‘Un abrazo’ for our immigrant parents

You think growing up in a MexicanAmerican family is easy? I’m the daughter of a father who wanted us to speak Spanish and prepare for a return to the old country, and a mother who wanted us to learn English and be all that we could be in our country, the United States of America.

Mom was very American. She was brought to the United States in 1919 when she was 9 months old, after the Mexican Revolution had taken the lives of her grandfather and father. Here in America, my mother had only a haphazard fourth-grade education because her hard-driving, cruel stepfather was always taking her and her brothers and sisters out of school to work in the fields. Even those few scattered years in school helped her to get an understanding of what America was all about: that America offered more than just survival, that there was actually hope of getting ahead, of making a better life, and that education was the key.

Mom knew instinctively that to get ahead she had to know what was going on in life outside our Mexican barrio — how American people lived, how they expressed themselves and what was important to them. She wanted to know everything that went on at school, especially our conversations with favorite teachers and our Brownie Scout leader. She wouldn’t accept a generalized report. It was: “When you arrived for Brownies, what did she say? And then what did you say? What happened next?” And on and on, until she had captured the dialogue and events that had taken place in the two hours of activities. That’s how Mom reinforced what her children were learning. That’s how she kept up with what was going on in her greater world. That’s how she worked her way up from field worker to hospital cleaner and on to practical nurse.

She became an American citizen in 1951 at age 32. I still remember the excitement of that day. I was only 10, but tears came to my eyes as I felt her triumph and joy as she pledged allegiance to her new country. She shone. She looked as though she had just fallen in love. She was in love with America.

My dad was a totally different kind of Mexican immigrant. He came to America reluctantly in his mid-20s during a severe economic depression in Mexico. His intention was to work hard for a couple of years and return to his beloved homeland. He was a proud, Mexican national who

had an excellent education through the eighth grade. He made our poor life rich and vibrant with poetry, skits, song and dance. He would sing opera in Italian — Ridi Pagliaccio and finish it off with sad roars of laughter and tears streaming down his flushed cheeks. For every birthday, he wrote poems for my sisters and me to present to our grandparents with little bouquets of flowers. And for Mexican Independence Day, there were speeches to learn and recite at the celebration. With him as director and star, he put on plays in our one bedroom for our relatives and other farm workers.

My father was as sweet and gentle as my mother was resourceful and practical. As a little girl, I was afraid of the dark and strange noises of the night. Even Dad’s snoring would fill me with tremendous fear, and everyone tried to help me with this — my grandmother, aunts and uncles, even neighbors. I only got more frightened. My father then took me in his arms and taught me a prayer from his beloved Mexico that blessed my bed and all around it. It went like this: “Persinote cama de a canto a canto. Que no llegue cosa mala ni cosa de espanto … solo la Virgen Maria y el espirito santo. Cuatra esquinas tiene mi cama. Cuatro angeles me la guardan — San Miguel, San Ramon, San Jose, y el Santo Angel de mi Guardia.” (I bless my bed with prayer chants to all corners so that no bad thing or evil spirit will appear … only the Virgin Mary and holy spirit. My bed has four corners and four angels guard it — St. Michael, St. Raymond, St. Joseph and my Guardian Angel.) After I knelt and blessed my bed with my father’s prayer, I was able to sleep without being afraid.

At bedtime, there was another Old Mexico ritual. We would kneel at Dad’s feet, he would bless us and give us his hand to kiss. During the day we could kiss and cuddle, but not at night. Mom, always giving full authority to dad on proper manners and customs, followed him in this bedtime ritual. First, he would bless us and offer his hand for the kiss, then she would. I used to trick them sometimes by kissing their hands, then quickly stealing a hug around their necks. I could tell they liked it.

That is why today and always I give a huge abrazo to my and all our immigrant parents.

Tencha Avila is an American playwright and short story writer.