Hispanic Fanatic

With the impending arrival of my first child, I have to face an unpleasant truth: I may no longer have the time and energy to update this website as frequently as I have in the past.

I’ve been writing the Hispanic Fanatic for over four years now, and I still have no shortage of subjects that I’d like to address. That’s not because I’m so brilliant. It’s a consequence of living in a time and place where Latino culture has become both red-hot trend and the object of hatred. It’s a never-ending source of material.

But while I still intend to write as much as I can, I have to be at least somewhat realistic. I know I won’t be hyped up to analyze the latest trending topic regarding Hispanics when I’m on three hours sleep and wondering if we’re low on diapers.

Still, my promise is to update the site as often as I can, so I am positively not quitting. My posts may become more sporadic, and at times I may just link to interesting stories without comment (which I don’t like doing), and of course you may have to put up with multiple references to my presumably perfect offspring, but I’m going to keep going.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my wife and I are late for Lamaze class.

My wife is pregnant.

Yes, it’s pretty great news.

Our daughter is due in January. We’ve never been parents, so by next summer, I’ll be one of those annoying first-time fathers who believes the most important thing in the world is his baby’s capacity for drool. Just wait, I’ll be blogging about it day and night. This may cut into the readership of the 19.3 million mommy bloggers out there, so I apologize in advance for usurping their authority.

But with all the hectic preparation for the child’s arrival, and careful time set aside for crippling self-doubt and solipsistic panic attacks, I’ve barely had time to ponder the political ramifications of this kid. That has to change.

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I recently completed the final profile of my family’s members. The anecdotes will keep coming, of course, but I won’t be focusing on a single member at this point.

I’ve written before of how Latino families tend to be close, and indeed, my cousins and I were raised more like siblings than distant relatives.

Still, I don’t know if it’s ironic, coincidental, or completely logical that people who grew up in a tight bunch are now so scattered around the Western Hemisphere.

Perhaps it’s the confidence that we will always remain in touch that has allowed us to branch out. Or maybe it’s just our immigrant roots that propel us onward.

I spoke to many of them last month, on various long-distance phone calls and/or email exchanges around Christmas. I’ve written before about how Hispanics tend to treat Christmas as a true fiesta and not a somber obligation.

Decades ago, shortly after my cousins from El Salvador came to America, we had our first mongo-huge event. What I remember most was Cousins #4 and #5, speaking to each other in fast overlapping English and Spanish. Half of their communication consisted of attempts to get their points across. The barrier would frustrate most adults, but to the girls, it was a hilarious game that never got old. Their pantomime and mangled words amused them so much that they often forgot what they were trying to say and just laughed in harmony. Their medium truly was their message.

At one of our last get-togethers, some of the cousins were holed up in a bedroom, talking about the pressures and stresses of the holidays. Of course, one by one, we all wandered into the room, until we had to stop bitching about the burdens of family because we were all pretty much crowded in there, which negated our insistence that we spent too much time together.

We see each less these days, of course. New bonds have formed over the years. For example, one of Cousin #2’s children shares my name. I presume that this connects us, although he is a toddler and doesn’t seem to recognize the significance.

When I was introduced to him, his mother referred to me as his uncle. Someone else in the family said that we were cousins, twice removed or something like that. I honestly don’t know what our precise connection is, and like him, I won’t give it a lot of thought.

It’s enough that we’re family.

She was found in a box in Mexico.

It was an inauspicious start to life, but from that humble beginning, she has grown into a kindhearted and affectionate individual. And she has finally learned that a true lady does not defecate in the living room.

Our new dog is a mutt of multiple breeds. We know, however, that the two primary breeds in her bloodline are, of all things, Boxer and Dachshund. It’s a truly unique, and logistically weird, combination (how did her parents get together?). But it makes her a Boxhund.

I’ve written before about my fondness for the canine species. They possess all of the positive traits of humanity (love, loyalty, joy, etc) with none of our negative characteristics (bigotry, greed, jealousy, etc).

