by Alisa Valdes
“I hope you plan on taking me to a nice restaurant sometime on this trip, Juan,” I say as we head back to the car. “I mean, this is Rome, it’s full of classy places. Why do you have to take me to a dump like that?”
Juan looks angry. “Do you ever stop complaining?”
We drive the rest of the way to the Vatican without saying anything to each other. Juan tries to find something on the radio, and decides on this strange Italian disco music that makes my head hurt again with all that electronic beeping and bopping. The air is cold and stale and it’s raining hard now. The windshield wipers smudge up the glass with whatever the oily substance is that seems to float in Rome’s air. Smudgy and cold and in a horrible car. Juan should feel right at home.
There are lines everywhere in Vatican City. It might as well be Disneyland. We finally get into the main building and start looking at the exquisite artwork. Juan has to spoil the moment by telling me in his lecture voice all about how the Vatican had relationships with the Nazis and supposed Mafia ties. He reminds me of Lauren at times, with all his political preaching. I listen as politely as I can, but think it’s rude for him to speak this way in the Vatican itself. We were both raised Catholic, I’m surprised he doesn’t have the same awe and reverence for the place that I do. I am too polite to ask him to be quiet, but I am as embarrassed as I’ve ever been, I can tell you that.
By the time we head back to the hotel, I’ve just about had it. I love Juan, I do. I think he’s a good guy, a smart guy, and a handsome guy. But he doesn’t think about others. He has not once asked me what I’d like to do. He hasn’t tried to take me shopping, or to the kinds of things that I’d like to see. Even though he tries to find a nice restaurant for dinner that night, and offers to buy me some “better shoes” when we pass a sporting goods store (as if!) the rest of the trip is just more of the same. He wants to walk everywhere. He doesn’t know where he’s going half the time. He wants to “get lost” in Roman neighborhoods and eat in more local places like that first dump instead of the nice elegant places. When we finally turn the car in again and board the airplane to Heathrow, I’m relieved. Twelve hours on a plane sounds really good to me. I squish my body into the tiny seat, put on my headset, and ignore Juan when he tries to talk to me.
By the time we land in Boston, he has taken the hint. I’m mad at him. I am disappointed in him and the way he treated me on the trip. When the plane rolls to a stop at the gate, I take my cell phone out of the Kate Spade tote and dial the number for Dr. Gardél, with Juan sitting next to me.
“Hello, Doctor,” I say. “How are you? Oh, I’m fine. Thank you for asking. You’re so thoughtful. Uh-huh … uh-huh … Well. I’ve been busy with a project, but some time has opened up for me. The symphony? That would be marvelous. You have such good taste.”
Next to me, Juan buries his face in his hands.
I don’t usually use this column to talk about the arts, but I saw a show last night that floored me, and I wanted to tell readers about it. It was the first in a week of performances at the Emmanuel Church for the Boston Early Music Festival, in celebration of Holy Week. The sixteen-piece choir’s performances of both early English compositions and early Spanish compositions by Tomas Luis de Victoria gave me hope that we Bostonians, regardless of our differences, might one day celebrate in harmony all those things we have in common, instead of focusing on all those things that separate us …
—from “My Life,” by Lauren Fernández
amber/cuicatl
WHEN GATO WAKES up he tells me he saw the fifth sun burning brightly in a dream, and that then Jaguar appeared to him and said we should move up my naming ceremony to this weekend, before I meet with Joel Benítez.
We are scheduled to go to Curly’s house in La Puente in three weeks for a small, private naming ceremony, but the spirits have told Gato that the ceremony needs to be big and public and immediate. He holds me gently and says, “If you go to that meeting without your real name, you will not meet with all that you should.” He has been right about these things before. Gato has dreams that are not dreams. Gato’s dreams are conversations with the animal spirits of the Mexica universe.
We rise, take our morning shower together, eat our fruit on the small balcony in the back of the apartment. Then Gato sets about organizing the ceremony, and I retreat indoors. A melody is poking at me from the inside. The contractions have begun. The song is waiting to be born.
While I sit on the floor with my guitar, working out the chord progression, Gato gets on the phone. I vaguely hear him talking in the background. “Es que es muy urgente, ‘mano, urgente urgente que hacemos la ceremonia pronto, pero pronto pronto,” he says. Mostly I’m just focused on my new song, the one about the Brother Officer. He hangs up, and waits for a lull in my activity before updating me.
“Curly says tomorrow is good,” he says. “He had another ceremony, but he will reschedule it. He understands the importance, and he says the Jaguar appeared to him as well. It’s meant to be, Amber. You’ll see. It’s short notice, but I think we can reach everybody.”
He gets back on the phone for a couple of hours, calling everyone in our Aztec dance group, organizing a big danza for tomorrow afternoon. By the time he is finished I have worked out the skeleton of the song, and have started to hang bits of flesh on it. He takes his headgear and shields out of the closet and begins to polish them for a dance.
In all, thirty of the thirty-six people in the group say they will make it. The location is changed from Curly’s house to an open space in Whittier Narrows. There is not enough room at Curly’s for a full danza, drums and all, and Whittier Narrows is where we usually go anyway. I spend the rest of the day completing my song.
