Juan of Words

El Que Quiere Puede: The Myth Of Education Only For Some

So boy, don’t you turn back. / Don’t you set down on the steps / ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. / Don’t you fall now — / For I’se still goin’, honey, / I’se still climbin’, / And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.   – Mother to Son by Langston Hughes

El Sueño

I discovered this poem at some point during my teenage years and from the very first time I read the words out loud, they spoke to me.  Touched me.  Made me feel things I’d never felt before.  Like they immediately became engraved into who I was supposed to be.  Even though I hadn’t the slightest clue what or who that was.  And how could they not?  My life till then had been nothing more than sacrifice – the sacrifices of my parents, their parents, my siblings, my cousins, my uncles, and everyone else in between.

If you didn’t work hard you’d never get ahead.  That’s just the way it was.  Black and white. No gray area to ponder.  We knew the language.  That meant we’d made it just a step ahead of everyone else – including my parents – and that was good enough.  A high school diploma, as good as any four year degree!  We weren’t the Tanners, the Strattons, the Bradys or even the Winslows from TV.  In all honestly, we were more like the Beverly Hillbillies than anything else…except we didn’t have the millions of dollars they did from all that black gold.

So college was never really a subject matter up for any serious discussion in our home.  My parents wanted us to get an education, they did, but they knew as well as we did that there was no money for a college education, much less for seven of them.

Fast forward just a few years later…and there we were.  Me in a tie and suit, my sister in a black cocktail dress, both of us in our caps and gowns, our yellow tassels to one side, feeling hundreds of emotions all at once, wondering to ourselves how the hell we got here at all?

Right there, with the orchestra playing, our nervous walk into the stadium, the thousands of people cheering from their bleachers, our eyes searching everywhere for our family; in that one instant, all I had were memories.  There was the spanking with the wooden paddle I’d gotten in kindergarten from Ms. Keller for spitting out my water; the blur of our saying goodbye to our elementary school teachers after being deported; the marching to the beat of “mexicanos al grito de guerra” in Mexico; the fear of entering the fifth grade in a brand new city; my only friend Ambrosia that same year; running the halls in middle school to get away from Slim, our school’s security guard, when we were skipping; the warmth of Mrs. Quirk’s encouragement; my English teacher telling me I should be a writer; my art teacher yelling at me for getting gum on her skirt; my counselor at Eisenhower High School telling me I wasn’t going to graduate if I didn’t start coming to class; all of the Tejano dances we had in our cafeteria; and then, the sound of my sister’s high heels running down the hall, always a few minutes late, to the few classes we did take together at the University of Houston.

They called her name.  And then my own.  There!  It was done.  After well over four years of studying and working, staying up late, taking all kinds of crazy shifts, crashing for one exam after another, just like that, we were college graduates.   I didn’t feel any different, but I could see it all in my parents’ eyes.

Langston Hughes came back to me, word for word.

Note from the Author:
This post is dedicated to all of the young people out there, who just like me, have struggled with their higher education dreams at one point or another, and is also part of the Latinos In Social Media (LATISM)-Univision partnership to create awareness about Es El Momento.  Es El Momento is a comprehensive, multi-year national education initiative created by Univision Communications Inc., in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, as well as educators and civic and community leaders from around the country, with the aim to improve academic achievement among K-12 Hispanic students with a specific focus on high school graduation and college readiness.  For more information on Es El Momento visit www.eselmomento.com

Telemundo Lands a Hit with del Castillo in ‘La Reina del Sur’

Kate del Castillo and Rafael Amaya in Telemundo's 'La Reina del Sur'

From the beginning we’re captivated!  We find a docile, yet street smart, hopelessly in love, but never too gullible, Teresa Mendoza.  She’s somewhere in between running for her life, finding out there is no one left in her world that she can trust, and reminiscing through the early years of her relationship with boyfriend and narco, El Guero.  He teaches her how to shoot a gun, who and what to fear, and exactly what to do in case she gets that dreaded call telling her that he’s been killed.

Basically, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!

And we find out from Teresa that her life before Guero really has been no picnic, as she explains to him in one scene.  All the men in her life before him have only mistreated and abused her…so absolutely she’s willing to go in al todo por el todo with her new narcotraficante boyfriend who treats her like a Reina.  Only despite all of his warnings she seems not to have truly grasped the seriousness of their lifestyle until he’s dead and she’s jumping over buildings to avoid getting shot herself.  Definitely no Reina del Sur at this point, Teresa seems more a common rancherilla from Culiacan. Yet the beauty of Kate del Castillo’s acting prowess is that even in Mendoza’s ingenuity we can see that fiera who will later steal the show…as La Reina del Sur, of course.

