddha, he’s the Laughing God, Budai,” the children, now surrounding me, eagerly explained, “the god who brings good fortune. His big bag holds everything we need for everyday life. He’s the happy god who protects all his children. Rub his belly,” they insisted, “it brings you good luck!” And so, I rubbed Budai’s belly daily, asking for protection and good fortune for the children; and for me, the strength to get through another day watching Mrs. Butler. 

***

​Later one afternoon Mrs. Butler and I were alone in the classroom when she asked, with no preamble: “Where were your parents born, Miss Cal-villee-yuh?” Knowing this was code for …what are you, I can’t figure you out, and not knowing really bothers me… and offended, not by the question, but by her manner, I deliberately and literally answered the question she asked, and not the question she wanted to ask.
 
“My father was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and my mother on Ewa Plantation, Oahu, Hawai’i.
 
“Oh, so you’re Hawaiian! No wonder you look so exotic!”
 
“My mother is not Hawaiian, she is Puerto Rican, born in Hawai’i because that is where her parents were living at the time; that makes me Mexican and Puerto Rican.” Then, still feeling the sting of her irritating use of the word exotic, in a not very subtle attempt to redirect the conversation I asked her about the figure on her desk, not revealing that the students had already introduced us.
 
“It was a ‘welcome to our school’ gift given to me by the Chinese parents when I first started teaching at Spring Valley.” Her bland, rote monotone response to my question lacked warmth, a sense of gratitude, enthusiasm, or sensitivity to what Budai obviously meant to her students and their families. They had given her part of themselves, part of their culture. Did she see Budai as more than just a block of wood, did she understand, did she even care? No. She had referred to Budai as it, not as he. Then she said: “You know, dear, you really should smile more; you would be so much more attractive.” I was put firmly back in my place. Mrs. Butler turned and sat down at her desk; the children returned from recess; lessons resumed.
 
Reflecting later on our exchange, I had the strong overwhelming intuition that Miss Butler intensely disliked the figure of Budai, finding him too exotic, too foreign—like me. But the figure was something she could not easily dispose of, not if she wanted to keep her job and the approval of the parents. Budai and I both might be thorns in her side. One thought followed another. Did she dislike her job? Had society changed too quickly for her, made her feel trapped at Spring Valley, helpless, unwilling, unable to adapt or cope? Did she even like her students? I already knew, even after a few days, that she intensely disliked, possibly even hated me. Did she, deep inside, dislike her students? But why? For being unworthy of her talents? For being different, exotic, Asian? These unwelcome intuitions of mine were sickening and ugly; and I tried to suppress them. Still stunned by their impact, stomach churning, thoughts and speculations reeling, I took up my usual post standing at the back of the class.  

***

​Some of the other teachers would occasionally talk with me when I spent time in the faculty lounge; for the most part I was ignored. “Oh, so you’re the new student teacher” was the comment I heard most frequently that first week. “Hmm… You know, of course, that she didn’t want another student teacher. You were forced on her, just like the previous one, that young black woman. She didn’t last long either, poor thing.” And when Mrs. Butler walked into the lounge the conversation instantly shifted, and I became invisible.
 
With time enough to reflect on what had been said, I realized that Mrs. Mitchell’s accompanying me herself to Mrs. Butler’s classroom, and her introduction of me to Mrs. Butler in the presence of the class, was not the generous, friendly gesture I had initially taken it to be, but was the outcome of a clash of wills between the two women. And Mrs. Mitchell, as principal, had won that particular battle. Mrs. Butler could not easily dispose of me if she wanted to keep her job and the goodwill of her employer.
 
On my way home one afternoon that same first week I was headed to the front entrance when the janitor, still carrying the mop and bucket he had just used to clean the floors, called out to me. “Miss! Say, Miss! You the new student teacher?” he asked, turning his head back and forth, apparently checking the hall to see if anyone else was around to hear. I nodded, uneasy, unsure where this was going. “Watch out for her, that damn bitch, she’ll try to do something to you, she’ll try to hurt you.”
 
