by ​Elena Dolores Solano

Recently I made migas for breakfast.  I ripped the tortillas up and placed them in a cast iron pan of hot olive oil and cooked them until they were golden colored. There are a myriad of ways to make migas, a traditional Mexican dish. While the tortillas fried, I chopped onion, garlic and green pepper on an old cutting board mi mamá bought for me years ago.

After the tortillas were crispy, I added the vegetables. I sautéed them for a minute and then gently folded in the eggs and waited for them to cook, stirring the dish occasionally. The best corn tortillas are made from three ingredients, corn, lime and water, but when the lime is fried it lets off a peculiar smell of bitter tones. Eventually the smells of the green pepper and garlic catch up, and the mezcla, the mixture of flavors fills the air.

My mother taught me to cook that dish and many others. When we made migas, she handed me the bag of corn tortillas wrapped in paper and told me to rip them up. If the pieces were too big, she told me to rip them up smaller. If I cut them into pieces with a knife, she said, “No, no, no,” and shook her head. I eventually figured out what size she wanted for them. For some reason I was always determined to learn how to cook from her, so I let her tell me again and again what to do in the kitchen.

She believed in my ability to become a good cook. For her, being a “buena cocinera,” a “good cook,” as I often teased her, was important for many reasons. It meant you could take care of yourself. You could stock a pantry and fill your kitchen with homemade food.  

But her cooking was also tied to being a traditional Mejicana, where culture, faith, identity and being a woman, were also a mezcla. She was renowned for her cooking in our small barrio in Detroit. She constantly offered food to anyone who walked through her doors or sat on the stoop. I recall her making me take a full plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn to a homeless man who was sitting outside on the stairs to our building. At that moment I learned, not by words but by action, to serve others, to give freely, even when you have a large brood of your own to feed.
 
She cooked with her comadres, making menudo to sell after mass. They sold the menudo to raise money for flowers for the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. To her, cooking was second nature.  When I use her recipes, I sometimes look around the kitchen, as if she is here, waiting with a toalla, a kitchen towel, draped over her shoulder, waiting to eat. Cooking was a gift of love you gave to yourself and others.
 
I am eternally grateful that I learned to cook from her—and that she had the patience to put up with me. I remember being five years old, making tortillas with her. She let me roll small tortillas on her wooden board. She put them on the comal for me. I always let them burn. I loved the smell of the burnt masa. But more so, I loved her turning to me, saying, “You're fired, vayase.” I feigned resignation.

When I was in my twenties, she gave me several of her molcajetes, a tool made of smoothened volcanic stone. In English it is called a mortar and pestle, but there is so much more. It is a touchstone, a memory stone, a portal to the past. When I grind garlic, tomatoes or peppino in the heavy bowl, I feel deep calls to tradition and culture. 

I feel my mamá, her comadres, my abuela and tías when I use those molcajetes.  I am filled with memories that cause me to yearn for arms that are no longer here, to dial a phone number that no longer exists. I strain to hear a voice that has passed to the other side.  I yearn for the smell of her comal, fire—hot, ready for tortillas.

This longing is the hardest to bear. It is the call from the deep that causes such surprise. I know it well. I have seen it in the face of friends as they talk about husbands and wives, abuelos and abuelas, and friends now gone. I have heard that yearning in the voice of my siblings.

​Elena Dolores Solano was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.  She is one of fifteen children. Her parents were migrant workers who moved north in the 1940s.  She is a certified school counselor and works with Latino/a students in the public school system of Detroit.  She is also a Licensed Professional Counselor.   Ms. Solano  has written for many years of her experience growing up in a large Mexican American family in Detroit.  In her spare time Ms. Solano enjoys collecting anything old, a Solano family tradition, cooking Mexican food and spending time with her children, her family and friends.  

by Ricardo Romo

The seventies are remembered as a monumental decade for most Americans. In the early years of the decade President Richard Nixon’s resignation and the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade dominated the news. Earth Day, Godfather movies, and disco music fascinated young people. The advent of the computer revolution marked a major change in society.​

For Latinos, the decade included significant events as cities across the Southwest experienced school walkouts, and California farmworkers won important union and legislative policy victories. Talented youth introduced Chicano poetry, plays, and film, and universities developed Chicano Studies classes and programs. 
 
Chicano artists who grew up during the seventies witnessed great transformations as they saw for the first time a flowering of their own artistic cultural creations. Jacinto Guevara of San Antonio emerged as one of the fortunate individuals who rode the early waves of this artistic movement. His story provides some important insights into one of the most significant eras of Chicano artistic creativity.
 
From an early age Jacinto Guevara discovered that art represented an important means of communicating. Guevara came of age artistically during the early 1970s while attending Belmont High School in East Los Angeles. At the time, few Latinos went to museums but most grew up surrounded by commercial art, usually in the form of billboards and posters. Significantly the early expressions of Arte de La Raza appeared in public art. ​

Chicano art originated with the mural movement in California. Art historians place the birth of Chicano art between 1968-1973. Guevara was a teenager when Chicano artists painted a mural at the headquarters of Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers Union in Del Rey, California. Some of the earliest Chicano murals originated in the heart of East Los Angeles, in close proximity to Guevara’s home.
 
When Joe and John Gonzalez decided to convert an abandoned meat market into an art gallery, they recruited two future Chicano art stars, David Botello and their brother-in-law Ignacio Gomez, to paint what UCLA art historians have identified as the first public Chicano mural in East Los Angeles. Muralism became the most prominent creative development of Chicano art.
 
Guevara enrolled at California State University Northridge [CSUN] in 1975, a time when colleges throughout Southern California were reaching out to East Los Angeles students. Guevara had seldom gone to the San Fernando Valley, home of the Northridge campus, but he liked CSUN’s Chicano Studies Program which was in its sixth year. He majored in Ethnic Studies and took classes with famed Chicano historian Dr. Rudy Acuña. Guevara loved music and joined the mariachi band headed by Professor Beto Ruiz. Guevara became a frequent art and cartoon contributor to El Popo, the Chicano student newspaper founded in 1970. 

