by  Ainhoa Palacios
 
  
Each stop sign’s location was known to her. There was no need to switch lanes or deal with bad traffic, which is why it was the only road my mother felt safe driving on. One long winding road — Grand Regency Ln. It snaked past an AMC theater and a T.J.Maxx, before crossing a large intersection and keeping on past a Target and Barnes & Noble, finally and gently leaving us at Wal-Mart's doorstep, where we now got our groceries from.

Before Wal-Mart, there was Dollar Tree. We'd walk there every Wednesday evening, my mother’s only fleeting time off. We took an hour skimming the two food aisles as if our shopping list wasn’t the same as last week. Elena routinely dumped ten cans of Vienna sausages in the shopping cart, the metal tins making a loud clank that had become so sweet and familiar. A tradition almost. She then immediately disappeared and came with a box of ramen which she stuck on the bottom rack of the cart. Baked beans, tuna, Nissin Cup Noodles, Uncle Ben’s instant rice, a 60-count bag of silver-dollar pancakes, a loaf of white bread, ham, suspiciously-gold-and-individually-wrapped-slices-of-cheese—that was our cart. During the 45-minute walk home, we each carried as many bags as we could stand, stopping often to readjust and shake our hands out. We played I Spy—better known to us as Veo Veo.

Those Wednesday-dollar-store-veo-veo grocery trips only lasted a few months, stopping when my mother finally bought a car. The car was red. The seats inside, a tan suede with random stains of unknown origins. One of the back passenger doors was imprinted with a bowling ball-sized dent. It had a working radio and A/C, something I only learned to appreciate months later when a teenage girl rear-ended us, and the following car my mother purchased for $2,000 didn’t have the luxury of a working radio and A/C. The little red car had good gas-milage and airbags too, though those details I learned from my mother's praising of the car. “It is such a blessing, this little car. It serves us well,” she would say in response to Elena who complained that it made a sputtering sound so loud you couldn't hear ambulances behind. “It is embarrassingggg,” Elena whined, drawing out the last word with the sarcastic tone of an almost-teenage-girl.

I can’t remember when Wal-Mart became synonymous with ghetto. When all I saw were other brown people in much too small shirts, their bellies draping over jeans. Men with greasy ponytails and lightly stained ‘wife beaters’. I can’t remember the moment I started to say to my friends, "I only shop at Target", where every aisle was brightly lit and organized and the bathrooms didn't smell like shit. Where there wasn’t a McDonalds but a Starbucks, and the employees were white teenage girls instead of chubby worn-out single moms. But before there was "I only shop at Target", there was me, 3’ 8” with unruly curls, holding my mom’s hand and asking question after question about the first day of school. “¿Cómo se llama mi professora? ¿A qué hora viene el bus? ¿Qué voy a almorzar?”

It was our very first back-to-school shopping trip for our very first day of school in America. America. Each time I heard the word America I was filled with a sense of wonder. America. The land of opportunity. America. The land of English. America. The land of blue-eyed children. But before I could dive into 'America', we needed uniforms. I asked my mom what they looked like. “No se,” she said. They’d told her to go to a Wal-Mart. “You’ll see them there,” they assured. This confused me. How would we magically know which ones they were? Why didn’t they show her a photo? But it didn’t matter. I was six and a lot of things confused me, and I knew if I asked, I wouldn’t understand any better, and Elena would roll her eyes and tell me to stop being so pesada.

The uniforms were there. Right in between the girl’s section and the boy’s section. There were choices. The general idea was a polo shirt, and any linen bottom so long as the colors were bleach-white, hunter green, navy blue, khaki, or maroon. “Algo más que planchar,” my mother said with a grunt. She hated ironing. She hated all things housework. The day we walked into our new American apartment, she couldn't stop talking about the washing machine. How grateful she was she would no longer have to wash clothes by hand, how it would save hours of her life, how this was all she’d ever wanted in life, how she felt like she could breathe again. Elena called her dramatic.

Mom told us we could each get two bottoms and five shirts. Seeing Elena’s face of outrage, she followed her statement with “Yes, Elena. You’re going to have to wear the bottoms twice. But now, you can wash them with our new washer and dryerrrrrr!” she drew out her last word as if she was mocking Elena… “Maybe later we will buy more.” My mother never used the word “afford”, but even at six, I knew that’s what she meant.

My mother held onto two papers, each a list of the supplies Elena and I would need. “¡Quiero ver! ¡Quiero ver!” I jumped by her side trying to peek. My mother handed me my paper, and Elena’s hers. There was thick bold font at the top. From later syllabuses, I imagine this one must have said something like, Mrs. Ramlow’s 2nd Grade Class. Below the fat black font was a bulleted list of yet more words I could not read. My mother’s handwriting beside each item was useless to me. I could read some cursive, but not hers. Hers was far too harsh and edgy. I must have looked defeated when I handed her back the paper because she smiled, winked, and blew me a kiss. “I’ll read it to you and you go get it, okay?” Oh, how excited I was to run around the aisles, be on my own, free to look for new mechanical pencils and three-ring binders. I knew exactly which to grab, the generic brand, the things that sat above the lowest number.