Del Castillo is excellent as Teresa Mendoza, all at once sweet, innocent, brave and unrelenting.  A perfect match to her tosco but real lovable, and loving Guero of a boyfriend, played impeccably well by Rafael Amaya.  Maybe it’s their undeniably Mexican accents and slang, or just the way the pair make ojitos at each other, but their chemistry is definitely on fire.  Towards the end of the first episode veteran actor Humberto Zurita makes his appearance as El Guero’s only trusted ally and padrino, Epifanio Vargas. The cliffhanger, whether or not he will betray Teresa’s trust by killing her or having her killed by one of his men?

Therein lies my only true complaint about the new Telemundo series.  Can we avoid the obvious cliffhangers?  We all know she’s going to survive, just show us how she does it and give us all the action!

Kudos to Telemundo for snagging La Primera Actriz Kate del Castillo, as well as an all-star cast, including Zurita, Amaya and Camila Sodi.  You can definitely tell this is the network’s most costly original program and their investment seems slated for quite the success.   Univision even added an extra hour of their Triunfo del Amor, starring Cuban heartthrob William Levy, to compete par to par with La Reina del Sur’s Monday night premiere.  Like always, it’s all about the ratings for the networks…but I for one am coming back for more Reina and less Levy running around shirtless for no apparent reason.  ¿Apoco no?

The BIG Announcement

¡Estamos de Fiesta en Juan of Words!

¡¡Fiestonon!!

So…I am very excited to finally share some pretty big news about my blog with all of you…hence the title of this post.  Beginning today, Juanofwords.com will be joining the community of bloggers supported by the Houston Chronicle and their Spanish-language publication, La Voz de Houston!

The details are in the video below, but let me just say this here as well.  This website will continue being the home of all Juan of Words content and WILL NOT cease to exist.  Instead, a sub-blog titled
Juan of Words – A blog by a Latino for Latinos…y Más will offer a little more variety of content and information for everyone to enjoy.  Think things I might have not included in this blog in the past, but that are equally fun and entertaining to write about.  As always, my blogs are live, breathing animals and your input and suggestions are very much welcome.

To visit Juan of Words – A blog by a Latino for Latinos…y Más just click on the banner to the right with the words “Más Juan at Chron.com”

Comadre y Comadreando, La Juanita y El 409, 409, 409!!!

La Vecina

Speaking-over-a-mile-a-minute-all-the-time-and-constantly-throwing-the-number-409-409-409-in-multiples-of-three-was-literally-her-signature.  Like she was in a race to get out what she needed to say before anybody stopped paying attention or  she forgot what it was she was trying to say – one or the other – our vecina Juanita spoke faster than anyone we’d ever met.

And just as fast, she was a part of our life.  One minute we were moving into our first house, a small little three bedroom-one bathroom place in a lower middle class neighborhood of mostly black and Mexican families, and the next, there she was on the other side of our screen door going on and on about something or other we just assumed my mother understood.  All it sounded like to us was ¡409! ¡409! ¡¡409!!‘  Juanita swore by it.  According to her, 409 the cleaning product could take care of anything, no matter what it was.

¿O se le tapo el baño? ¡¡409, 409, 409!!

¡Estos-huercos-no-hacen-caso-fijese-que-a-mi-también-me-mancharon-la-carpeta-ayer-si-nomás-me-descuide-un-ratito-iluego-iluego-ya-estaba-toda-manchada-de-puro-chocolate-pero-luego-luego-le-heche-409-y-el-409-fijese-que-es-bien-bueno-que-luego-luego-el-409-409-409-la-dejo-como-nueva! ¿Tiene 409?

¡409! ¡409! ¡¡409!!

Of course her 409 was more like for-ou-nain.

In all honesty we were all quite mean to poor Juanita.  The fact she weighed all of 130 pounds, had crazy frizzy hair, wore half-inch thick bifocals, drove a town car-sized sedan, liked wearing teeshirts with kitty cat designs, flowers and the likes with spandex pants and stretchy blue jeans really didn’t help her any either, in our eyes.  Even my dad would join in on the arremedadera sometimes.  ¡Esa vieja fastidiosa!, he’d yell out of nowhere in that tone of voice we all knew meant he was enjoying what we were saying even if he wasn’t laughing with us.