When my wife and I decided to get a rescue dog, we assumed that he or she would be a local stray, found on the streets of Los Angeles. We were surprised, therefore, when the rescue group’s coordinator revealed that our puppy was discovered shivering in a parking lot just over the border.

Evidently, when it comes to taking care of animals, nationalities and borders don’t matter — and nor should they. Volunteers and vets with the rescue organization are not concerned where a dog originated, or on which patch of land she took her first breath. They simply strive to ensure that every animal finds a good home, and my wife and I are indebted to them.

This humanitarian process doesn’t work the same way with people. In fact, it’s noticeably easier for a dog to immigrate to America than it is for a person. Of course, as a Mexican national, our dog had to endure the usual bureaucracy and red tape, but I assure all the nativists out there that she is in the country legally.

Now, one could argue that our dog is performing tricks that an American puppy would gladly do. Maybe she’s driving down the minimum wage for dogs who are able to hold their “stay” command (it’s currently half a Milkbone).

But I have no intention of returning her to Mexico. It’s good to have a fellow Hispanic in the house.

It’s funny, however. You barely notice her Latina accent.

The youngest of us, he came to America when he was two. I was twelve at the time, and I was in charge of holding his hand while he walked into the country. He threw a fit at the border station for some unknown reason, and I had to drag him into America kicking and screaming, quite literally.

He is the son of Aunt #2, and as such was orphaned before he could form concrete memories of his parents. My mother adopted him, so my cousin became my brother.

As a child, he fluctuated between precocious awareness of his high intelligence and traumatizing flashbacks of the harrowing start to his life.

A week after he arrived, he ran into my room screeching in fear. “Las bombas! Las bombas!” he screamed as he grabbed me. The problem, my mother explained to me, was that he had heard a plane go over our house. He associated that sound with the imminent dropping of bombs.

Cousin #7 soon adjusted to life in America, however, and his ability to conjure adventure out of the most mundane setting quickly became apparent. On his second day of kindergarten, he came home topless. When my mother asked him what happened to his shirt, he said he didn’t know. For reasons never explained or even grasped at, he had literally lost his shirt, and it never reappeared.

On the way to midnight mass one Christmas Eve, he broke away from us and climbed the snowplowed mountain in front of the church. He was already at the top of the hill and forming snowballs when my mother caught up to him.

“Malcriado!” she said. “Come down, now!”

He had created a formidable arsenal and was sizing up potential targets when she yelled at him, and with great hesitation, he slid down the hill and left his trove of snowballs behind.

As a teenager, he developed an almost psychotic work ethic. One summer, he worked an import-export tent at my hometown’s weeks-long festival. While virtually every adolescent showed up at the festival grounds to dance to cover bands and drink until throwing up, Cousin #7 was handling merchandise and lifting boxes and making change. His calm tone and laidback smile made people trust him, and they usually bought more than they had planned. Many innocent Midwesterners left the tent with a leather wallet from Bogotá or a stuffed lizard from Tegucigalpa or a set of maracas from Caracas. He is just that charming.

Years later, he did me the favor of becoming one of the groomsmen at my wedding. But unfortunately, I haven’t seen him in years.

This is because he is the only one of the cousins to return to El Salvador. The reasons that Cousin #7 lives there are too complex and outright baffling to cover in a single post.

Suffice to say that he has married a local girl and now has an adorable son and daughter. The girl, in particular, looks just like he did as a toddler. I don’t know if she or her brother are prone to the grand schemes and misadventures of their father, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are.

In any case, I hope to visit them soon. It will be good to see my brother again.

He has regaled us with tales of his paratrooper jumps and told us about digging shrapnel out of people and mentioned the tense brushes he’s had with hostile citizens of foreign countries. Of all of the members of my family, he has seen the most of the world – although much of it was through the prism of humanity at its worst.

Cousin #6 came to America as a child. He didn’t become a citizen until his second tour of duty in Iraq. His paperwork was lost twice, and when he reapplied a third time, he was told to report to the county courthouse for the exam.