“Who will?” But I already knew the answer.
 
“Butler, of course, who else!” He smirked, looking me up and down, appraising me almost as coolly as Mrs. Butler had done that first day. This one won’t make it, either… Shaken, but attempting to conceal it, I only nodded, gave him an icy “Thank you,” knowing that a new student teacher shouldn’t be seen alone in conversation with a janitor. I left for home, thinking: I know she dislikes me, but what could she possibly do to me, and why should she bother? I’m nothing but a very small temporary thorn in her side.
 
At first, in an attempt to bring down the barriers between us, I tried to engage Mrs. Butler in conversation during the breaks in the teachers’ lounge. I assured her of my willingness to tutor students needing assistance with math problems or reading, to help with anything, anything at all. But the days went by; nothing worked, nothing changed. She terminated any thought or suggestion of mine with the same admonition: “No. Just watch me and see how it’s done.”

***

​Two weeks into the semester, while in the office signing the attendance book, I was surprised to see a familiar face. Mary Henley and I had been through grammar and high school together. “I’m the fourth-grade teacher now,” she told me, and after learning I was the new student teacher, she whispered: “I’ve got to leave now, I don’t want to be late, goodbye,” then abruptly turned and went off down the hall to join her class. What was that all about? Although we were not friends, we had always been on friendly terms, and there was still plenty of time remaining before the first bell. Mary was a shy and quiet person, but to witness this timid, even fearful behavior of hers was unsettling. Was it the mention of Mrs. Butler as my master teacher? I never spoke with Mary again, and only caught occasional glimpses of her across the auditorium during school assemblies. Mary never joined the others in the teachers’ lounge, never lined up for lunch at the corner, never seemed to leave her classroom. I wondered what, or who, she was avoiding besides me. It would have been nice to have someone to talk with, to see a friendly face, to have an ally. It was all so strange; Mary too had almost disappeared, become invisible. Was Mary afraid of Mrs. Butler? I would never know. Something was very wrong here; was it the school, was it Mrs. Butler, or just me? 

***

​“Just watch what I do.” And so, I continued. Standing, I watched her for days, then weeks on end, gradually learning that something was indeed wrong, but it was difficult to describe at first, difficult to put into words. Yes, something was wrong, and it seemed to begin here, in this classroom. I watched and learned. Mrs. Butler did nothing overt, nothing that would ever leave her open to criticism. Her interactions with the students were to the casual outside observer always pleasant, mellow, full of compliments. She was not one to lose her temper. She was always so subtle in her methods, in her cruelty. Mrs. Butler’s particular type of cruelty was new to me, and difficult to describe. It was not what she said or did, but how she said or did things, with an ease far beyond my experience. Most of the wounds she inflicted were quick tiny jabs, like mosquito stings, almost invisible on the surface, but nevertheless capable of leaving behind deep and festering infections.
 
Mrs. Butler pretended not to notice the effect her hints and insinuations had on the students; but I noticed; I watched. She always said and did things deliberately, never carelessly, or half-way, or by accident. Her techniques were not as effective on the boys who, at this still mostly innocent age of nine or ten, more easily managed to ignore them or shrug them off. Anyway, Mrs. Butler seemed to prefer to manipulate the girls.
 
This morning, Louise was her focus, her tool. “Look, everyone, Louise is so pretty today in her new dress! Louise always looks so nice, her clothes are always so beautiful!”
 
All eyes turned as one to gaze at Louise, who, head down, hands clasped together in her lap, smiled modestly, basking in the compliments. Subtly made conscious that Louise had …something… that they lacked, the other girls’ eyes, glazed and clouded, went blank for long silent seconds. The girls were still too open-hearted to actively dislike Louise, or Celia, or Sara, whoever was singled out to be complimented for the wrong reasons, whoever happened to be Mrs. Butler’s chosen focus, her tool, the target around whom she created and fomented negative feelings within the group. They didn’t actually dislike each other, not yet; but I could sense dislike and jealousy and hubris building and growing, little by little, created, cultivated and maneuvered by Mrs. Butler.
 