In 2016 Lewis Fisher published Saving San Antonio: The Preservation of a Heritage. It told a story of the San Antonio Conservation Society’s organized efforts to save historical houses from destruction. Guevara is also “saving San Antonio” through his paintings. His work captures the essence of the city, areas where not all the houses and buildings are spectacular, but they contain meaning and beauty for their owners. Guevara’s structural portraits, such as that of the 1880s building, “Liberty Bar,” which became a hangout for many Chicano artists, capture a heritage that makes San Antonio unique. ​

Ricardo Romo is an author, educator, and Latino Art connoisseur. He has degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (BA) and UCLA (PhD).

If you have traveled abroad lately, you may have noticed that national identities are becoming a bit vague. The cultural uniqueness that used to distinguish one nation from another has been quickly disappearing thanks to the accelerated pace of cultural contact brought about by globalization. Mexico and the USA illustrate this well as we go through the holiday season.
​
Millions of Mexican immigrants, legal and undocumented, as well as tourism between both countries have created cultural contact zones unlike any in human history. As they have settled in these areas of the United States, Mexicans have adopted American habits even as they have maintained much of the cultural heritage they brought with them. For example, they love Thanksgiving turkey and on Black Friday you can find them shopping like crazy across the malls alongside Americans.

December, however, is a Mexican fiesta north of the border. Los americanos are growing accustomed to seeing and joining the solemn Virgen de Guadalupe celebrations around December 12th and breaking piñatas in the noisy, colorful Posadas on December 15th-24th. Moreover, Mexicans have fused seamlessly La Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) and Christmas Day, so they can have their tasty tamaladas and receive the birth of Jesus with tons of gifts the good old American way.
​
As many Mexican immigrants return to visit family in Mexico, they bring along these new cultural customs, especially their sons and daughters who were born and raised in the United States. You can see the influence of these new cultural ways in small towns and cities across the country. Mexicans now have their Buen Fin, a clone of Black Friday, and on Thanksgiving more and more people are preparing a turkey dinner a la americana or go to restaurants that offer a similar menu. As for Santa Claus, Christmas trees and carols, they are the norm everywhere. It may seem strange, but in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, you can even go ice-skating downtown!
​
You could say Cinco de Mayo was the first cultural celebration to bring Americans and Mexicans together, and that lately Día de los Muertos and Halloween have provided more cultural glue that binds people on both side of the border. But it is the long holyday season at the end of the year that is having the biggest impact on our identities and how we see ourselves in Mexico and the United States. Mexicans who visit the U.S. and Americans who travel to Mexico are bewildered by this turn of events. National identities may still be around, but the unique cultural elements that separated them are blending fast and, in some cases, disappearing and becoming a thing of the past.

Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press published a compilation of Álvaro Ramírez’s observations on changing cultural traditions: Postcards from a PostMexican. Click the cover above or visit Amazon to buy a copy. 

This postcard first appeared on Álvaro Ramírez’s Postcards from a PostMexican blog on December 24, 2019. This postcard was published under the title “How the Holiday Season is Changing Mexican and American Cultural Identities” in Cultura Colectiva, a Mexican online magazine, on January 2, 2020. 

Álvaro Ramírez is from Michoacán, México. He migrated with his family to Ohio as an adolescent. He obtained a BA in Spanish and Education at Youngtown State University, and an MA and PhD in Literature from the University of Southern California. He has taught at various institutions including the University of Southern California, Occidental College, and California State University, Long Beach.
Since 1993, he has worked at Saint Mary’s College of California where he is a Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures. He specializes in Spanish Golden Age and Latin American literature as well as Mexican Film and Chicano Cultural Studies. He also serves as Resident Director for the Saint Mary’s College Semester Program in Cuernavaca, México.
In 2016, Prof. Ramírez published a collection of short stories, Los norteados, which received an Honorable Mention Award at the 2017 International Latino Book Awards. In addition, he has edited two online publications of Conference Proceedings: Imágenes de postlatinoamérica, volumen 1 (2018) and Imágenes de postlatinoamérica, volumen 2 (2019). He has also published articles on Don Quixote, Mexican film, and Chicano Studies in several academic journals.

​“Anti-Mexicanism is a form of nativism practiced by colonialists and their inheritors.”

​—​​Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones (2017)

​“My father’s land / is crossed / ribbon like / by stone fences / the wither in the sun / White stones that glisten in the sun, / Stones that ballast a sea of brown hills. / My father whip laid them, / My mother’s tribe fed them.”
 
—Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones, 5th and GRANDE VISTA (Poems, 1960-1973), Colección Mensaje, New York, 1973, p. 61.

​One word: brilliant!
 
Like in the case of another brilliant Mexican in el norte, Gloria Anzaldúa, JGQ provided us with a powerful voice against a racist American system that has attempted (and failed!) to erase our history. JGQ took the ashes of our once burnt history by the European colonists (and their inheritors) and created scholarly books, peer-reviewed articles, essays and eloquent poems in elite spaces limited to the best and the brightest Western Civilization has to offer. He has done so—and continues to do so—through his publications, speeches and memories without succumbing to fear or forgetting where he came from.

​As I reflect on JGQ, there are no words that I can conjure to heal the immense pain that I’m feeling. I cried when I first heard the terrible news on Tuesday morning and have been struggling to maintain my East Los Angeles composure ever since. I think I lost my street cred! I’m sad because I won’t be getting random calls from JGQ at odd hours when he has something on his mind. I’m sad because I won’t be receiving mail packets of his latest manuscripts for me to review or help get published.
 
“No worries, Juan, I’ll make sure that the last two manuscripts you sent me will see the light of day!”
 