The night before school started, I couldn't sleep. “¡Estoy muy emocionada!” I shouted while I bounced on my mother’s bed. “¿Quieres té?” she took out a mug and pulled out a lilac box with a picture of a snoring-pajama-wearing-bear sat in a rocking chair. She made this tea for herself every night. And every night, she also reached for the clear bottle of Agua de Azar from the medicine cabinet. I never did know what Agua de Azar was, other than what she gave me when I had a stomachache, or felt like throwing up, or couldn’t sleep, or cried so hard my eyes swelled.

We pulled up to a brick circular building in our sputtering red car and parked. A thin white woman and a plump brown woman were waiting for us in the lobby. The white woman shook my mom’s hand, while the plump brown woman knelt without actually letting her knees touch the carpet.“¡Hola!" she beamed. "Me llamo Mrs. Lopez. Yo seré la maestra de ESOL para las dos. Es un gusto conocerlas." ESOL, I’d find out later, stood for English for Speakers of Other Languages. Elena and I both nodded with a smile, mine always naively bigger than hers. We walked into the white lady’s office, who I’d already nicknamed La Gringa, though my mother would later remind me to use her name— Principal Kathy.

“Okay, bebe. See you later okay?” my mother kissed me goodbye. I held Principal Kathy’s hand though I didn’t particularly want or need to. They felt strange, so boney and pale next to mine. Principal Kathy was both tall and lean. She had stringy blonde hair and a very pointed nose that reminded me of the parrot we once had in Peru. Her face was lined with deep grooves that left me unable to decide if she was pretty or not. All in all, she looked exactly how I’d always pictured a gringa.

We walked in silence towards our classrooms. Mine came first. When we got to the door, the white lady inside was also tall, but this time, curvy with hair that reminded me of burnt orange peel. Another gringa. A more eccentric one. As soon as she noticed us, her face erupted into a smile, her eyes looking at me like I was the cutest kitten in the litter.

When Principal Kathy left with Elena, I sat in a cubby-holed-desk just like the movies. Burnt-orange-peel-haired-Mrs. Ramlow turned on the television. There was an image of the American flag which for some reason prompted everyone to set their pencils down and stand up, their chairs making a piercing screech as they grated against the tile in unison. They put one hand over their chest. I did the same. The room echoed with voices. I opened and shut my mouth trying to match their pace. Mrs. Ramlow looked at me subtly, a tiny smile peeping as if she were holding back a giggle. As if the kitten was somehow cuter than she expected.

We were supposed to write an expository paper. Expository, I learned in ESOL, meant it had to explain something. It had to explain why blue was my favorite color.

“Necesitas cinco párrafos. El primer, es una introducción con tres razones por qué te gusta azul. Luego, un párrafo para cada razón. El último párrafo se llama the conclusion. Dices tus razones otra vez. ¿Entiendes?” Mrs. Lopez explained in our classroom trailer. I nodded. I understood. Mrs. Lopez said to work on it for homework. If I had trouble, she would help me.

During math the next day, when I was supposed to go to ESOL, Mrs. Lopez didn’t come. She must have been sick. So when Mrs. Ramlow began to collect the writing homework—after math, and before cursive—I handed in what I had.

It sounded like a yelp, what she did. It wasn’t quite a shout, but enough that all twenty six-year-olds looked up at her. Her eyes were wide with excitement and aimed straight at me. I froze. She gently waved me over. “Did you write this? All by yourself?”

I nodded.

“Amazing!” she jumped out of her desk and grabbed the classroom telephone hung on the wall near the whiteboard. When she was finished, she reached for a green piece of paper on her desk the size of a sticky note, wrote my name, and checked a couple of boxes.“Go to Principal Kathy,” she said. I took the paper slowly and backed away the way someone might if they were faced with a rabid dog, afraid Mrs. Ramlow would yelp again.

In her office, Principal Kathy gave me candy. She put a stamp on my paper that read ‘Great Job!’ with a blue thumbs-up beside it. She was on the phone, and I was certain it was with my mother because she was opening her mouth wider than normal. I remember her doing the same exaggerated mouth movements the first day we met months ago. She handed me the phone.

“¿Bebe?”

“Hola mami.”

My mother explained, Principal Kathy called to tell her I wrote an amazing paper about the color blue for language arts class. She called to say they were all very proud of me and she should be too.

I thought about what happened when I did something good at home. How my mother would say, “¡Chocala!” raising her palm for a high five. With an o-shaped mouth, she mimicked the sound of a stadium full of fans. Then she’d say, “Esa es mi chica.” And that was it. Party over. But now, I was sat in Principal Kathy ’s large Victorian chairs, with the phone pressed to my ear, after the yelping, after the candy, after the stamps, and the only explanation was: the gringas around me were intense. A bit ridiculous. Over the top. Exageradas.