My mom was the only one that most of the time would refrain from saying anything about her dear friend and vecina Juanita.  She was after all her confidant and compañera. When we were all gone to school or work, in my dad’s case, Juanita was the one that would keep her company, that would give her advice, that would cry with her, that would chismear with her, and who really showed my mother the true value of a friendship.  Which was why it was so funny when after scolding us for making fun of la pobre de Juanita – ¿ella que les hace? - mom would start imitating her herself almost to the tee, pace of words and mannerisms impeccably Juanita’s.

The odd thing was, after we left that neighborhood we all actually missed Juanita.  Life just wasn’t the same without her showing up unannounced at our front door, sending all us kids running through the house trying to get away from her and her high-pitched voice as fast as we could, but never any faster than her lightning-speed flow of words.

We didn’t have anyone to hide from or pretend we weren’t home for anymore in the new house.  Juanita, if you’re out there, sorry for all the chistes at your expense…and by the way 409 is actually pretty good for almost anything.

Thanks for the tip.

The Art Of ‘La Pisteada’

¡El Borrachote!

The formula is pretty simple.  You take one person, two, or as many as you want, add beer, or the alcoholic beverage of your choice, mix in some conversation, a little music of course, and voila: ¡estas pisteando!

Well actually a lot of the variables are extra.  The main ingredient is the drinking.

Even by the Urban Dictionary’s standards – since Merriam Webster does not include this social behavior in their library of terms – the definition of pistear is almost identical to what you just read here.  This is what they say: mexican slang/a verb/to hang out with yourself, another person, or as many people as you want and drink beer or any other alcoholic beverage. Pretty funny if you ask me.

Almost as comical as the sentence they use for an example:

Dude, we should go to SickBoy’s house and invite him to pistear some cawamas!!!

Who the hell is SickBoy!?  Anybody out there with that actual nickname…my apologies, but I have to say, I’ve never heard anybody say: yeah…you can call me SickBoy, that’s what everybody calls me. Not that there is anything wrong with that nickname…it’s perfectly fine, LOL, there are probably hundreds of guys out there who like to be called SickBoy instead of their real names!  Let’s hope not.

Anyway, the invitations I’m used to receiving go a little bit more like this:

¿Ey, on tan las cheves?

¿Qué, vamos por un doce?

Te ‘tamos esperando.  ¿Vas a venir o no?

And while it may all be in good fun – the drinking, the bullshit talking, the music, the company, even the nicknames – the main thing to remember is that ‘to pistear right’ can really be an art form.  No, not drinking as much as you can as fast as you can, but instead knowing exactly what your limitations are and trying to keep within them as much as possible.  Yes, we’ve all gotten wasted before – some of us more than others – and the truth is we all eventually learn that getting ‘shit-faced’ all of the time, or some of the time, is really just not worth it.  Nada más think about the crudota the next day!

So si vas a pistear, do it right.  And kiddos, wait until your old enough to drink!  

*Consider this my public service announcement for the week.

Café Con Chocolate: Somewhat Of An Inheritance, I Guess

El Cáfe de Mamatule

Intoxicating was its smell.  Deep and fragrant, black and sweet, a color rich, dark enough to see myself in its reflection, lazily rubbing at my eyes, entire palms, in upward motion, over my face, across my hair, meeting once again at the back of my neck, then all over again.  That coffee was strong.  It literally possessed the ability to wake me from my sleep no matter how few hours I might have been in bed.

¡Y no era para más! This wasn’t Nescafé or any of the other instant coffees we were used to.  This coffee was roasted over an open flame, ground by hand on the molino, simmered over an open flame, brought to a boil in an old clay pot, toda chamusqueada de abajo from being used so many times,  and served with love in even older tin can mugs.  It’s one of those memories that’s stuck with me.  Literally, stood the test of time.

This Sunday when I was making coffee in a regular boiling cup at my parents house, because their coffee machine is broken and they haven’t bought a new one yet, el chocolate La Abuelita caught my eye.

There I was once again descalzo y todo chorreado, standing at the entrance of Mamatule’s sticks and mud kitchen, waiting for her to wave me in, ¿tienes hambre mijo?   ¿quieres una tasita de café? And for just one second it felt real.  I wanted to walk inside and sit down, listen to the back and forth between her and my grandfather, my mother telling her she shouldn’t work so hard, my grandfather asking us if we were del otro lado, you know, americanos.  Just to sit there one more time.

Then Edgar said: what are you doing?  Are you making coffee?

I smiled and put the chocolate into the pot.

This is also my One Shot Wednesday entry for One Stop Poetry this week. Check out more prose and poetry from others too – Click Here.