Given all that he has done for me, I’ve always heeded his friendly and warm requests. That’s what familia is all about.
 
I first met JGQ in 1985, when I started UCLA as a freshman, majoring in mathematics, from East Los Angeles—a place where JGQ also hails from. I must say that I was originally shocked to see a Chicano professor at an elite university. Since most of my K-12 teachers were White, I never knew that Chicana/o professors even existed. I was equally shocked when JGQ assigned us books written by brown scholars. Many moons later, I’m following the example of the great Chicana and Chicano authors that I read in JGQ’s classes, especially his fine works.
 
Speaking of historians, I’ve always wondered why history professors assign at least 5-6 books—300+ pages per book without pictures!—to read in a quarter or semester? I only read one book—John Steinbeck’s The Pearl—throughout my dysfunctional K-12 education! While JGQ practiced this norm, he made it clear to us that the study of history represents a serious subject. When he walked around North Campus at UCLA, he was always carrying several books on one hand and numerous student papers to grade on his other hand.
 
Constantly thinking, reading and writing, he was oblivious and impervious of his surroundings. One day, for instance, while taking a small seminar on historiography with JGQ, I, along with my classmates, waited for him to teach and lead us in discussion/dialogue for about 30 minutes after class started. We then formed a posse to rescue him from his office, where we found him in a deep state of writing.
 
As I’ve said before, while JGQ was stoic, like my late Mexican father, once you scratched beneath the surface, he was a sweet and caring teddy bear. That said, during my initial encounters with JGQ, I was intimidated. Over 30 years later, I can still recall knocking on his office door on the 6th floor of  Bunche Hall, where he would gruffly say, “Yes!”
​
My response? “Hello, Mr. Quiñones…I mean, Professor Quiñones, I want to talk to you about my paper. I’ve never written a 10-page paper and don’t know how to start. Heck, I’ve only written one 2-page paper, triple spaced, in my entire life!”
 
Once I got to know him, I learned to announce myself. “Hello, Quiñones, this is Álvaro.  I need to ask you some questions about the readings.” Often, I would go with my fellow student activists or MEChistas, where we minored in “JGQ Studies,” just to hang out and talk about politics or sports. He wasn’t fond of small talk or chisme. Also, he rarely talked about himself or how he grew up, especially as one of the first Chicanas/os to pursue higher education when he first entered the university. He never took credit for all of his accomplishments. Instead, he would always credit the collective efforts of the committed educators, youth, activists and other agents of social change throughout the Chicana/o movement and beyond.
 
In terms of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán) at UCLA during the mid-1980s, whenever we organized a protest on campus or in the community, we could always count on JGQ for his unconditional support. For example, when we organized a hunger strike at UCLA—one of the first, if not the first at UCLA and at any UC campus—in defense of undocumented immigrants (November 11-19, 1987), we knew that JGQ had our back. When we didn’t show up to class, he didn’t scold or hector us. He encouraged us, teaching us a key lesson that I pass on to my students and colleagues: knowledge comes from practice!
 
Later, when several of us, as former UCLA students, became community activists and organized Latino gardeners against the City of Los Angeles’s draconian leaf blower ban during the mid-1990s. (City penalties for Latino gardeners caught using a leaf blower? Misdemeanor charge, $1,000 fine and up to 6 months in jail). To challenge this racist law, we sought help from JGQ to lobby Council Members—like Mark Ridley Thomas, Jackie Goldberg and others—who voted for the ban on December 3, 1996.
 
On a more personal level, when I got married to Antonia Montes—fellow MEChista, educator, activist—in 1992, I invited JGQ. To my surprise, he showed up. Since then, we became homeboys (and later colleagues), where he counseled me throughout my graduate studies at UCLA (M.A.) and UC Berkeley (Ph.D.). He supported me without reservations when I was on the academic job market. Whenever I experienced racial micro-aggressions or academic hazing or pinche bullying by senior faculty, I never flinched since I knew that I could count on my academic homeboy, JGQ, like in the case of the late Dr. Leo Estrada. 
 
In short, JGQ was/is my professor, mentor, homeboy, fellow activist and colleague. He taught me/us that we, as Chicanas and Chicanos, also have history—a proud history that must be taught in K-12, higher education and our communities.

​“The point of learning about Indigenous past is not to relive past practices, or to propose one essentialization over another, or to be immobilized by history. The first stone to demolish the old presidio is our own consciousness.”
 
—Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Indigenous Quotient/Stalking Words: American Indian History as Future, Aztlan Libre Press, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, p. 39. 

Despite our generational divide, we shared many similarities: Mexican roots; native sons of East Los Angeles; doctorates from the University of California; veteran activists; practitioners of respect and confianza (something absent in the academy); lovers of music (e.g., oldies), art (e.g., Mexican/Chicana/o art), food (anything Mexican), drink (e.g., mezcal), culture (our own) and sports (e.g., boxing); readers of poetry; educators and mentors; and, our defense of los de abajo, where he paved the road for me and countless others to emulate…

“Human issues can be resolved with humanistic solutions. Immigrants are not strangers; they are family.”
​
 --Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones (Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate Towards a Humanistic Paradigm 2013, foreword, p. 14)

​Moving forward, while I’ll humbly do my part to maintain and expand his shining legacy through my lectures, writings and musings, I only wish that I was able to tell him in person four magic words before his passing: “I love you, Juan!”
 
¡Viva JGQ!

Dr. Álvaro Huerta is an Associate Professor in Urban & Regional Planning and Ethnic & Women’s Studies at California State Polytechnic University. Among other scholarly publications, he’s the author of Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate: Towards a Humanistic Paradigm and Defending Latina/o Immigrant Communities: The Xenophobic Era of Trump and Beyond. He holds a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. in urban planning and a B.A. in history from the University of California, Los Angeles.