As I met more gringas, and more blue-eyed children, my conclusion evolved. America. The land of the underachieving. America. The land of the complacent. That explained why each time I got an A, there was candy, an ice cream party, a pizza party, awards. America's bar was set lower. Nobody had to work as hard to be good. To be recognized. To be special. Maybe that was the privilege I heard everyone talking about. 

I found that expository paper when I was twenty-five, months after my mother died. It was in a folder she labeled Neve, besides the one labeled Elena. Each one was a collection of everything good we’d ever done. There were crafts, and awards, and drawings, and there was that story.
             
I like the colr blue. I like the colr blue becuse it is colr the ski, the oshen, and ice.
 

Ainhoa Palacios was born in Lima, Peru, and moved to the US at the age of six. She grew up in Florida with her mother and sister, and grandmother who occasionally visited during summers.
 
She graduated from the University of South Florida with a B.A. in journalism, but soon after remembered it was a different kind of storytelling she loved. Since then, she has completed a novel and countless short stories, one of which was recently long-listed in Fish Publishing’s Short Memoir contest. She is currently working on a collection of short stories of which Gringas is part.
 
Ainhoa lives in Shenzhen, China with her dog Mambo. Somos En Escrito is the first to publish her work. 

by ​Shayla Moya
​
Growing up as an Afro-Latina with Dominican heritage in the United States, Cuba was always an enigma to me. It was the one country in Latin America that was never truly discussed in depth in terms of history or culture, whether that was at home or in Spanish classes at school. The most I was allowed to know was that it had a Spanish accent unique to their country (as each Caribbean islander does), Celia Cruz comes from there, and it is controlled by a very mean communist dictator. Like any other college student, I was in search for the truth of everything and anything, especially when it came to my AfroLatino roots. After a semester abroad in Costa Rica where I learned about Latin American human rights (mostly the lack of them) and its history, I became obsessed with finding the truth about Cuba. Specifically, how progressive the country was in terms of human rights.  

Over a year and a half after my trip to Costa Rica, I boarded on a flight to Cuba for a ten-day academic trip. I was in search of sources and interviews that could help me uncover the evolution of human rights in Cuba from the 1952 regime of Fulgencio Batista to the 2019 presidency of Miguel Diaz Canel through the lens of the historically most oppressed groups in Latin America: women, Afro-Latinx, and LGBTQ+. My intentions were to collect the information I needed, get some on-the-ground insight, and enjoy the warm weather. I never anticipated falling in love with the artwork that covered the streets. It was one of the best welcomes I have received upon arrival to a new country. Walking down the side streets of Havana with my brown skin that was only getting darker with every passing day, I fell in love with the paintings that served as mirrors to my own Afro-Caribbean identity. 
 
I was able to appreciate the majority of the paintings during the walking tour of Havana. They could be found hanging outside art shops located around every corner. I loved how the Afro Cuban art was so in your face for every passerby to see, not in the National Art Museum where people would have to pay to see it. Through these paintings, it was portrayed how the Cuban people appreciated and even proudly identified with their African roots as the blacks located in these paintings were seen draped in the Cuban flag or smoking a cigar. The ones that caught my attention the most were the ones painted on older versions of the national newspaper Granma. “Granma” was also the name of the boat that Fidel Castro and the rest of his guerrilleros arrived to Cuba in at the start of the Revolution. It is a key component of Cuban history so to see a brown skinned woman with an afro that reached the corners of the page, a smile on her face while covering her body in the Cuban flag painted on a copy of the Granma, it screamed to me “THIS is Cuba. I am Cuba. Your country may see me as ugly but here I am so beautiful that I get to have my face on the walls.”   

At the end of my trip, after all the warm feelings of love and admiration towards seeing such beautiful Afro Cuban paintings and artwork faded away, all I was left with was envy. It has long been my belief that living in the U.S. and being a person of color is like living in a house but never seeing your picture decorate the walls.   

I love the United States, but it is hard to continue loving this country when you are constantly hit with the reality that it does not love you back. Through its artwork, Cuba showed me love. It showed me the beauty of femininity, of being black with an afro, curly hair and pigmented complexion. It is hard to find the beauty in these core parts of my identity in the US when everywhere I look Latinas are portrayed as light skin with straight or wavy hair, if represented at all. Whether it is in People’s “50 Most Beautiful People” only including one designated black women or movies where black women are secondary characters. Even within my own Latino culture, black women in telenovelas are always the maid or the slave. Never the one worthy of the love from a handsome prince charming. Or something as simple as seeing myself on the walls of my university. Like many POC students at my university, I am underrepresented in the current student body and the lack of black dignified alumni on the walls reminds me nothing has changed. Each portrait of an Anglo-Saxon man with his equally white privileged wife standing beside him is reminder to me that a college degree was never meant for me. It is a privilege for me to be walking the halls of the academic buildings that HIS money paid for because a black person could never afford it. The closest I can get to seeing a large group of beautiful black women in American culture is in a rap/reggaeton music video where they are rarely fully clothed, serving as a reminder that is where I am supposed to be.   
​

In Cuba, the paintings of all the Afro Latinas served as a personal reminder that my outer beauty is also seen and appreciated for more than sexual gratification. I was no longer “pretty for a black girl” or “pretty for a dark-skinned Latina” but just pretty. It could be such a simple adjective, but the words attached after it could be the difference between tolerance and acceptance.   