Louise in particular didn’t need to hear such frequent compliments. The treasured daughter of a comfortable family, Louise was a nice girl, a beautiful child who always arrived at school wearing expensive new dresses, her long straight gleaming black hair carefully arranged and tied back in bright ribbons. Excessive praise, and being singled out for her attractive appearance day after day could only do her harm—but could this really be Mrs. Butler’s goal, to cause harm to Louise, to the children? I was stunned, ashamed of my suspicions. They filled me, nevertheless, and couldn’t be ignored.
 
Marcella, the only white child remaining in the ever-shifting class, was Mrs. Butler’s most frequent target, the daily recipient of twisted compliments. Mrs. Butler hardly bothered to disguise the scorn and contempt she felt for the girl. Perhaps she considered Marcella to be too simple, too easy a target, and unworthy of her subtlety? The daughter of a poor family, this clumsy, gangly girl was never complimented on her dresses, never came to school wearing ribbons. With her blonde hair chopped off just below her ears, ends carelessly pulled back in a rubber band, she was always dressed in clean but threadbare old clothes. She spoke, when pressed, with a soft southern country drawl. Apparently still in the awkward stages of early puberty, a full head taller than her classmates, Marcella lacked the easy grace and charming manners of her quicker, more coordinated, more sophisticated classmates.
 
Mrs. Butler began: “Look, everyone, Marcella has finally managed to—finish her work on time—make only three mistakes on her test—skip rope for one minute before tripping—get a C—catch the ball and only drop it once…” Every day brought fresh opportunities to single out Marcella in this negative way. Today it was a class game of basketball. “Look, class, Marcella finally threw the ball into the basket! She found the basket! Let’s everyone clap for her. Yeah, Marcella!”
 
“Yeah, Marcella!” the class parroted Mrs. Butler, clapping in unison, in bored, orchestrated applause lasting only a few seconds. The unfortunate girl, hair coming loose from the rubber band, strands flying out in all directions after her strenuous efforts, and horribly embarrassed at this additional reminder of her general ineptitude, looked down at the ground, her body writhing, her mouth twisted into a caricature of a smile, the toe of one worn shoe grinding into the ground, as if digging an imaginary hole in which to hide.
 
The bell rang, the children gathered to return to the classroom. Marcella paused, hanging behind, waiting to take her usual place at the very end of the line. Angry thoughts filled my mind: Marcella will bloom at her own time, but this woman just won’t let her alone. Why does Mrs. Butler hate her? Does Marcella remind her of herself at that age? Is it because she is the only white girl in the school, and Mrs. Butler is ashamed of the girl’s poverty, of her shabbiness? Could it simply be that Marcella’s hair is naturally blonde? It was cruel of her to constantly single out Marcella this way, and exceedingly painful to watch it being done. I could do little about it but gently touch the girl’s shoulder, smiling at her after everyone else had turned away. “You did very well today, Marcella,” I whispered. She lifted her head and looked straight into my eyes. My reward was one of her genuine, sweet smiles. 

***

​My time at Lone Mountain was becoming more and more stressful. I felt tremendous pressure, receiving little help and even less guidance from an unsympathetic and clueless education staff. When I tried to describe the poisonous atmosphere at Spring Valley to my supervisors, they thought it was mere complaining. They didn’t even hear me. After all, Mrs. Butler hadn’t done anything wrong, not really. No one had done anything to me, not really. “We’re sure things are fine, dear. She’s your master teacher after all, she must be happy with you; if she weren’t we would have heard. There’s still plenty of time left for your evaluation. Don’t worry so much. Just be patient, cooperate, do your best.”
 