By Rosa Martha Villarreal

​Dr. Norma E. Cantu describes her fiction as “creative autobiographic ethnography.” Judging from the blurbs on the cover of Cabañuelas and other commentary about her earlier book, Canícula, the post-modern aspects of the novel will be analyzed in full detail: it’s fusion of various genres, including the scholarly and biography; it’s use of photography as a narrative tool; it’s a deeply personal portrayal of family and hearth; the descriptions of Spain’s festivals; and finally, its use of narrative as political discourse.

​But Cabañuelas is more than that. More than a romance; more than an ethnographic journey; more than one Chicana’s search for the ancient roots of her Mexican-Tejana culture. In this novel, the word “cabañuelas” alludes to a rediscovery of the most ancient knowledge of human passions and aspirations. Technically, the cabañuelas are a system of weather prediction, a lost art, a knowledge discarded by the science of meteorology and dismissed as superstition. 

​But what we have discovered in our post-modern era is that beneath the surface of these so-called folk practices and superstitions are a kernel of the authentic human landscape of passion and experience, a form of knowledge found only in the language of dreams. Thus, the cabañuelas are a metaphor for the existential journey of the protagonist, Nena. Once she makes the decision to search for the ancient origins of her culture’s festivals in Spain, her spiritual calendar has been marked, and a destiny gets set in motion. The journey transcends from ethnography to the phenomenological discovery of the secret self, the self that is not a creature of human constructs but of nature and God.

​Even before Nena Cantu departs for Madrid on a Fulbright Fellowship, she longingly reflects on her family, her homeland, and its rituals. Thus, nostalgia commences her spiritual cabañuela. Her nostalgia for the origins of these rituals is what inspires her research. Her arrival in Spain is reminiscent of every Hispanic’s first experience: Spain is simultaneously foreign but familial. 

​You are not a Spaniard, but idioms aside, you speak the same language and are shaped by the sensibility of that language. You are a continuation of a mestizaje that began in antiquity when the Romans conquered the Iberian Celts, and continued with the subsequent conquests of Germanic tribes, and finally the Moors. It isn’t long before Nena decides that to find the true origins of the festivals, she must not merely study them in the ancient texts but go and experience them first hand throughout Spain. 

​It is in these journeys that she crosses over from the world we perceive to the world as it really is. That other world, exiled to the margins by our constructs of reason and morality, where there is also truth and beauty, and perhaps the nexus to a spiritual world. The festivals are the relics of the ancient dramas of collective awareness of an invisible universe.

It is in that landscape of festivals and timelessness that Nena finds a love that cannot be explained, only experienced. Love before Logos, reason, history, and politics. It is the descent into the body of another who is not only meant for us, but has authored the secrets of our psyche. Someone only you can recognize because you understand in that other language that he is the door to your secret self, to your other self behind the mask of the face that meets the faces that you meet, as T.S. Eliot said.

​“That’s him?” One of Nena’s friends asks incredulously years after she returns to Madrid. When a Chicana polemicist reminds Nena that he is a member of the conquering race, Nena thinks, but he is human. And that is it: The greater truth. Before we were all else, we were an animal like the rest until we discovered a world beyond. The birth of higher consciousness set us on a separate destiny: the spiritual, and the discovery that the passion of the flesh with one other human would unite us with the spiritual. 

​Passion and spirituality are the same, Sor Juana de la Cruz said. Not the mere sexual release and innate drive to reproduce encoded by evolution; not the patriarchal version of marriage, where women’s aspiration are oppressed in the name of societal good. Something so old we cannot not quantify it but know it is real because we feel it; the knowledge of the flesh and the semiotic language of dreams and intuition. “Before God was love,” said D.H. Lawrence.

​Nena’s cabañuelas creates her destiny, and Paco is part of that destiny. But so is return. The destiny was set in motion by the nostalgia for the origins of her cultural self. It must be, then, that she’d return although the love she found was profound, magical in the pre-modern definition of magical. That love could have only been discovered in a temporal space. It is a hard thing to realize that a powerful human connection such as hers and Paco’s does not mean it translates to a life together, to “live happily ever after” although that is also a possibility depending on the couple. 

​Paco expects her to sacrifice her homeland for him, but does not offer to do the same. She would have to give up the very thing that started her journey in the first place. Regardless, despite her returning to Texas, the love never ends. It is untouched by time and never replaced by other lovers. My grandfather José used to love a song that was already old when he was born. Un Viejo amor, ni se olvida ni se deja. Never were wiser words spoken. 

​Ultimately, despite the fusion of various genres, its ethnographic contribution, this novel is also about a woman’s existential search where she repeats the ancient, archetypical journey. She sets out to find her cultural identity and finds her ancient human identity. If there is a succinct image for that, it is her self-portrait, the artist, half-hidden behind the camera lens, at once concealed and revealed.

Read an excerpt from Cabañuelas: A Novel by Norma Elia Cantú (University of New Mexico Press, 2019) on Somos en escrito under the title, “The women take over the town for a day” (https://somosenescrito.weebly.com/fiction-ficcioacuten). The book is available through the University of New Mexico Press (https://unmpress.com/books/cabanuelas/9780826360618) and on Amazon. .  

Norma Elia Cantú, author of Cabañuelas: A Novel, is the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. Her recent works include Transcendental Train Yard: A Collaborative Suite of Serigraphs, Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, Updated Edition (UNM Press), and the coedited anthology Entre Guadalupe y Malinche: Tejanas in Literature and Art. ​​​

Rosa Martha Villarreal, a Chicana novelist and essayist, is a descendant of the 16th century Spanish and Tlaxcatecan settlers of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. She drew upon her family history in her critically acclaimed novels Doctor Magdalena, Chronicles of Air and Dreams: A Novel of Mexico,and The Stillness of Love and Exile, the latter a recipient of the Josephine Miles PEN Literary Award and a Silver Medalist in the Independent Publishers Book Award (2008). She writes a column, “Tertullian’s Corner,” for Somos en escrito Magazine.