“But I’m in Iraq,” he said to the civil servant at the other end of the very long-distance phone call. “I can’t make it to the courthouse.”

Strangely enough, Cousin #6 believed that getting shot at in the service of one’s country was adequate proof of his patriotism. But he was initially told that this was insufficient, and it took my mother’s intervention, and the connections she had in local government, for him to receive his citizenship.

A few years ago, Cousin #6 married a fellow soldier. I mean no disrespect to her military background when I say that she is truly adorable. His wife calls him on his newfound cockiness and the swagger that he has developed in adulthood, insisting that one reason she feel for him was his awkward charm.

“When we met, he was such a dork,” she says, and they both laugh.

I remember him as less of a dork and more of a hesitant presence. As a child, he didn’t project the quiet intensity of his brother, Cousin #3, or the charisma of his fellow troublemaker, Cousin #7. Instead, he came across as a boy who wasn’t quite sure of his potential. He had a mischievous steak, to be sure, but he seemed unwilling to call too much attention to himself, and thus avoided serious trouble.

He has caused us sufficient concern, however, in the subsequent years with his overseas postings. While no fan of the men who sent him to Iraq, he remains dedicated to the Army itself. A band of tags around his wrist serves as a memento of his friend who was killed in Iraq. Cousin #6 has no plans to put the item into storage.

After multiple tours of Iraq, he enjoyed a “vacation” in Afghanistan. Although he and his wife recently had a daughter, he is heading back to that godforsaken country as part of the latest surge. We all hope that he returns safely and never has to be shipped to another war zone.

If he does get deployed somewhere else, however, we all know that he will continue to be a great representative of our nation overseas. And of course, he carries our country’s best qualities with him always.

The energetic personality comes through in her stream-of-consciousness emails and texts, which bring to mind ee cummings on ecstasy. One missive that I received from her read, “fear not! all is sugar and spice how are you!”

Somehow, between my obsessive-compulsive ying and her haphazard yang, we understand each other.

Cousin #5 just moved to Hawaii mere days ago. It’s a daring decision that marks not only a new chapter of her life, but the farthest westward expansion of our family.

Some might think it’s reckless to move to an expensive state in the midst of a recession, without a job no less. But Cousin #5 has a vision. She will not be denied.

Now, it’s true that over the years, her goals have changed and morphed as rapidly as her outward persona. For example, since her teen years, Cousin #5 has gone by three or four different variations on her name, each one lasting no more than a few years. I’ve lost track of which moniker she prefers at the moment (I actually think I’m one behind).

Similarly, her appearance, over the last decade or so, has gone from brightly attired raver girl to some kind of pseudo-sultana, Indian princess concept. Along the way, she ditched the leather jacket and bandana that made her look, in her words, “like a big dyke.” I believe there was also a neo-grunge phase in there somewhere that brought to mind a cute Latina lumberjack. Currently, she looks more like a hip grad student.

Despite her ever-changing image, her true personality has remained intact. She is the most extroverted member of the family, and her affection and enthusiasm for people is unstoppable. When greeting others, for example, she does not simply issue a hug or flash a pleasant smile. Cousin #5 lets loose with a shaking, high-energy embrace and sincere joy that implies she has been waiting her entire life for you to arrive just now.

As my wife says, “The woman is made of love.” And in the opinion of Cousin #3 (her sister), Cousin #5 “would take a bullet for any one of us. What a maniac.”

Befitting a person who is often upbeat, she usually looks happy and/or surprised, as if life itself is delighting her. However, if someone pisses her off or some unpleasant fact perturbs her, she scowls like an annoyed child who has been grounded once too often. At that point, she might spit out a quick “Dude!” that indicates her frustration.

She focuses this dark side (which all of us have, no matter how optimistic) into displays of fearlessness. It was evident when she was a toddler, when a family outing to a scenic overlook took on a thrilling aspect as Cousin #5 joyously approached a steep drop. Her mother (Aunt #1) had to rush to catch up to her.