Platitudes, empty platitudes, with no insight, no empathy, no understanding. I was sick of it. During my two days a week back at college, the younger Latinas questioned me relentlessly. They wanted to hear the truth, not platitudes, not empty phrases. They needed to know exactly what I was experiencing. It was all up to me to tell them this truth, that it wouldn’t be easy, that many people were out to block us in any way possible. My goal, my future, my classmates’ futures and hopes were at stake; and everything was slipping away. I was their symbol, their apparent leader, and I was about to fail. 

***

Tired of watching Mrs. Butler, suddenly one day something within me snapped; it all became too much to bear. No more! I’ve had enough, now it’s my turn, you will start watching me! I did nothing overt, nothing disrespectful that would leave me open to criticism, but I would not give up, crawl away or hide. Too much was at stake. I would not become her focus, her target, another Mary Henley. Now, my father’s favorite saying again came to mind, and I took up the challenge, followed his imperative. “Jalisco, no te rajes! Jalisco, never give in!” Now, I crossed from one side of the room to another, moving only when Mrs. Butler’s attention was elsewhere. It was petty and childish, but I did it anyway just to annoy her. Before, I had always entered the classroom by creeping in the back door like an intruder, rubbing Budai’s belly only when there were no witnesses. No more. Now, entering by the front door, I deliberately crossed the classroom directly in front of her desk, now I wished her a cheerful “Good morning,” now I greeted Budai with a quick rub of his belly before taking my usual place in the back. The students may or may not have noticed, but she certainly did.
 
Ignoring her glares, subtly daring her to admonish me, I started greeting and addressing the students by name when we lined up for recess, gathered in the playground, or made trips to the assembly hall. In spite of knowing she would ignore me, nevertheless several times a week I would politely ask the same questions: “When will I be allowed to teach a lesson, to help the students? And my evaluation, when will it be scheduled?” I began writing in a small notebook while Mrs. Butler lectured, jotting down nonsense things, random thoughts, anything to keep from going insane, to keep the classroom walls from closing in on me. That little notebook would become my refuge, a safety net. My stomach would hurt once in a while, but I ignored it.
 
One morning, in an excess of boredom, I grew careless. Standing at my usual place beside the back wall, I was writing some nonsense in my notebook, eyes focused on the paper, when Mrs. Butler suddenly appeared in front of me. It was dizzying and disorienting to see her any place other than the front of the room, as though the earth’s axis had tilted. “What do you keep writing in that book of yours? What do you have in there that’s so important?” she demanded. Yes! Finally, I had gotten to her!
 
“Oh, nothing really important,” I coolly, glibly lied, “just random thoughts that occur to me. I note down good methods or techniques you use to teach, ideas for lesson plans, things you do that are effective, stuff like that. Would you like to see?” I offered her the open notebook, certain she would refuse it. Mollified, she shook her head no, returned to her proper place in front of the classroom. Oh my God, I knew it! She believed me! She won’t ask about the notebook again.
 
But maybe I was watching and learning too well. The idea of beating her at her own game for a moment had felt strangely challenging and appealing to the ego. Hubris? And what about my classmates who were depending on me? Being in the same room with Mrs. Butler was changing me into another person, into a liar, a sneak, someone I didn’t much like. It was making me sick, emotionally and physically. That ball of discomfort in the pit of my stomach kept growing larger.
 
So, I jumped at the chance when Mrs. Butler unexpectedly asked me for a favor. The aide who usually supervised the playground at lunchtime was out on sick leave and would be missing for about one week. Would I be willing to take her place? “Of course, I’d be happy to help!” From then I spent every lunch period in the schoolyard. It was a relief to be outside interacting with students, removing wood splinters from little fingers, mending petty squabbles, wiping away tears. I could breathe again. The only problem was missing lunch; there was no time for me to eat.
 