By Moisés Park                          Today. I was both an alien y un gringo.

Hoy fue mi último día como alien en EE.UU. Desde las 10 de esta mañana soy ciudadano de este país. Por 18 años fui residente en Chile (y Bolivia y Brasil) con dos pasaportes verdes (coreano y brasileño) pero para simplificar las cosas siempre usé el coreano. Y claro... he pasado un total de 42 días en Corea en cuatro viajes separados y me encanta la música pop de Corea de los 80 y 90. #kpoptodaysucks #kpopdehoyesunamierda

Han pasado 18 años desde que vine a EE.UU. a estudiar como estudiante extranjero. Pero siempre había sido extranjero en Chile. En Patronato donde me decían “chino cochino” por las calles o si yo era (primo/hermano/hijo/nieto/clon de) Bruce Lee. Y en Corea nunca me sentí “en casa”. Será que como mis cuatro abuelos son del Norte (antes de la división) soy más del campo que de la ciudad y nunca conocí de verdad el campo coreano.

​Mi número de identidad en Corea era 10.000.000 porque no era realmente ciudadano/residente allí, y como soy pacifista se me complicaba visitar y arriesgar el servicio militar. Sobre todo ahora que tengo dos niñitas. Me moriría si no las puedo ver. Perdí mi residencia permanente en Chile en mi cuarto año en EE.UU. porque no pude volver un verano. Por eso nunca pude y no he podido votar en mi vida. Mi hermana me mencionó el mes pasado lo raro que es tener 35 y no haber votado nunca y dedicarme a enseñar clases sobre (la crisis de la) democracia en las Américas.

Nunca pertenecí a ningún lado. Cuando vuelvo a Patronato, el barrio palestino-coreano-cada-vez-más-chino en Santiago, me siento turista, pero quizás siempre lo fui. De hecho, no sé por qué estoy escribiendo esto en castellano cuando la mayoría de mis amistades ahora no hablan castellano. Castellano = español. Es que a veces todavía digo castellano en vez de español. #itsachileanthing #alsoinspain #alsoinargentina

I became a citizen today and when I write this part in English, which I am not translating, I feel very different. My life in the US has been so different from the one in Chile. (I remember nothing from Bolivia and Brazil. I was a newborn). I had two coming of ages and maybe I am still a teenager figuring out what I am.

I remember wise words from pastor Flores Park, our youth pastor then, who told us to embrace our Chilean identity and Korean identity fully. #lotsinkoreandiasporaattendevangelicalchurches #manycomeforthefreefood She said that it's OK not to belong fully but to somehow love both of my heritages and consider myself 100% Chilean and 100% Korean. Or that it is fine to identify with a third identity: to be a Korean-Chilean who loves jote (Coke+wine) and empanada but still eats kimchi every single day. #shedidntsaythejotepart

But I've been in the US for 18 years now, since I was 18 years old. #crossroad #encrucijada. I am Asian Latino or whatever sociologists and other social scientists say I am or should be called. chinkleno?  #notpcenough #toospanglishy

Asian? Latino? Asian Latino? Asian Latin American? Asian American Latino? Asian Latinx? Latin American Asian? Latin Asian? Latinx Asian? Lasian? Latinaxian? Laxian? Laxatixasiax? Korsian? ChicKorea? Chil-Korean? Chilax-Korean? Ko-chi-merican? #whynotjustperson #aw #weallarepeopleafterall #aw #isthatcolorblindness #kochimerican

I am a Korean heritage speaker but I cannot type these thoughts in Korean. I mean I could try, but my mom would go crazy with the editing. (My mom often sends me spelling corrections when I text her.) 그건, 임뽀시블레 (That’s impossible).

I share what many Latinos and Asian Americans feel when they have to express themselves in their “mother tongue” or “heart language.” A feeling of linguistic humility (closer to a feeling of timid shame) for not “keeping” the language at the same level as Spanish or English, the dominant languages. Plus, my Korean is so mixed with Spanish (English now) that my Korean is often full of vocab, spelling and grammar “mistakes.” It's Konglish or Coñol. But Coñol sounds like a bad word in Spain. Coreañol? #buthisainspain #coñol

​Few know, but besides the frustrating separation at the airport from my wife and daughters when re-entering the country, it was conversations with a dear friend who loves García Marquez, Queen, and Prince, for six years in cold Massachusetts, that most likely made me want to be part of this mess: America. OK, calm down. The United States of America. I am a citizen of (The United States of) America. #notinarushtodefendamericaasacontinentnamedafterawhitedudewhofoundouttheotherwhitedudewasnotinIndia

Videos today at the oath ceremony featured Mt. Rushmore and Lincoln, lots of eagles and American flags, and lots of diverse faces smiling, and eagles, and the Golden Gate and eagles, and American flags. It looked like a car dealer commercial but with eagles and diverse faces smiling. That friend that gave me different versions of American pride once said Jimi Hendrix protesting the war while emulating bombs with his guitar was perhaps one of the most patriotic performances.

I was waiting for the video to show images of Jimi Hendrix, and Rosa Parks and MLK, Jr., who was killed 50 years ago today. And Richard Twiss. And James Baldwin. And César Chavez. And Carlos Bulosan. And Billie Holiday. And Marilyn Monroe. But it's OK. There are contradictions in every country and maybe, I am suffering from false nostalgia and pretentious wokeness.
#iswokenessaword #millenialwannabeusinghashtags #iamtheoldestmillenial #notkidding #iturned18inyear2000

Siempre sufrí de un falso orgullo por Chile, por Bolivia, por Brasil. Como que sentía que no pertenecía, que no me dejaban pertenecer, o que es imposible pertenecer, o que era eternamente coreano. Pero cuando Chile destruyó a México el año pasado 7-0 (y cómo xuxa no están en el mundial!), celebré como chileno (porque soy/era/fui chileno?), con gritos de gol que duraban mucho y muchos “chucha!” (damn!) y “la cagó!” (OMG!) y “el Puch tiene buen pique” entre amigos y familiares también coreano-chilenos, pero que de coreano solo tenían hábitos culinarios y memorias o planes de viajes en Corea.

