Flor de la palabra

One by one, the parakeets dropped dead in their cage from the day Lorena moved in with her sister, Linda. The local veterinarian didn’t know what was killing the birds, but he suggested that it could be due to stress. This didn’t convince Linda, who was superstitious, so she saw a natural healer (from the Catemaco region in Veracruz, of course).

The healer arrived promptly on time. He rang the doorbell once and the front door opened. His appearance at once surprised Linda and delighted Lorena, for he was neatly combed, wearing a tie and dressed in a tailored suit with polished shoes. He also held a very expensive-looking briefcase. In a blink of an eye, the suitcase opened and the healer was mercilessly beating the two sisters with stalks of fresh herbs. After the initial shock subsided, the strange, fancy healer waved an egg over each woman. He forced his way into the kitchen and broke open the egg into a glass of water.

The birdcage looked like a miniature Spanish colonial church. On its tin floor lied four dead parakeets. The fifth and last one was breathing rapidly on its perch.

Don’t die, don’t die, thought Linda. She had been sweeping in her pajama pants and noticed the tiny witness panicking. It had deliberately been left alive. As she hunched in front of the birdcage, her large brown eyes took in the scene. The bright green parakeet’s breathing began to slow. A shiver quickly undulated its feathers, and its breathing slowed gently. Now there was one breath. Now there was another. Its pink little feet began to relax. Its eyelids began to close. Its head drooped and its stiff little body leaned forward, and fell on the tin birdcage floor with a PLUNK! Linda sighed and shook her head.

Her psychic sister had been at it again.

I’m here in Oregon hanging out with my dad and my step-mom getting food and things ready for our guests who will arrive shortly.

Thanksgiving is a strange holiday. It started out from the Puritans giving thanks to the Indians for their having provided a feast to the new poor, starving immigrants.

How did whitey pay it forward? What follows is a brief history of American immigration.

Estoy aquí en Oregon en casa de mi papá y mi madrastra y estamos preparando la comida y demás cosas para nuestros invitados que no tardan en llegar.

El Día de acción de gracias es un día festivo extraño. Tiene sus orígenes en la historia estadunidense cuando los puritanos agradecieron a los indígenas por haberles dado un festín cuando se morían de hambre, estos nuevos inmigrantes.

A continuación, la una breve historia migratoria de los EE.UU. (Ojo: los gringos no fueron tan generosos como los indígenas fueron con ellos).

1795 Naturalization Act restricts citizenship to “free white persons” who reside in the United States for five years and renounce their allegiance to their former country.

1882 Chinese Exclusion Act restricts Chinese immigration.

1923 In the landmark case of United States v. Bhaghat Singh Thind, the Supreme Court rules that Indians from the Asian subcontinent could not become naturalized U.S. citizens.

1934 The Tydings-McDuffie Act, which provided for independence for the Philippines on July 4, 1946, strips Filipinos of their status as U.S. nationals and severely restricted Filipino immigration by establishing an annual immigration quota of 50.

1942 Filipinos are reclassified as U.S. citizens, making it possible for them to register for the military. Executive Order 9066 authorizes the military to evacuate 112,000 Japanese Americans from the Pacific coast and placed them in ten internment camps.

1944 In the case of United States v. Korematsu, the Supreme Court upholds the internment of Japanese Americans as constitutional.

1954 Operation Wetback forces the return of undocumented workers to Mexico. [What a name!]

Source:
“Landmarks in Immigration History”. Digital History. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/immigration_chron.cfm

Los franceses tienen una palabra, flâneur, que significa “aquél que pasea por una ciudad para vivirla”

Anoche mientras sentía una brisa suave en mi mejilla me transporté a los pasillos de concreto y piedra del centro de Cuernavaca, en la avenida Guerrero. El ruido, el tráfico y la muchedumbre existían en función de un aire vivo que jugaba entre las antiguas columnas de piedra y los puestos de cremas. De vez en cuando me acariciaba, pero yo no lo sabía. Esas caricias eran besos, sellos que debían ser abiertos sólo con el transcurso del tiempo. Y anoche abrí uno.

Yo antes era Cuernavaca. Yo era sus calles- y sí las caminaba- desde Chipitlán hasta el centro. Una vez llegué hasta Vista Hermosa con un amigo. El grafiti, los baches, las rutas, todas esas cosas fui yo.

Yo antes era también el centro, su zócalo y su fayuca. Era sus puestos de playeras negras de rock pesado, metaleras, piratas. Era también la moda underground que se estrenaba en ciertos círculos de jóvenes, pero no de los que vivían en Vista Hermosa. Ellos no, porque yo también era la tierra de la preparatoria número uno que se levantaba al son del sonido del ska, aquél sonido libertador y problemático. Más problemático aún eran los deliciosos pulques de don Abel, que también los fui.

The French have a word, flâneur, that means “he who walks the city in order to experience it”.

Last night, I felt a soft breeze on my cheek and I remembered the stone and concrete passageways on Guerrero Avenue in downtown Cuernavaca. The noise, the traffic, and the crowds existed in relation to a rare kind of air that played in between the old stone pillars and the open-air cosmetic stands. Every now and then the air caressed me, but I didn’t know that then. Those caresses were actually kisses, seals that could only be opened with the passage of time. And last night one was opened by me.

I was Cuernavaca once. I was its streets, and I walked them from Chipitlán to downtown. One time I made it to Vista Hermosa with a friend. The graffiti, the potholes, the public buses, I was all those things.

I was also its downtown, its plaza, and its black market. I was its bootleg heavy metal shirts. I was the underground style that reared its head every now and then among certain groups of young people, but not the ones from Vista Hermosa. Not them, because I was also the dirt that was kicked up during ska’s liberating and problematic beats at public high school number one. Even more problematic were don Abel’s delicious pulques, which I also was.