Two weeks went by, then three. I asked, but was told: “No, the aide is still out.” And like a fool I believed it, until one afternoon I happened to see the supposedly ill aide chatting comfortably in the lounge. I don’t remember who told me that the aide was still getting paid for the work I was doing; but by this time playground supervision had become my regular responsibility on the three half-days a week I spent at Spring Valley. I wondered if the aide and Mrs. Butler had colluded to get me to take her place for free? The principal must have known about this, must have approved this. What would Mrs. Butler get out of using me? Power? Revenge? Secret satisfaction? 

***

​One morning around December 7th, Mrs. Butler’s stone façade seemed to crumble. Having just finished a regular lesson on the significance of the date, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, she remained seated, uncharacteristically still. The silence continued for long moments, disturbed only by the ticking of the large black clock on the wall. Out of the silence she burst out: “I hate the Japanese! I hate them! They killed my brother!” The class sat stunned, mouths open, eyes darting back and forth. I looked on anxiously, feeling another huge lump forming in my stomach. Her body shaking, hands trembling, face ashen, Mrs. Butler then graphically recreated the bombing of the battleship Arizona, ending with a detailed description of the 1,100 bodies remaining behind entombed within the ship, among them her brother.
 
Her account finished, Mrs. Butler slowly rose from her chair and walked out the door—just as the bell rang for lunch. I forced myself to move to the front of the class and dismiss the children, who had remained frozen in their seats, shocked into uncustomary stillness. What should I do? Should I report this episode to the principal? Report what? It was horribly wrong for a teacher to expose young pupils to such strong personal emotion. It was a terrible abuse of her position! What was my own responsibility here? Confused, sick with anxiety, already late for yard duty yet truly concerned for her well-being, I quickly checked the halls, lounge, and restrooms, but Mrs. Butler was nowhere to be found. I gave up the search and went outside to the playground.
 
After lunch Mrs. Butler was back in the classroom as usual, her composure and demeanor normal, showing no sign of emotional trauma. I approached her, told her how sorry I was for the death of her brother. She ignored me, making me invisible again. I walked back to my customary place and position at the rear of the room, just like Marcella always at the end of the line of students.
 
Once again watching Mrs. Butler, with time enough to reflect on what had transpired, the intuition struck me that this whole episode was a cold, calculated performance—but to what end, to what purpose? What kind of sick, twisted person would use her brother’s death this way? …and it was twenty years after the fact …and her exit had been so perfectly timed… Did her brother really die at Pearl Harbor? Did she even have a brother? Did she do this every December 7th? Was the performance, if indeed it had been a performance, solely for my benefit, to see what I would do about it, to see if I would report her? She could easily deny the whole episode, turning me into this suspicious, libelous student teacher trying to draw attention to herself. Or was I becoming cruel, mean-spirited and evil, daring to suspect the worst of a severely traumatized, unfortunate woman? Or was I being manipulated, like Marcella, like Louise? Were the children being manipulated and victimized out of her sadistic need to inflict cruelty and pain? But why? Because she hated me? Because she hated them? Because they, like the Japanese, were Asian, and easy targets? Nothing made sense. I tried to suppress my suspicions and my intuitions but failed. I didn’t want to have such thoughts about anybody, not even about Mrs. Butler, but they existed, and couldn’t be ignored. I didn't know what to do.
 
After hours of inner turmoil and confusion, still unsure and uncertain, I decided to wait, to keep quiet about the whole event in case I was being manipulated. Again, my stomach hurt.

***

Shortly after my assignment to Spring Valley I had informed Principal Mitchell that I would be getting married during the Christmas break and would like to take off one extra week in January for a honeymoon. She had agreed, as long as I fulfilled my hours. It was settled; after my return I would be at school three whole days a week until the end of my school term and would continue with yard duty, more than fulfilling the number of hours of my obligation. No mention was made of pay.
 