Gato cleans the apartment and buys groceries at the food co-op. When night comes, we make love and listen to the deep green voice of the moon.
Sunday, we all gather in the park at noon. I am dressed in my long embroidered purple dress with its many layers, my gold headdress and moccasins. Gato wears only a loincloth, ankle bells, and his large feathered headdress. The other members of the group are dressed similarly.
Many families are here in their Sunday finest, most from Mexico or Central America, speaking in Spanish. The women waddle in their discount dresses and carry children in their arms or push them in strollers. The men wear white cowboy hats and tight black jeans with large belt buckles and yellow ostrich-skin cowboy boots. A few of them have portable stereos with songs from Los Tigres del Norte or Conjunto Primavera blaring out of them. The baby girls have frilly headbands, and their little ears have been pierced with tiny gold studs. The little boys run and play in slacks and boots. Families ride in pedal boats on the lake, or stroll along the sidewalk eating their churros and tortas. Young men with bandanas on their shaved heads shake hands elaborately as they watch the girls in their baggy sweatpants and big earrings. I love them all.
Most of them don’t seem to know what to make of us in our Mexica ceremonial gear. We are proud Indian princes and princesses, kings and queens. When the beautiful brown people laugh at us it puts in me a sadness and a rage. I try talking to a few of them about what we’re doing, who we are. I know how they feel; I used to be like them. That was before I discovered the lies of history. Before I realized I carried in my veins the blood of an ancient and proud people. We’re here to honor the past, I tell them, we’re here to honor our ancestors who died defending their culture. A few cars drive past and honk in solidarity with us, a few of them raise their fists and shout “Que Viva La Raza!”
Most of the time the people seem to understand what I’m saying, especially the younger ones. All of us have photos in our family albums of a great-grandfather who wore braids. Most of us know we are Indians. It’s just those uppity Xicanos who work at the Los Angeles Times who don’t want to acknowledge us. That newspaper has slandered us so many times I’ve lost count. We went there once, to talk to the highest-ranking Mexica there, a man in his fifties who is a dead ringer for Sitting Bull. He did
not want to hear our message. Just like Rebecca. We make them uncomfortable.
We light the sage bundles and place them at the edges of our circle to burn and cleanse the area of evil spirits. The drummers set up their equipment. Everyone assembles without speaking much. We bow our heads in silent prayers. The women gather their shakers, the men hold their shields and shakers. Curly stands in the middle of the circle and addresses us all in Spanish, then English, then Nahuatl. He reminds everyone of the protest this week at the DreamWorks studios, where they’re planning a new animated film designed to destroy what is left of our history. He tells us of another protest at Disney studios, this one aimed at Edward James Olmos.
“That vendido wants to do a movie about Zapata,” Curly says. “We need to show the studio that we don’t want that Eurocentric sellout portraying our people anymore! Are you with me?”
We roar.
Finally, he reminds us to write to everyone we can think of to build support for the legislation one of our Mexica sisters has proposed in northern California to have Mexican-Americans recognized by the national government as an indigenous people.
Now Curly says we are here today to dance in honor of me, Amber, and my meeting tomorrow with a record label interested in my music. This is important because if they sign me, he says, then the Mexica message will travel across the earth.
“Please join me in meditating on the success of our Mexica sister, and the success of her music.”
One of the group’s members, an entertainment lawyer named Frank Villanueva, raises his hand and asks if he may speak. Curly says yes.
“I would like to volunteer my presence at the meeting with the record label,” he says. “If Amber will allow me.”
“Thank you, brother Frank, for your generosity,” Curly says. “Amber? What do you say?”
I look at Gato, and he nods. His eyes are electric. Then I remember, Frank represents some of the top emerging Mexica talent in Hollywood, mostly in film.
“I say yes, and thank you.”
“It would be an honor. I am glad you accept,” says Frank. “We have all heard your music and I know you will make it. But it makes no sense for a young artist to enter a meeting such as this alone. Evil can be done so easily to a young hungry artist. When is your meeting, and where?” I tell him, and he nods. “I will meet you there.”
I stare at the offerings we have piled in the center of our circle, the fruit and the incense, and I focus, I feel the eagle within me spread her wings, rising to the sun. I feel the energy of my sisters and brothers surround me. Curly says he will choose a name for me this day, a Mexica name, to help guide me and lead me to my destiny. The drummers begin.
We dance for three hours, without stopping. Vanessa Torres, who is too pregnant to dance, delivers bottles of water to us. I enter the zone, the same kind of place I reach when I perform in public, the same place I reach when Gato and I run for hours in the hills. I feel the energies of the universe converging inside of me. I lose myself to the spirits. I know that this is how things are meant to be. I have been led here to this point in my life for a reason.
The dancing stops. Curly reenters the circle. He invites me to join him. I kneel before him, and he gives me my name.
Cuicatl.