While in the US, the closest I get to Afro-loving art is on my Pinterest. Maybe that is why the painting of the black Cuban schoolgirl with the crown on her head has stayed with me. I found this painting while taking an evening stroll with some friends down the streets of downtown Havana. While walking, we came across an art studio who had an artist working on his next masterpiece inside. He invited us in to see the rest of his work and that is when I saw her. She was HUGE with hair that matched the color of the night sky, with rope glued throughout her afro to portray its kinky texture. Her skin was only two shades lighter than her hair, a contrast so subtle it blended beautifully across her face. Her eyes were wide open as she pierced into your soul with the innocence only a child can carry. She was dressed in the white shirt, red overalls and blue handkerchief tied around her neck, the typical Cuban schoolgirl uniform. It was the silver crown so beautifully placed a top of her curly afro that stood out to me the most. She was a Cuban princess in all her glory. The existence of that painting gives me hope that one day all little black girls will be able to proudly wear their crowns. That they will believe in their own beauty that everyone around them tells they have, instead of feeling like people are lying to them. It is hard to believe you are beautiful when you do not match society’s idea of beauty. It is an insecurity I always had growing up, and sometimes still have today.   

For me, Cuba is a haven for people of color because we finally get to see our picture on the wall. We see the reflection of our common African ancestors in the artwork, the music, the historical monuments and it is all seen as beautiful. People forget that it is not only about seeing your picture on the wall, but “White America” praising your picture the same way it has been praising the rest of the white historical figures and accomplished individuals for centuries.  
​
Representation matters which is why I work so hard to one day get my picture on the wall to serve as a reminder for all colored girls after me that they will always belong. To be the Afro-Latina draped in a US flag painted on a copy of the New York Times and have it scream “THIS is the United States of America. I am the United States of America. Here I am so beautiful that I get to have my face on the walls.”   ​

​Shayla Moya is a senior at Norwich University pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, International Studies and Spanish.  An Afro Latina whose parents are originally from the Dominican Republic, she was born and raised in Lowell, MA.  She possesses a global perspective through various travel experiences to Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Poland, Czech Republic, Mexico, Cuba, and a semester abroad in Costa Rica. She has genuine passion for international human rights activism, and hopes to continue her education with a Masters in International Human Rights centered in Latin America. This is her first magazine publication with many more to come. 

​By Roberto deVillar

First of all, let me introduce myself. By birth, I am a sinner, as are all Catholics, and a perennial outsider from the moment I burst forth from the internally secure universe of my  mother’s womb. Transgressions and marginality; redemption and wholeness; wanting and sharing; hiding and seeking; standing firm and finding. These and other key elements constantly are in simultaneous play with one another throughout one’s life. And as we try constantly to wrestle with the elements to find ourselves, define ourselves, make sense of ourselves, justify ourselves, forgive ourselves, love ourselves, and the like, there are many times that we find ourselves pinned down by the elements.
I want to share aspects of my meandering journey toward working in the fields of social justice, and include the rocks and potholes that caused me to stumble, and the forks in the road that led to unexpected detours or dead-ends. At the same time, obstacles in my path never caused me to stop wandering in the direction that I thought was a forward one, fueled by the light of my passions, guided by the whispers, howling, and silences of my mind-soul’s inner voice. So I begin, claiming my birthright, to write as an outsider and confess.

I have always found my baptismal certificate from the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Texas, interesting. Along its left side, all the language is English. And all the names and even the month in which I was born are inserted to the right, handwritten in Spanish.
My name is listed as Roberto Alejandro DeVillar, which is the same name as on my original birth certificate; then Alfonso Arturo (my father), Cecilia (my mother—known as Nina), José Alejandro (my mother’s brother and my godparent, known as Nine), Guadalupe (my father’s sister and my godparent, known as Lupe), Rev. J. Frias (officiating priest), and my birth month is written as Junio. This integral blend of language and culture, literally from day one, was a birthmark, stamped on my soul, my character, my very being, and not only accompanied me to every geographical location, every cultural setting, and every social context in which I set foot, but influenced me, as well.
In my earliest days, although my parents and their siblings were what would be termed fully bilingual in Spanish and English, it was Spanish that was always spoken in the presence of my two remaining grandparents, who were Papá Bocho (Ambrosio Samudio Rodríguez), my grandfather on my mother’s side, who died when I was 7 years old; and, Mamá (Basilisa Riva Pellón), my grandmother on my father’s side, who lived for many years, passing away in 1976, at 94 years old.