It was now mid-December, time for Christmas vacation. The children showered me with gifts, boxes of candy, brightly colored tins of tea, and cards. When I reminded Mrs. Butler that I was getting married soon, she coldly told me to announce it to the children myself. For the first time in all those weeks at Spring Valley School, I was allowed to stand in front of the class. Telling the students that they were all invited to my wedding at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Broadway Avenue, just a few blocks away, I jotted down the address, date and time of the ceremony on the blackboard. When I glanced at Mrs. Butler out of the corner of my eye, she was frowning. Once again I had gone too far, had overstepped a boundary. But it didn’t matter, I didn’t care, I was getting married, and getting a welcome break from watching Mrs. Butler. With a rub of Budai’s belly, I asked him to watch her and to protect his children.
 
They remembered. They came to our wedding! It gladdened my heart to see a group of fifth graders sitting quietly together in the rear pews. Unaccompanied by any parent, confident, dressed in their best, the children had come to the church together, and had patiently sat through the whole Mass and ceremony, in spite of it being celebrated in Latin and Spanish! When my new husband and I stepped outside after the recessional, we saw more fifth graders gathered together across the street from the church, jumping up and down in excitement, waving and calling out “Miss Calvillo! Miss Calvillo!” We waved back, honored by their presence.
 
When I returned to Spring Valley it was the middle of January. I had the same lengthy commute—two buses, a cable car, a long walk—but now my first bus ride started in Berkeley, our new home, and took even longer. The children seemed glad to see me again, and I realized how much I had missed them. “We saw Miss Calvillo getting married,” I overheard several students whisper to their friends the day I returned. Mrs. Butler now addressed me as Mrs. Delgado and seemed to have no difficulty pronouncing my new name. Otherwise, things continued as before, but now I had entire days, three whole days a week to watch Mrs. Butler. She had not changed. She continued to evade the issue of my evaluation and kept me to my usual place standing at the rear of the room, still without a chair. That ball of pain at the pit of my stomach came back larger than ever.
 
The following weeks seemed interminable, a blur of quickly passing memories; only one small incident stands out. Mrs. Butler announced: “I want to share some good news with you, class. I just found out that we will all be together again next year. I’m going to be your sixth-grade teacher! Isn’t that wonderful?” There was a long, long pause while the children took in her message. “Yeessss… Mrs. Butler,” slowly came the ragged, unenthusiastic, not quite in unison response. My heart sank. One more year of this, of her? I would be free shortly, but the poor children…

​***

​It was mid-afternoon, almost time for the music lesson, when Mrs. Butler beckoned me up to the front of the class. “I need to go to the restroom, Mrs. Delgado; I’ll be back shortly.” Mystified, I stood there watching the children as they talked quietly among themselves. Was she sick? She didn’t look sick. What is going on, what is she up to now? With a tremendous jolt to my stomach, I understood: My God, this has to be my evaluation! And with no advance notice, no chance for preparation! She was about to prove me to be this incompetent, unreliable and unstable student teacher, the one she had said all along couldn't handle the pressure, poor thing, the one who fell apart at her evaluation.
 
Moments passed. Wearing a wide, triumphant smile, Mrs. Butler grandly entered the classroom, trailed closely by Principal Mitchell and two unfamiliar women. Too stunned to hear their names, I managed somehow to smile as we all shook hands and introduced ourselves, but I never heard a word beyond “We are here for your evaluation.” My thoughts reeling, stomach churning, I tried to formulate a lesson plan, any plan, out of nothing.
 
Then Budai, the protector of children, the bringer of good luck, smiled on me. I needed a lesson plan. Laughing, he opened his sack, the bag that holds everything his people need for everyday life, pulled out a lesson plan, and placed it, complete, into my hands.
 
Ignoring the evaluation team and walking directly to the piano in the corner, I focused all my attention on the children: “Class, most of you know something about baseball, and know that San Francisco has a baseball team called the Giants. Well, the Giants are in the playoffs to find the best team, to win the championship. There’s a new song about the Giants called “Bye-Bye Baby,” you may have heard it on the radio. Who knows what “bye-bye baby” means?” The children hesitated, unsure of what to do; this was not their usual music lesson.
 