Es cierto, siempre fui “chino cochino” en Chile por más que gritara un chichichilelelé (National chant, mostly chanted in sports events) o fuera hincha del Colo-Colo (by far, the best Chilean soccer team). Pero ahora soy gringo? #copamundial #sicopaesfemeninoentoncesdeberiaserLAmundial #castellanochilensis #lamicrodeberiaserelmicro #microbusenchileeslamicro #daigual

No sé. Tal vez soy más Isabel Allende que García Márquez. El libro Mi país inventadode Allende lo terminé de una. Lo encontré muy muy muy bueno aunque todos los nerdos de la academia me pifian y se enojan. Pero han leído ese libro desde la perspectiva de un cochino (COreanoCHIleNO)? Eso de inventarse más y más el país en el que un@ se crió, entre más años se pasa fuera. No todo es realismo mágico. A veces es más fome (boring, or lame), aun en “plena dictadura.”

Viví en dictadura más o menos (mucho menos que más) pero no cachaba (understood) realmente lo que estaba pasando. #lospendexchinosnocachabamosqueonda Tal vez nunca fui chileno, porque ni tuve idea de quién era Pinochet por muchos años, ni por qué el Superman y el Sting salían en la tele hablándole a los chilenos. (Christopher Reeve (Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980)) and Sting were among many foreign stars who advocated for the end of Pinochet’s regime in 1988’s plebiscite political campaign). Pero tengo memorias de amigos que se enojaban cuando uno coreaba el “Chile, la alegría ya viene” (Jingle for the 1988 TV plebiscite campaign) y daban un chócale cuando decía que iba a votar por el Sí en el plebiscito que decidía si Chile continuaba con el gobierno militar o la democracia. #memoriasdel88

Tal vez soy más Mistral que Neruda, y me las doy de súper poeta (cuando al final también hay mucho plagio y arrogancia en lo que escribo) y sinceramente prefiero cantarle rondas a mis niñitas que pensar en “los versos más tristes esta noche.” Tal vez Chile será siempre mi amor contrariado. A veces quise a Chile y Chile a veces me quiso. Tal vez me invento que soy chileno para parecer más exótico. Carechino con acento de Alexis Sánchez. Un Psy que canta “Bolsa de mareo” (qué buen tema ese...).

You know what's weird? I am Asian Latino but my girls will not inherit my Latinoness (Latinness? Latin mojo?). We will try to go to Chile every year, but visiting every now and then won't do much to them. Nor will they understand their Latino heritage through annoying song repeats of my first Chilean love, Nicole (Denisse Lillian Laval Soza), quizás mi primer amor chileno, or the Beatlesque Los Tres, Café Tacvba and la Violeta Parra, Sexual Democracia. #namedroppingpart1 #myfirstgringalovewasshera#myfirstkoreanlovewastheonlykoreangirlinelementaryschool#inelementaryschoolboysfallinlovewithprettymucheverybody

Igual trato de ser chileno. Soy mejor cuando pretendo ser coreano. Es que cuando hablo coreano nadie me pregunta: “Oye, y cómo chucha sabí hablar coreano?” Igual escucho Radio Cooperativa y veo TVN online o Chilevision o CÑÑ y los partidos de Chile y el Festival de Viña. #lanataliavaldebenitoesseca 

Es suficientemente chileno eso? O los chilenos de verdad sólo escuchan Violeta Parra, Quilapayún y Faith No More? Mis clases igual son copia de mi profe de secundaria, el célebre Rodolfo Franco, un montón de Neruda y más Neruda y el Neruda es ídolo. (Igual nos faltó leer más a Mistral, no creen? Muy depre?). Apoyo (a full!) todo lo que es chileno en mis clases y mis estudiantes igual se han memorizado “Todo cambia” de Julio Numhauser y “Gracias a la vida” de la Violeta. Y vieron Machuca, Historia de un oso (#superchriste) y están enamorad@s del Marko Zaror, el Beto Cuevas, la Camila Gallardo, la Camila Moreno, la Camila Vallejo, la Anita Tijoux, y/o la Nicole #namedroppingpart2. #quelendaslaschilenas #todaslascamilassonlendas

Y les traigo manjar y jote a mis estudiantes y a mis niñas. No po, jote no po. Sería mucho. Qué creen shiquillos (kiddos)? Soy chileno todavía? O soy Moses Brandon Parker ahora? Igual no me debato mucho si soy coreano o no porque la carechino no se me borra nunca. #phenotypedictatessomuch

Que le pongo colooooooooooooooor (Chilean slang that means = I’m overthinking). Ya. Me callo. Soy gringo ahora. Eso quería decir.

​Moisés Park is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at Baylor University, Waco, Texas. His research interests are Latin American literature and film, masculinity studies, Otherness, Orientalism and popular culture. He is author of more than 10 articles and book chapters, as well as the literature and film criticism book, Figuraciones del deseo y coyunturas generacionales en literatura y cine postdictatorial (2014). His first poetry book, El verso cae al aula, was published in 2017.

My tocayo, Armando Rodriguez, probably got to know and serve under more U.S. presidents in his lifetime than any other Chicano among us. I met him in 1967 when he and his wife, Beatriz, had newly arrived in Washington, D.C., as my family had. According to his book, From the Barrio to Washington, which I featured in this magazine back in 2008, I learned that both of us and our families had been living in Sacramento, California, at the same time and were recruited in the same year, but had not met as yet.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, then president, had ordered federal agencies to beat the sage bushes throughout the Southwest to recruit Chicanos and Chicanas to join the ranks of federal workers. I got a job at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as a press officer. Tocayo got a job running the HEW Office of Spanish Speaking American Affairs. Happily, our paths crossed many times during his several stints in the capital. He will always be a dear friend.