​I never got to interact with my grandfather on my father’s side, Julián M. de Villar, as he died in January, five months before I was born, or my grandmother on my mother’s side, Mamá Celia (Celia Valdez Arizpe), who died when I was a little more than a year old. Nevertheless, their names floated in the family air we breathed daily, and, in the case of my paternal grandfather, influenced my character development and sense of culture and accomplishment throughout my life. From a strict chronological perspective, I, and my brothers, associated having grandparents with the sole experience of interacting with my father’s mother, our grandmother Basilisa, our Mamá.

My Upbringing in Diverse Socialization and Cultural Contexts

The formal socialization contexts in San Antonio that I entered outside the home from pre-school to 3rd grade were Catholic. Here, nuns ruled with rulers in hand and—although this will be almost impossible to believe--strait-jackets, which both my older brother and I, on different occasions, were strapped into. I can still remember, not even being old enough to attend first grade yet, sitting down, crossed-legged, silent, as the strange, rough, canvas-like material was wrapped around my torso, locking me in by straps looped through shiny metal rings. I have neverforgotten that image or experience. It was far worse than when I was made to kneel to have my mouth washed out with soap by a nun for having uttered, I imagine, a swear word.
Then there was the snarling, wild-eyed anger projecting from my brother’s face as he sat, body pulsating, imprisoned in the strait-jacket, somehow still emoting strength and pride, even in that shocking, depressing condition. I was perhaps 4 years old, but that tortuous image of seeing my brother in the strait-jacket lives still within my memory and continues to haunt me.
And later, at Saint Ann’s, I vividly remember wearing with pride my khaki uniform with patches, tie and brass-buckled belt, raising my hand and waiting, without being acknowledged by the nun, until I finally summed up the courage to go up to her and asked her permission to go the bathroom. She responded: “No, it’s almost time for the bell.” I returned to my desk, and despite all the attempts a child does to stop his bladder from emptying, while sitting at my desk, I uncontrollably urinated, staining the front of my khaki pants down to the knee.
I waited for everyone to leave when the bell rang, but a girl stayed behind to wait for me, and I finally got up, saying in an utterly unconvincing tone that was supposed to be lightheartedly amusing: “Oh, Paul and I were playing at recess and he threw water on me!” She didn’t say anything, her look said it all.
I went outside to one of the side doors leading to the steps where the playground began, and wedged myself in a space between one of the recessed door frames and a low wall to become invisible. I then opened my tin lunchbox in such a way that its top extended across my waist, so that in case someone did see me, they could not see my urine-stained khaki pants. A nun came by, saw me, and asked why I was there, eating alone instead of being with the others on the playground. That was all it took for me to begin to wail and angrily tell her what happened.
Rather than comfort me, the nun began to defend the offending nun, and I, even at 6 or 7 years old, knew that was unjust. So, I hollered, still shedding tears of anger, that the offending nun was a Jackass! And, each time the nun would open her mouth to say something, I would repeat, again and again, “No, she is a jackass!” Until the nun finally realized that I was in a fit of rage, came to me, put her arm around me and guided me up the stairs.
The next thing I remember is that my mother was driving me home, saying that I would not have to return to school that day. And it was her calm, gentle, loving presence, even while driving, that enveloped me and made me feel warm and safe. That same summer, I asked my parents if I could change schools, and, even though my older brother stayed at St. Ann’s, I enrolled at St. Mary Magdalen’s.

Aside from being strapped in strait-jackets, having my mouth washed out with soap, and suffering the consequences of restricted bathroom use, it was also quickly transmitted within these various Catholic settings that we are all sinners and need to repent. Thus, Catholic school is also where I learned to confess.