Cousin #5’s need to rebel was also clear as a teenager, when she scandalized the priest at Christmas midnight mass by accepting the wafer with a Gene Simmons-style waggle of her fresh tongue-piercing. It was, as she revealed later, the sole reason she went up for communion.

Christmas is more likely, however, to bring her usual affection and good cheer to the forefront. This is, after all, the woman who painstakingly created individualized photo albums for members of the family, with shots culled from our highlights and misadventures, and presented them as gifts. In our family, this remains the Christmas present to end all Christmas presents.

Thinking of others has always been her tendency. She spent days in post-Katrina New Orleans, helping to tear down waterlogged houses. And her fresh college degree is oriented toward helping children.

Now her journey takes her to Hawaii. She and her husband, a great guy who is as mellow as she is exuberant, will pursue their dream. It may be a while before I see her again, but I know there will be no problem staying in touch. In fact, at some point, I’m sure I’ll receive a message from her like this one, which I got a few years ago:

“I love you i love our family [what i really consider a real family) and thank u, i know you will always be there for us i hope you know the same goes for you yes.”

I could not have said it better myself.

Aloha!

My eye continues to heal up from surgery (see my previous post on this). But I’m still not ready to dive into lengthy posts. For starters, my double vision keeps convincing me that everything I write is twice as long as I intend it to be. Therefore, until my cornea, iris, and so on begin to behave, I’ll just recount this quick surreal conversation for you:

A few days ago, my wife and I are were shopping for something to bring to our friends’ house. They were having us over for dinner, and I thought the most logical thing was to show up with a bottle of wine.

I grabbed a Malbec that looked good, but my wife said that our friends liked only white wine. Now I prefer red, but I’m willing to roll with this. Still, I couldn’t resist the obvious joke.

“Why just white? Are they racist?”

“Yes,” my wife said. “And they eat only white rice and white bread and vanilla ice cream.”

“But that’s not your taste,” I said.

“No,” my wife said. “I like brown rice and wheat bread and coffee ice cream.”

She was lying about the last item, but I appreciated the effort. In any case, I think it’s obvious why she wound up with me.

The word that got her was “sandpaper.”

There was nothing funny about the three syllables in and of themselves, nor did they have any hidden meaning or ironic subtext. No, the reason she laughed (with tears gushing and everything) was because all seven of us said the word simultaneously for no apparent reason while staring right at her. Cousin #4 flinched at our voices washing over her, then busted out in stuttering giggles.

As we explained to her later, I had made a bet with the other cousins that her default setting was to laugh. Cousin #4’s natural effervescence compelled her to smile at anyone who wasn’t actively furious (and few people are in her presence). So I suggested testing the thesis by saying, “sandpaper” at her and seeing if she laughed. She did, of course, but that may have been because we were so flash-mob  choreographed  about it.

I had first witnessed her tendency to be joyful on the day I met her, when she was a small child. She and her brothers (Cousins #2 and #6) were coming to America after the death of their father (Uncle #1). I sat next to her on the plane, vainly trying to answer her questions about the United States. She spoke only Spanish at that point, and my grasp of the language was abysmal. Furthermore, I was a teenager, and so prone to dismissing people with a curt snap, especially little kids who asked a million questions.

I wanted her to go to sleep and leave me alone, but conjugating verbs was beyond me, so I just said, “Sueno!” at her (which means “I sleep!”). Cousin #4 looked at me in confusion for a second, then laughed so hard that our fellow passengers wanted to know what was so funny. At regular intervals for the rest of the trip, she tapped me on the elbow, got close to my face, and shouted, “Sueno!” Then she laughed and laughed.

Her cheerful  demeanor  has carried over into adulthood, but this doesn’t mean that she goes through life giggling or is incapable of dealing with adversity. Indeed, as a child she had to deal with the murder of her father and assimilating to a new country, challenges that few of us will ever face. As an adult, she has raised two daughters, one of whom has special needs. Her marriage is currently under attack by the U.S. government, which is a long story and the subject of another post. It’s doubtful that anyone could be nonstop happy-go-lucky through all that.