Franklin timidly half-raised a hand. “It means to hit a baseball so hard that the ball goes over the wall, and the other team can’t catch it, and your team scores.”
 
“Yes!” Thank God for Franklin.
 
“Now, imagine we’re all at a baseball game together, this whole fifth grade class is sitting together in a huge stadium full of people. It’s a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, somewhere there’s an organ playing. We’ve got hot dogs for lunch, peanuts for a snack. We’re wearing black baseball caps with orange initials ‘SF’ in front, we’re cheering for our team, and our singing is going to help the Giants hit those baseballs over the wall!” I lifted the piano lid, and standing, played the tune. “Listen to the melody, remember how it sounds, and we’ll sing it together. It’s easy!”
 
When the Giants come to town, it’s bye, bye baby! Line by line, I played and then together we sang those simple verses, haltingly at first, then confidently, then with real team spirit. Every time the chips are down, it’s bye, bye baby! I called out: “Now the boys!” They sang. “Girls only.” History’s in the making at Candlestick Park! Cheer for the batter, and light the spark! I pointed to one row, then another. “Row 5… row 3… Odd rows only… even rows only…. Now, I’m going to trick you.” I switched rows back and forth, in the middle of a line, in the middle of a word. If you’re a fan of Giants baseball, sing bye, bye baby! All eyes were attentive, sparkling, eager, and glued to me; we were on a roll! “Boys again.... Girls now... Handsome boys only....” That stopped them—but just for a second. Laughing, the boys sang the next line together. If you want to be in first place, call bye, bye baby! The girls waited eagerly, giggling in anticipation. “Pretty girls only!” More giggles; all the girls sang. “Smart students only…” But they were ready for anything now; they all sang out. “Dumb stu… ah no,” I pretended to stop myself, “I’m sorry, I forgot, there are no dumb students in this fifth grade!” And the whole class cheered! Listen to the broadcast on KSFO, Turn up the volume, and hear them go! “Children with black hair!” I called. All but one sang. “Children with blond hair!” I held my breath, but yeah, Marcella! Her sweet, clear voice rang out. I felt so proud of her. “Girls with two ears… Boys with three ears… what, no boy here has three ears? You’re sure?” More laughter. “Everyone together now!” With the San Francisco Giants, it’s bye, bye baby!
 
Loud, soft, and in between, the children’s voices answered my raised or lowered hand as if following a conductor. A quick glance at the clock showed just enough time to close the music class with a rousing version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” our voices at full power, our song rattling the walls, windows and cobwebs of old Spring Valley School. We were the Kingston Trio, we were the Shirelles, we were Peter, Paul and Mary! With perfect timing, our song ended just as the bell rang; the children spontaneously clapped and cheered. “Class dismissed.” Cries of “That was fun… That was really great…” floated in the air as the children filed out, still laughing. I felt wonderful, elated, the pain in my stomach gone.
 
Only then did I remember the evaluation team at the back of the room. Words of praise came pouring out from Mrs. Mitchell and the two other evaluators. “That was excellent! That was so well done. You did a wonderful job, congratulations!” The three shook my hand, then departed, following the children down the hall. I closed the piano lid. But where was Mrs. Butler? Had she slipped out, unnoticed, had they left her behind? I glanced around the room; Mrs. Butler, her back to me, was at her desk, gathering her things, preparing to go home.
 
It all comes down to this... I focused on her, my glance turning into a stare, my stare into a contest of wills. You lost, you failed. Now you're going to look at me, I’m going to make you look at me, you're going to look me in the eyes. Mrs. Butler turned to face me with that same icy, stone-cold look of contempt as the day we first met. We silently stared at each other for what seemed interminable seconds, her look of contempt turning into one of pure hatred. I almost laughed aloud. I’m visible, we’re all visible now, deal with it, deal with us. I can look at you forever, I’ve had practice, you lost, you failed, you’re nothing but a bigger, older, meaner, playground bully. Mrs. Butler dropped her eyes, turned, and left the classroom without a word. She never spoke to me again, never looked at me again.