His obituary, which appeared in the Associate Press News, follows:


Armando M. Rodriguez, a Mexican immigrant and World War II veteran who served in the administrations of four U.S. presidents while pressing for civil rights and education reforms, has died.

Christy Rodriguez, his daughter, said Wednesday her father died Sunday at their San Diego home from complications of a stroke. He was 97. He had been ailing from a variety of illnesses in recent years, she said.
Born in Gomez Palacio, Mexico, Rodriguez came to San Diego with his family as a 6-year-old in 1927. But he was forced to return to Mexico after his father was deported during the mass deportations of the 1930s during the Great Depression. A young Rodriguez lived in Mexico for a year before the family could return.

“He barely spoke Spanish,” Christy Rodriguez said.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, some of his Mexican immigrant friends fled to Mexico to avoid military service. Rodriguez, however, joined the U.S. Army. “It was not a difficult choice,” Rodriguez told the Voces Oral History Project at the University of Texas in August 2000.

Following the war, Rodriguez graduated from San Diego State University and worked as a teacher and joined the Mexican American civil rights movement after witnessing his fellow Latino veterans being denied house and facing discrimination.

He led Southern California’s Viva Kennedy campaign, the effort to increase Latino voter support for John F. Kennedy’s presidential run in 1960. Rodriguez founded a chapter of the veterans’ American GI Forum civil rights group in San Diego as a junior high school teacher.

President Lyndon Johnson appointed him chief of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare’s Office of Spanish Speaking American Affairs. President Richard Nixon later named him assistant commissioner of education in the Office of Regional Office Coordination.

Rodriguez returned to California to become the first Latino president of East L.A. College. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed him to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Rodriguez continued to serve on the commission under President Ronald Reagan until stepping down in 1983.

Later in life, Rodriguez continued to advocate for educational opportunities for Latinos. But Rodriguez told the Voces Oral History Project that he had always wished he had been able to do more.

“The legacy you leave is what you were worth while you were here,” Rodriguez said.

Russell Contreras is a member of The Associated Press’ race and ethnicity team.

​“Guardia del barrio," stationed as a sentry at 1505 St. Emmanuel at Leeland, one of the main entry points from Houston proper into the east end.

​“Muertos Mural," at 111 N. Ennis, created for radio station KLVL, displays its popular show, "yo necesito trabajo," and symbols of the funeral home on which it’s painted.

​​“Segundo Barrio” is at 2900 Navigation Boulevard.

​Angel Quesada (#ARTKUNGFU) has been making massive artworks marking the streets of Houston, Texas, for over 25 years. Influenced by Mexican and other Latin American artists, Quesada revels in exploring the fine line that connects geometry, spirituality, and being able to see the human hand at work in a large scale context. He is a professional practitioner and teacher of Tai Chi Chuan who in 2003 ranked 6th nationally in the art of Tai Chi. Since the early 90’s, he has served as an artist, curator, exhibition designer and arts administrator throughout Texas. For more about Angel, click angelquesada.com.

​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.