Still, every time I see her, she maintains her composure and optimism. She relies upon her faith (maintaining ties to our childhood Catholicism) to get through these horrific times in which we live. And perhaps most impressive, she is still able to laugh.

The incident so outraged our hometown that hostile letters to the editor appeared in the local paper. Writers were split over whether it meant the apocalypse or merely Armageddon, but at the very least, they agreed that it was a sickening travesty that delivered a sucker punch to the gut of God himself.

And much of it was the fault of Cousin #3, who was about ten years old.

Understand that Cousin #3 has always been an assertive woman. And like all bold women, she has been attacked for this trait by a society that would prefer females to be meek. Fortunately, like all bold women, she doesn’t really put up with anybody’s shit.

The reason for the outraged letters to the newspaper were because Cousin #3 and her sister, Cousin #1, had just become the first altar girls in the state and, quite possibly, in the country. This straying from Catholic dogma is what upset so many religious purists in our hometown. Of course, the controversy died down soon enough, and I don’t know if my cousins ever knew that people wrote in to condemn their actions (by the way, if they read this, they know it now).

Of all my relatives, I believe that Cousin #3 is the closest one to me in terms of personality. Perhaps this is not a collective compliment. We have both been accused of cynicism and even abrasiveness, as if these were not appropriate mindsets — perhaps even virtues –  in 21^st-century America.

For example, when one of the cousins had a heart-rending breakup with a longtime girlfriend, Cousin #3 said, “You’re better off without her. You might think I’m an asshole for saying that. Well, I guess I’m an asshole then.”

Actually, Cousin #3 wasn’t being an asshole. She was just being ridiculously straightforward, assessing the truth as she saw it and passing it along – not out of maliciousness but in the hopes that it would set our grieving cousin free (by the way, this approach had mixed results).

For such directness, a relative once referred to Cousin #3 as “the girl who eats scorpions for breakfast.” The phrase is much prettier in Spanish and, I believe, meant as a compliment.

This is not to imply that Cousin #3 is some kind of high-maintenance woman in perpetual attack mode. On the contrary, she finds joy in many of the simple things in life, such as her traditional mayonnaise sandwich (just bread and mayo, nothing else).

And she doesn’t demand attention or that people kowtow to her. When her parents hosted a grand feast for her quinceanera, for example, Cousin #3 lounged in her white dress like a young hipster bride, slamming Mountain Dew and accepting congratulations. There was no pretense or vanity on display, which for a quinceanera is pretty damn rare.

She’s also willing to kick her ego to the curb to help others. This was most telling when she worked in a homeless shelter, stumping many of us who couldn’t figure out how her well-known disdain for humanity translated into compassion for society’s weakest.

Along those lines, her fondness for animals knows no bounds. I asked her once if she preferred the company of animals over humans. I was expecting one of her flickering grins and a quick dismissal of the question with her trademark “Whatever…” But she looked me right in the eye and said, “Absolutely. Animals don’t lie to you or cheat you or get greedy or hold grudges or…” And I had to cut her off before she denounced the entire human race.

But the animals, in turn, appreciate her interest in them. The day after my wife and I were married, we had a party at my in-law’s farm. Cousin #3 walked up to the fence to greet the horses, who approached her. They were nervous around strangers and rarely got that close to anyone new. But they knew they could trust Cousin #3. When they whinnied away before she could pet them, Cousin #3 took it a little personally. But then I pointed out that the electric fence was on, and they didn’t want to get shocked, and she felt better. Her focus on the horses caused her to dismiss the fact that she had been perilously close to receiving a jolt herself.

But such fearlessness has been on display before. It’s led, however, to a few mysteries. For example, years ago, she managed to get hit by a bus. I still don’t understand how that happened. I mean, she was standing on the curb and everything. How could a bus just wallop her? All I know is that she was knocked down and injured.

But like all other attempts to make Cousin #3 stay down, it failed. Eventually, she got back up again.