The Why of Confession: Many Paths, One Goal

Confessions are, of course, two-sided. On the one hand, the confessor wishes to relieve the self of the weighty burden of guilt, of pain, of suffering, of mental torment, and so on, brought on by the internally conscious judgement that one’s action or actions have violated egregiously the moral rules, guidelines or expectations of a community in which membership is claimed.
On the other hand, the confessor takes this humiliating step, in which at least one other person is present, for the explicit sake of redemption, of being forgiven for one’s transgressions, however severe, and being reborn, so to speak, to go out and sin no more—which, as we all know, is an impossibility and the paradoxical bane of Catholics and other Christians.
As sinners, we all inhabit two spaces simultaneously; that of the sinner—either actual or inevitably prospective—and the searcher who seeks forgiveness through confession for the sins committed and confession’s product, redemption. It is the same if one reads the eponymously titled autobiography, The Confessions of St. Augustine (circa 400 AD), or the tortured, tormented fictional tale of the murderous Raskolnikov, the young, feverish killer in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866; spellings include Dostoyevsky/Dostoevsky). The opportunity for redemption can be personally experienced (St. Augustine) or societally imposed, as in the case of Raskolnikov, whose mental anguish ultimately leads to his confession and redemption, albeit in the literal purgatory of Siberia.
Thus, the path leading to redemption is rarely smooth and may not even be successful, as in the case of Eugène Marais, the Afrikaner polymath who, alone in his hovel, observed, documented and wrote about apes for three years in their native context—resulting in his The Soul of the Ape (1969, English edition, but actually written in the 1920s)—while musing about his ingestion of morphine to which he was addicted and led him to clearly understand that ever-greater amounts of morphine were required to achieve the same level of momentary mental elation.
I read Soul of the Ape in Heidelberg, Germany, as a soldier in the US Army, at some point during the time I was stationed there (1970-1971). Marais clearly understood that there would come a time when the amount of morphine required would surpass the body’s ability to withstand it, but he did not live to witness and attest to that principle. At 65, he took a shotgun and shot himself first in the chest and then the head.
Marais’ anguish and insights did not lead to confession and, therefore, there was no redemption, only despair and the emptiness of a tragic death. Drug addiction, nevertheless, is not an insurmountable barrier to the quest and realization of redemption.
Thomas De Quincy’s autobiographical account, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), was immensely popular with the public for decades in England and abroad, describing as it did the vast pleasures and marginal pains of addiction. The necessity of redemption was presented as an almost reluctant conclusion by the author-eater. De Quincy considered redemption justified for the sake of, if nothing else, being able to continue to meet one’s professional responsibility and the demands of productivity. He also found it essential to remain in an appropriate physical and mental condition sufficient to appear coherent to others and to engage in sustained social interactions.
In a manner that gives the impression of deception or hypocrisy, or both, De Quincy used confession, forgiveness and redemption as a means to continue to ingest opium as a controlled substance, while eloquently claiming or charmingly suggesting that his use was in the past. His was a cycle of perpetual sinning and seeking forgiveness and redemption in order to sin once more, allowing him literary success, moderated opium use, and selective redemption. 
When I first read Carlos Castaneda’s (I am spelling his last name without the tilde-ñ, as that convention has been used in his books; others may prefer to spell it Castañeda) The Teachings of Don Juan, I completely missed the point of its subject matter. Yes, I know that there was a subtitle, but I overlooked it because I was in the library at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, after Basic Training at Ft. Bliss, Texas, and now involved in learning Morse code. Since May 1969, I had been experiencing life in the Army as a draftee during the heavily contentious Vietnam War.

​Why did I miss the point of the title? Well, stay with me now, having spent my late elementary through high school years in Seville, Spain, and five years in Mexico, City, earning my B.A. and working, I naively thought that I was checking out a book on the character Don Juan Tenorio! You know, Zorilla’s (1844) work, or that of Tirso de Molina (1630), or perhaps George Gordon Lord Byron’s (1819-1824) “Don Juan” poem–pronounced for purposes of rhyme, “Don Joo-un.”
All of them were essentially, to greater or lesser degrees, about the perennial triad of sin, forgiveness and redemption, and in Seville, no less! I share all the above thoughts that came to my mind to say that I was desperate for a Spanish-related cultural injection—a cultural fix—so I confess my error and beg forgiveness.
Nevertheless, as we are prone to sense or know, coincidences are merely unforeseen experiences that were meant to take place. Thus, not at all coincidentally, reading The Teachings of Don Juan was a major cultural fix for me, for it altered my mind in ways I had not experienced previously. Moreover, it was a transformative experience for me, for I internalized immediately two life-long lessons:

First, to respect and honor as a legitimate cultural value and behavior the ingestion of mind-altering natural elements by groups, within their native context, for purposes integral to the group’s codified well-being; and,

Second, to avoid ingesting those types of drugs outside a legitimate cultural context and without a competent guide a la Don Juan.