​“What’s sex?”
Helen’s faint, wistful query had come out of nowhere, stopping us cold, leaving us holding partially gnawed apples or cookies or unfinished sandwiches suddenly gone dry and hard to swallow.
Just moments ago our small group of seven second grade friends had been companionably eating lunch at our assigned place, one of the well-worn brown-painted wood and cement benches lining the left side, the girls’ side, of St. Agnes School’s upper playground. It was, we thought, the best bench of them all.
The central decoration, the focus and pride of our schoolyard, was an imposing outdoor shrine facing the school’s main entrance, a life-size gray cement cave or grotto sheltering a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. Tall arching trees, green shrubs and rosebushes growing along the fence line provided the shrine, and our adjacent bench, a welcome feeling of privacy and peace.
Leave it to timid, wispy-haired little Helen, youngest and smallest of our circle, to disrupt that peace. Didn’t she know that “sex” was one of those intriguing socially unacceptable words we weren’t supposed to know, and never ever supposed to say out loud, in public? Obviously not. She was so dumb!
With leftover sandwiches and snacks returned to colorful metal lunch pails, our immediate mutual instinct was to check if the coast was clear. Where was today’s playground monitor, and who was she? No way did we want our discussion to be overheard, especially by bossy, crab-faced Mrs. Baxter, the tall lady with the tight blonde perm who sometimes filled in as supervisor. Our heads swiveled back and forth as we peered through the blur of almost two hundred uniformed students: white-shirted boys in navy cord pants, girls in white middy sailor blouses worn over pleated navy skirts.
“There she is,” red-haired Millie whispered, tossing two long auburn braids behind her shoulders, “…over by the boys.” A collective sigh of relief, the coast was clear, we were safe. Today’s supervisor was popular and always amiable Sister Mary Francis, busy settling a problem on the opposite side, the boys’ side, of the playground. Sister’s billowy black floor-length habit and black veil over a starched white coif made her a formidable, highly visible presence, even against the sea of navy blue and white.
Helen’s unanswered question still hovered overhead, filling the atmosphere with a heavy uncomfortable silence. I couldn’t stand it. Somebody had to go first; it might as well be me. I swallowed the rest of my bite of apple, cleared my throat, gathered up a bit of courage, forced out an answer. “Sex means whether you’re a boy or a girl. You know, those boxes our parents mark with a pencil on school or doctor forms.” The words had barely slipped out when I knew it was too simple, too easy an explanation.
Barbara’s brown Shirley Temple curls went flying as she shook her head in disagreement. “No, sex is holding hands with a boy.” Millie, then the others chimed in. “Yuck! Who wants to do that?” “No, it’s when a boy kisses you and you kiss him back.” Suzie objected. “Well, my grandpa used to be a boy, sometimes he kisses me, and I kiss him back!” “That’s different!” “Why?” “Boys stink!” “It’s something that happens when boys and girls cuddle up too close together.” “Double yuck!” “It’s about grown-ups.” “No, sex is about teenagers, not old people, and there’s got to be kissing!” “You’re all wrong! Sex has to do with babies!”
Back and forth we went, each contribution adding to the muddle.  Then Mary (the smart one) issued her opinion. “No, there’s more to it than that, lots more,” she declared in a slightly superior tone. “Sex is about grown-ups, not teenagers. A man and a lady like each other, they get married, they have children.”   
A great silence followed Mary’s declaration. Well, that’s that, I thought, end of discussion. Mary, of all people, should know; she was part of a big family with lots of brothers and sisters. Besides, Mary’s father was a lawyer, and everyone knew that lawyers, and by association, their children, were extra smart.
But no, that wasn’t that, after all. After a few more silent moments somebody else, I think it was Joan, spoke up. Yes, now I remember. Joan, not to be outdone (she was oldest, after all), brought up another subject we weren’t supposed to discuss.
“Well, sometimes ladies have children without being married. What about them?” I don’t remember what Mary or anyone else answered, but Joan was on a roll, and not about to be silenced. Tucking some wayward strands of wavy dark hair behind her ears, she continued. “And besides, what about men who like men? We’ve all seen them kiss and hug. What about them? Men don’t get married to each other, and men sure can’t have children!”
A collective gasp, then another long quiet pause as we thought this over. I just knew we were all remembering the same thing. Last Friday, over blaring classroom speakers, The Office had emphatically announced a new rule: Effective immediately, nearby Buena Vista Park would be off-limits to all St. Agnes students. Parents and teachers alike were in complete agreement, The Office proclaimed.
“But why?” I asked my father later that same night. “It doesn’t make sense, it’s not fair, parks are supposed to be for everybody!” “That’s just the way it is, that park is for men only and you’re never to go there,” Papi answered, putting an uncharacteristic end to any more questions from me regarding that particular topic.
Our group drew in closer, heads touching, hands gesturing, to discuss this new topic. We were all accustomed to Middle Eastern men walking hand-in-hand, a familiar sight in mid-1940’s multicultural San Francisco. No one cared, hardly anyone noticed, except maybe tourists. But other men who did this were different, somehow; we just knew. Finally, by mutual agreement, we quietly decided that yes, sex had something to do with men, too. Still, exactly what it was none of us had any idea.
We weren’t quiet for long. Frowning, a puzzled Barbara posed a new question. “Well, if men can like men, do ladies ever like ladies?”  Another explosion of opinions followed. “That’s impossible!” “Ladies don’t kiss each other!” “Why not?” Suzie again: “My aunties kiss and hug me, and each other, all the time!” “That’s different!” “Why?” “That’s crazy!” “Yuck!” “No way!” “There’s no such thing!”
By now, all caution flung aside, we were practically shouting at each other. “Well, why not?” I countered (the voice of reason). “It makes sense. It’s only fair. If men can like each other, then why can’t ladies? What’s the difference?”
Little Helen spoke up again, this time in an impressive, never-before-heard-aloud voice. “Let’s ask Sister! She’ll know! And she won’t lie to us like our parents sometimes do, because she’s a nun, and nuns can’t lie. They’d go straight to hell!”
“Good idea!” “You ask her!” “No, you do it!” “You thought of it first!” Somehow (because I was tallest?) they picked me to be spokesperson. There’s strength in numbers, they say. Or maybe it’s strength in courage. Whatever. So, hoping one or both sayings were true, I stretched out my hands to my six friends.
“There she is,” shouted Millie over the rumble of other voices celebrating their release from lunchtime constraints. “…over by the boys, next to the main stairs!”
Clinging to each other, seven sets of fingers tightly interlaced, we set out in search of Sister Mary Francis, carefully making our way through a sudden surge of students. The hand bell signaling the end of lunch and beginning of free play had rung. We hadn’t even noticed.
Sister gave us her customary warm smile as we approached. “Yes, girls? May I help you with something?”
I spoke up, body trembling, knees knocking, appallingly aware of my duty as spokesperson. “Yes, Sister, we need to ask a question. You know how… sometimes… men like other men?” I paused to gather up another bit of courage before continuing. “So… do ladies ever like… other ladies?”
Sister’s smiling face still beamed; then, as she realized what we were asking, she gasped, exhaled, stopped breathing. Paralyzed, horrified, we watched Sister’s complexion change from normal to a pale, chalky white, almost as white as her coif, then to an alarming crimson. Oh no! Was she mad at us? Was she going to yell at us? Were we in big trouble? Would we be sent to The Office? Would they call our parents? And what if Sister Mary Francis fainted, or even died? It would be our fault! Obviously, we had accidently stumbled across yet another one of those socially unacceptable questions. I felt so dumb!
At last… Sister gasped, breathing in gulps of fresh air as her complexion slowly regained its natural color. More long seconds passed before Sister forced out an answer to our question. In a dreadful high dry squeak, like the sound that comes out when you try to talk after inhaling the air from a helium-filled balloon, Sister blurted out: “Yes, it happens, but it’s very, very rare!”
“Thank you, Sister,” we chorused before scrambling away, zig-zagging through boisterous clumps of rampaging boys, back to the girls’ side, back to the security and serenity of our own designated bench by the grotto.
Could we believe her or not? We weren’t sure. We still liked and respected Sister, and she had, after all, answered our question. But nun or not, Sister Mary Francis’ reaction wasn’t very convincing or reassuring. Learning the truth about sex was obviously going to be up to us, without any adult help. Maybe next year, when we were older and smarter, when we finally reached third grade, maybe then we’d understand more about it.