I will no longer be Amber. I will be Cuicatl. It is a strong name, a name that means “song” or “sing,” a name with the power to communicate through music. It is the name I was supposed to have, it is the name of my true destiny. If the Spaniards had not come and slaughtered my people in Aztlán, if they had not taken our villages and towns and burned them to the ground, if they had not filled us with their gunpowder and poisonous foods, I would have been Cuicatl. The most beautiful part of it all is that it’s not too late. I still have time to embrace my true self, my Mexica self, my beautiful Mexican self. Cuicatl.
We return home, and my mother has left a message on our answering machine for me to call her back. I do. She’s home, and answers the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, Amber! How are you?”
“Fine, Mom, and you?”
“Doing good, m’ija. Where have you been?”
“I had a naming ceremony today.”
Silence. My mom can say more with her silence than she can with her words. She does not approve of the Mexica movement. She has never said so, but it’s obvious. Just like it’s obvious she doesn’t like the way I do my hair or makeup, or what I’ve done to the car she gave me. She never comes right out and says it, but she does other things, like send me pictures of women in magazines with a note saying she thinks my hair would look good styled like the hair in the picture.
After enough silence to make me feel uncomfortable, she asks, “Well, did you get the package I sent you?”
“Yes, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’ve been busy. Thank you.” I want to tell her off, you know? I want to scream at her for never asking about what I do at the ceremonies, for never coming to a single one of my gigs, for never asking me how Gato is doing, for never asking about me. But I don’t. I can stage dive in a crowd of rowdy rockers, but I can’t risk upsetting my mom. I’m twenty-seven years old and I still can’t get up the courage to confront my mother. It’s ridiculous.
“You just put your things inside the bags and then use your vacuum cleaner to suck all the air out. It makes everything real flat so you can put it in your closet and not take up so much room.”
“I know, Mom. Thanks.”
“You can use it for blankets or sweaters, those things.” This is her way of asking me to change the way my apartment is decorated.
“Okay, Mom.”
“I got them on home shopping. I got some for your grandma, too, and for your Nina. I purchased them using the ultra-convenient E-Z pay plan. You pay everything off in five easy payments.”
I can always tell when my mother is quoting the TEEvee.
“That’s good, Mom. Thanks.”
“So you can have more room.” Translation: She doesn’t approve of my small apartment.
“It’s very nice. How’s Dad?”
“He’s over at the Rez, donating money to the Indian cause.”
This is how my parents describe their latest addiction: casino gambling. She doesn’t think this might offend me. She doesn’t understand that we are Indians. She thinks Mexican, or as she says, “Messican,” is a race unto itself. The number of casinos on reservations in San Diego County is growing so fast it makes me sick. My parents used to go once a month, now they go every weekend, maybe even every day. My mom is not a senior citizen yet, but she takes the bus with the senior ladies to the Viejas casino on weekdays because, as she says, it’s free and you get a free hamburger.
“I wish you wouldn’t put it like that, Mom, it’s sick.”
Again, silence.
“I saw a real good job in the paper here. It would fit you perfect,” she says at last. “I put it in the mail for you. You should get it by tomorrow.”
“I don’t need a job, Mom.”
“I’m just saying, in case.”
“Thanks.”
“I put it in the mail for you.”
“Thanks.”
“It pays real good, m’ija. Eleven dollars an hour.” She is tired of sending me money to help cover the rent, but can’t bring herself to say it.
I change the subject. “How’s Peter?”
“He’s doing real good. He came over last week to help your dad cut down that one tree.”
“What tree?”
“That one back up the hill.”
“That enormous pine tree?” I ask. I love that tree, and used to spend many hours in it as a kid contemplating the world down below. It must be five hundred years old. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Why?”
“Your dad worried it was going to fall on the house. You know how he is.”
Now I give her the silence.
“Peter’s real good. He’s doing good—well—at work. It’s alway
s good to see him. He’s someone I can always count on.” And I’m not. That’s the point of this one. Of course she’s always glad to see him. They’re two of a kind.
“I’m glad, Mom.”
“I just wanted to call and see if you got the package and tell you about that job. It’s for a admin-stratative assistant.” An administrative assistant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve corrected her, but it never sinks in. I know she knows how to say “administrative.” Her blood sugar must be low.
“OK, Mom.”
“In case you were looking for something.”
“I’m not, Mom. I have a meeting tomorrow with a record label.”
“Oh, good, m’ija. Are you still playing that Messican music?”
“I play rock, Mom.”
“Well, that’s real good about the meeting. I’ll pray for you.”
“Thanks.”
“You take care.”
“You too, Mom. Eat something, okay? Have some juice.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up, and sigh. Gato looks at me from where he has hunkered down over his keyboard, sympathy in his eyes. He knows phone calls from my mother make me insane. He’s writing a new song, a ballad called “Cuicatl.” He plays a few bars of it, and it gives me goose bumps. He has no shirt on, just his low-riding ripped-up jeans and his woven hemp sandals. His hair is tied back, and he wears a leather headband. My Mexica prince.
“What would I do without you?” I ask, wrapping my arms around him. He’s warm, and solid.
“You’d be fine without me,” he says. “You’re strong.”
I consider his words, and invite him to join me in the meeting at the label. He frowns and shakes his head no. “Why not?” I ask.