I didn’t see the United States—the dominant cultural model or any of its less-dominant groups—as having a legitimate cultural context or knowledge-base for drug ingestion and never felt the need for drug use for recreational or “psychology-of-insight” purposes. I had made a marked distinction between cultural values and behaviors associated with the belief system of a group, as opposed to individuals who belonged to a group culture but whose practices did not emanate from or reflect the core values of that culture.
This is, of course, the time for full disclosure: I do drink red wine moderately, beer occasionally, tequila reposado—or at times, añejo/añejado—if either is in front of me, and, albeit rarely, I enjoy a straight—no ice, no water—bourbon/whiskey, never the Jim Beam taste, if the occasion arises, which it very rarely does. As this statement regarding alcohol consumption is not a confession, I do not seek or care about redemption or forgiveness, or consider my way of being, in this case, a sin.
My sin, as will become clear, was one of massive professional blindness and ignorance toward the very group that I had returned to the United States to work for and with, in pursuit of a deeply-rooted and life-long sense of social justice. I had a modicum of, but not directly relevant, academic preparation in the study and intellectual pursuit social justice, having graduated with a degree in Latin American Studies, Social Sciences, from the Universidad de las Américas. My cultural context, both in Seville, Spain, and Mexico City, Mexico, was far from the context in which I desired to participate in and contribute to. I just didn’t realize it at the time—that is, all my life up to then.
In the 1960s, the university was located a short distance from the exit of Las Lomas de Chapultepec, the massive, mega-élite, mansion-dense neighborhood—specifically at kilómetro 16 de la Carretera México-Toluca. Ambassadors, Cantiflas, politicians, bankers, and others considered the crème-de-la-crème resided in this élite colonia, and so did I, but as a student, in a beautiful residence where they took in student and professional boarders.
At that time, mid-1960s, our university campus was, as I remember, characterized mainly by deep ravines and panoramic views of tree-dense, rolling hills—especially visible from the massive terrace of our small campus, itself, a converted country club. Its student body was a mixture of high-wealth, native-born students, in the main from Mexico City, with groups of foreign students, from the United States, Canada and Europe.
The campus was, in part, an extension of the relaxed life-style of the rich and famous, where high-end cars were visible, driven by students in tailor-made suits or casually fashioned outfits. At the same time, there were the American students who would come for their “quarter abroad” programs, wearing chinos, sockless loafers and madras shirts—who never really fitted in and whose presence appeared more decorative than substantive. They were like silent, colorful, moving units amidst a socio-cultural context that at times saw them but did not engage with them.
There were more serious foreign students, who either could not or preferred not to adapt to the Mexico City culture and left soon after arriving; or native students, who decided to transfer to the internationally prestigious Colegio de México, a highly regarded research university that specialized in the social sciences. There were also those who came looking like the perfectly groomed upper-middle class students they were back home and soon after experimenting with easily accessible pharmaceutical and other mind-altering substances, abandoned their grooming, previous dress codes, and normative behavioral façades, preferring to, as Timothy Leary so famously declared: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
It shocked me, literally, to have embraced friends, socialized and laughed with them, only to see them fade into themselves and ultimately disappear from campus. I knew it was due to their drug use, but I did not probe deeper than that and it did not touch me or my particular group of friends—at least not during the time we were completing our undergraduate degrees.
This early, indirect experience with the effects of drugs on a few of my friends and other students visible to me led me away from any intellectual arguments in their favor and, as I mentioned above, after reading The Teachings of Don Juan, I confess that my personal attitude toward recreational use of mind-altering drugs or their use outside of an authentic context native to the culture solidified even more.
Ultimately, regardless of where I had lived; what I had experienced; what I had read for pleasure or studied formally; the Spanish I had been exposed to from birth and developed in Spain and Mexico; the values, principles, thoughts, desires and dreams I had of working within the arena of class struggle, of social justice, and of societal change were not sufficient in preparing me for the setting in which I would soon enter: the Chicano context of San José, California.

​Roberto A.  DeVillar, a native of San Antonio, Texas, haswritten and published academically for decades, but only recently began writing memoirs, and so far almost exclusively about his life age 10 to 18 years in Seville, Spain. Upon returning to the U.S. from Spain, he earned a B.A. degree in Latin American Studies (Social Sciences) at the Universidad de las Américas in Mexico City. While seeking a degree in Mexican American Graduate Studies at San José State University (1973-75), he worked with Dr. Ernesto Galarza as coordinator of the Bilingual-Bicultural Studio/Laboratory (1972-1974) and Economic & Social Opportunities, Inc. He has traveled widely, engaged in international corporate affairs, but returned to complete a doctorate at Stanford University (1987). From 1987 to 2017, he taught and conducted research in various university systems in the U.S. and abroad.

I remember her. Great-grandmother, curled up beneath a hand-crocheted afghan, pursing her lips. Her gray white hair short and swept aside.

Nearly a decade after her passing, I could not remember her name. What does it mean when you forget her name? Her, curled up on the small armchair. Her, with her long, bony, beautiful hands. Her, with her repetitions. She was always Great-grandmother, nicknamed Grandma-grape, not known to me by the name she carried her entire life.

She is beautiful behind my closed eyes, small, her hands knotted, and worn. When she was young she kept her hair coiffed in pin-curls. She wore red lips and dressed in smart, tailored, black clothing. She raised a swarm of daughters. All dark haired, and brown eyed. Even in her old age, she had such grace between the lines of her face, her olive skin, brown eyes strong.

Great-grandmother’s room was blushed with floral blankets and pink walls. A vanity with delicate glass perfumes. My Grandmother would bathe her, dress her, tuck her in at night. She’d comb her white hair, dress her in warm sweaters—just as she had done for her when she was small.

I spent my childhood secluded, away. My father’s feud with my Grandmother’s husband kept us isolated. I only knew my Grandma when I was older, ten, twelve. High School. I learned family. I struggled. A small child in a small life, with two parents in a cold apartment, with only her toys to keep her company.

I treasured the one thing I had from my Great Grandmother — a porcelain angel, one that I remember handed to me once on a sunny day when I was four years old. Her smiling down at me as she handed me the glass figure. It wasn’t until I was much older, that I found it again, and read the words etched into the ribbon wrapped around the base that I realized it was a glass figurine from my cousin’s baptism—not a gift to me, but a gift from the family to honor my cousin’s birth. I had never been baptized, or honored, or felt their presence at school recitals. No group to greet me from the crowds, just the figure of my Mother, her pale face and blue eyes, shining at me from the seats.