***

​Just before the end of my last day at school Mrs. Mitchell called me into her office. Once more she congratulated me on my presentation, and on my outstanding evaluation. “I would like very much for you to work here at Spring Valley. I’m sure you would do an excellent job for us.” She paused. “I’m offering you a job, Mrs. Delgado.”
 
At that moment time stopped, something within me shattered, split in multiple pieces. Thoughts, memories, decisions, conversations—all recurred simultaneously in my head.
 
Part of me remembered the feeling of being poisoned, the gnawing ball of pain in my stomach growing larger daily, all the unrecompensed extra hours I had spent in playground duty, being used, lied to, gossiped about, going hungry for lack of time to eat.  All were minor issues, really, in comparison to the multitude of random wrongs and injustices suffered by so many teachers, and students, who deserved better.
 
Part of me wanted to boast, to brag to Mrs. Mitchell that the entire presentation had been spontaneous, unplanned. It was extremely gratifying to imagine Mrs. Butler, in spite of all her efforts at sabotage, squirming when reminded of my success. But that lesson plan had not come from me, it was a gift from Budai. To claim otherwise would have been hubris, and another lie. But who would understand these reactions, who could I have spoken with? Immediately I knew the answer to my own question; my peers, my companions, the other Latina underclassmen, they would listen, they would understand.
 
Another part of me had come to a surprise spontaneous decision about the job. From a far-off place I heard my myself answer: “Thank you so much, Mrs. Mitchell, it’s an honor to be offered a job at Spring Valley. I’ve enjoyed being with the children and have come to love them. But I’m sorry, I can’t accept your offer, it wouldn’t be good or healthy for me to work here. But I appreciate it very much; your offer means so much to me.”
 
Platitudes, all platitudes. I didn’t trust her, didn't want to work there, and wasn’t about to tell her the truth—except for loving the children—that was true. Then I waited, whole again, no longer in pieces, curious to hear what she would reply; but after all these years, I no longer remember the rest of our conversation.
 
When I returned to the classroom, it was empty; the school day was over, Mrs. Butler and the students had gone, my chance to say goodbye to the children was gone. I suddenly felt unsteady, emotionally drained, hollow. Something important, something of great value had ended, gone out of my life forever. Looking around the classroom for the last time, I gathered my things for home.
 
But the room wasn’t empty; there sat Budai, still on duty. Rubbing his belly, I bid him goodbye, asked him to continue to protect the fifth graders…. No! That wasn’t good enough, he deserved much more. I tried again. Palms pressed together, respectfully bowing my head, I formally thanked Budai for the lesson plan, gave him credit for my success, and told him that now, with my credential secured, I would look for a job elsewhere.
 
Then I just stood there, waiting for …something… I didn’t know what.
 
Out of a long silence broken only by the steady ticking of the classroom clock, once again I heard Mrs. Butler’s words: “It was a ‘welcome to our school’ gift given to me by the Chinese parents when I first started teaching at Spring Valley.”  
 
Budai was smiling ...our school.... Oh, I’m so slow sometimes, it can take me ages to figure things out. Clever, clever people, those parents. And subtle. They had known exactly what they were doing. Budai, disguised as a gift that could not easily be disposed of, would be a welcome resident in the classroom of a loving teacher, a thorn in the side of any other. Welcome or unwelcome, he would be there, doing his job.
 
Budai was laughing. Again, I heard the class tell me: “He’s the Laughing God who protects all his children and gives them what they need.” …All his children… In my narrow mindedness I had been thinking only of the young students in the class; but hadn’t I, for a short while, been part of this fifth grade? He had always been there helping me. For I too was Budai’s child. … but then, so was Mrs. Butler. Budai, the Master Teacher, had provided us all with what we needed.