The cushioned recliner in my Grandmother’s living room was solely Great-grandmother’s, and it was there that she sat among the family, watching television, repeating in her frail voice, “Do you get it? Do you get it?” Over, and over, in a melody that rendered both familiarity and confusion.

One by one as cousins we’d file inside and it was our custom to greet her first. Bend down, let her look at us. Sometimes she would touch my face, or kiss my cheek. Sometimes I was a stranger and she would merely look away. She loved the men the most, my male cousins. I think perhaps because she had so many male grandchildren, and that she believed their sons were still her grandbabies, still young, and little. Forever children.

I still don’t think she ever saw me. Her beautiful dark eyes, looking but not seeing. I was faceless, someone she could not place a name to or a memory—someone who looked like her Grandson, but was a young lady. I was afraid to be alone with her. I was just a child, and I didn't understand why she didn't recognize me, why she didn't talk.

Through the filmy gauze of memory, I can recall not the words, but the images that they built in my mind. Half-renderings of pink table cloths, and porcelain rabbits. Crystalline centerpieces. Once at the dining room table, I sat with my grandmother and father over tea. I was only a child. I soaked up their stories.

My Grandmother told me of her Mother’s journals. Written by hand, in slanted cursive, in Spanish. She wished to read them one day—her ability to read Spanish had slipped away with time. She had not passed on the language, and the words for me then were like hieroglyphs. She spoke of wanting to have them translated, preserved. Kept alive. She told me a story. My mind filled in the gaps.

The New Mexican heat burned on her skin. They’d walked for miles, suitcases in hand. The brown leather rich, and scalding to the touch beneath the sun. She loved him, her now husband, her Ramon. He had nothing, and her family had everything. They stole away together in the night. They fled beneath the cool New Mexican moon. Married in a small chapel, they were bound. It was somewhere in the twilight, where light crept up to meet the night and the last of the fire flickered in the small table lamp, that they found one another. The cool blue sky began to change colors along the horizon, where the hills, expanded across the sky in dark smudges were aglow with light. The animals barely stirred the blue oatgrass. The fear settled in on the road, crept down her spine. When they reached the gate, she saw him, her father, standing in the doorframe. A silhouette in the shade. It wasn’t until the suitcase sat in the dirt, coated, and she lifted the metal latch of the gate and walked inside, that she saw it: the long smooth wood of his rifle.

“How do you come?” he said.

Ramon moved to her side. She jumped at the damp touch of his palm, but calmed when his fingers laced with hers. Her father stepped into the light. His forehead creased at his brow.

“How do you come?” He repeated. She held her breath. His voice boomed inside of her head. She did not know how to respond. The silence seemed to pull at her insides, twisting them up.

“We are wed,” Ramon said. Her father never looked at him, he stared only at her. “We are wed,” she repeated under her breath. Her father disappeared into the house, and the sun slipped behind the clouds, casting shadow over the hillside.

Each Christmas Eve we’d gather over steaming bowls of pozole, heated tortillas drenched in rich butter. We’d gather around two tables with hands held side by side, and once... Great-grandmother—as if from instinct or old memory—began reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish. The room fell silent, our hearts thudding with the honor, the rare precious moment of her voice that washed over us like song.

Padre nuestro,
que estás en el cielo.
Santificado sea tu nombre.
Venga tu reino.
Hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo.
Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día.
Perdona nuestras ofensas,
como también nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden.
No nos dejes caer en tentación y líbranos del mal.
Amén.

I can still hear her saying: “Do you get it?” And I don’t know if I got it. I don’t think I understood then, what it was like to live inside a body with a mind slipping away. To exist like a ghost in one’s life. A stranger to oneself. A representation of Great-grandmother. Existing and not existing. Like a legend inside my Grandmother’s house, which was full of old black and white photos, bone china with delicate flowers, deep green carpet, and orange countertops. Somewhere among the paisley, the bread machine, the soft wool blankets and hidden ashtrays in the sunroom, I found her. She never spoke, beyond those four words, until she did. And it was magic.

Eventually, I asked my cousin for her name and I asked my aunt if I could read her diaries, so I could find a way back to her. “She had no diaries,” my aunt said. Were they lost? Had they slipped away with time?

​But I remember. She did have diaries. I remember the story. And her name was Maria. ​

​Em Montoya is an artist and writer of speculative fiction and creative nonfiction centered around memory, ancestry, family, and the symbolism of home. She received her MFA in Fiction from St. Mary's College, Moraga, in Spring of 2016 and is now working on her dual-emphasis, focusing on Nonfiction with a collection of essays entitled All The Little Houses, and works as an Assistant Editor for "Somos en escrito, The Latino Literary Online Magazine." Two of her watercolor paintings will be on display at Sanchez Contemporary's Flora and Fauna exhibit in January 2017. This is her first published work.