Category: Mexicans

I discuss issues about Mexican culture in the U.S. and Mexico.

Hoy


Hoy, martes, 16 de enero 2010

Well, I must admit that I am a news junkie. I try to keep up with most current events, but with my busy schedule, sometimes it’s difficult. I used to keep up with the news when I was a newspaper delivery boy, and I would read the newspapers as I delivered them. Then I stopped following the news in the 1980s when I returned to Chicago from the Marines. That is, until one day, I went grocery shopping and I tried to buy a gallon of milk, but the grocery store refrigerators were empty. Apparently, there was a salmonella outbreak that contaminated bottled milk and I didn’t know about it because I didn’t keep up with the local news. Many people became sick from the salmonella because the grocery stores kept stocking the milk and people who didn’t watch or listen to the news didn’t know about the salmonella outbreak and bought the milk anyway. Well, that really scared me into keeping up with the news. I didn’t want to die needlessly if watching the news could perhaps save my life. Not that I ever feared death, but why die stupidly?

However, when I watch the news now, I always think that everything will affect me personally. If I see or read a news story, I think it will affect someone I know in that area. So, while I watched the news about the fire at 3034 S. 48th Court in Cicero, Illinois, I immediately thought about my aunt Concepción Rodríguez Molina and her son Peter Molina, my cousin. Normally, news stories do not involve anyone I know. But this time was different. My aunt and cousin lived next door to the house that started on fire and killed seven people. She smelled smoke and so they both ran out of their house grabbing only a laptop. They are lucky to be alive! The village of Cicero temporarily put them up in a motel, but they’ll have to find a new place very, very soon. I will help them out in any way I can. But I still can’t believe this happened to someone I knew!

DDR

Basketball


My son is a blur!

 I was never good enough to play on my high school basketball team. I never even played any sport in any kind of league. That may have been due to a lack of opportunity, but I might not have been good enough anyway. Now, as a father of three sons, I play sports vicariously through my sons. I have always encouraged them to try out for every team sport at their school. I enjoy watching them play because they enjoy playing sports so much. They have played little league baseball and basketball and football for their teams at Most Holy Redeemer School.

One of the main reasons that I encourage them to play team sports is that if they didn’t, they would be playing video games in their free time. This way they get some exercise while they’re having fun. Their basketball team usually loses most games. I don’t really mind because they’re getting plenty of exercise whether or not they win. They enjoy playing despite losing. I always tell them that we’ll play more basketball over the summer vacation, so they get some practice in. But they never want to. That’s why they lose so many games. In fact, whenever I drive around in the summer, I see kids playing basketball in the driveway all over the south side and the neighboring suburbs. In Evergreen Park where my sons live, no one plays basketball in the driveway during the summer! They must all be inside playing video games. Well, that explains why the other teams are so much better.

When I was a boy, we played sports, too, but not as part of any organized league. We played baseball all year-round. It’s a great feeling to slide into second base with snow on the ground! In the winter, I loved playing ice hockey. I was a fearless goalie! I was usually picked first or second because of my goaltending skills. We also played basketball, but my friends were so lazy! Even when we had five players per team, they still wanted to play half court so they wouldn’t have to run as much. Yet they claimed to be great athletes!

My father always wanted to play soccer with us whenever we went on a picnic or paseo. Actually, he called it fútbol. None of my friends played soccer, so I never wanted to play soccer with my father. Sometimes we would play basketball together, but I didn’t know the rules very well the first time we played. I didn’t know that once you stopped dribbling, you couldn’t dribble again. I would dribble. Stop dribbling. Start dribbling again. In fact, I would do it several times. My father told me that it was double dribble. I didn’t believe him because I didn’t know the rules. I remember telling him, “We’re not playing by Mexican rules. Let’s play the American way.” “That is the American way!” he told me. But I didn’t believe him until I asked some of my friends who confirmed that my father was, in fact, right. Imagine that! I was stunned.

Sometimes when I watch my sons play basketball, I remember how I played sports as a boy. I remember how fun my friends and I had playing sports even though we didn’t play in any leagues. I feel as if I made up for that by watching my sons play.

DDR

Durango


Would you believe Ivan is Mexican?

No, I’m not talking about the Dodge Durango.

I want to tell you about an incident that happened at my old house at 8029 S. Troy Street about eight years ago. My air conditioner wasn’t cooling off my house like it was supposed to, so I needed to have the air conditioner cleaned and the freon recharged, or whatever it is they do to make air conditioners blow frigid air again. I don’t remember the exact name of the company I called to service my air conditioner, but it was one of those typically generic sounding names. Something like 24 Hours Heating Cooling. There are many businesses in Chicago with similar sounding names. So, I called them, and they offered to come to my house withing two days. So, a young man comes to my house with all his air conditioner servicing tools. I was surprised when he asked to use my garden hose to clean my air conditioner coil in the backyard. I’m thinking, okay, I’m paying big bucks to have my air conditioner serviced and I must provide my own garden hose and water? I realized afterward that this was something I could do myself and save myself some money. However, he did have to add freon to the system, which I couldn’t have done all by myself.

Anyway, as I was watching so I could learn to do as many of these things as possible myself before I called for service the next time, he started talking to me in Spanish. “He’s talking to me in Spanish!” I thought to myself. Now why would he speak Spanish to me? Well, he had to know my name was David Rodríguez from the service order and so it was logical for him to strike up a conversation with me. But what I’m getting at is, this guy is speaking Spanish! He doesn’t even look Mexican! He has green eyes, light brown hair, and a light complexion. We converse for about a minute in Spanish. I must have an incredibly surprised look on my face the whole time because he finally tells me, “You’re probably wondering why I speak Spanish.” In fact, that’s exactly what I was wondering!  But I didn’t care to admit it. Then he says, “Guess my nationality!” I knew better than to guess since I knew I would definitely guess wrong, although I was beginning to think that perhaps he was Irish. When I didn’t venture a guess, he told me to look at his baseball cap for a clue. There was a scorpion on it. If you ever see a scorpion on a baseball cap or a car, that could only mean one thing. Durango.

He told me he was born and raised in México. He must have been reading my mind because he was answering every question I thought of. He said that he didn’t look Mexican because he was from Durango. He said that no one in Durango looked Mexican. I guess I thrown off because he didn’t look Mexican and by the fact that he spoke perfect English. Well, that was an educational experience that was not wasted on me!

This morning, I was driving to UIC when I saw this minivan stopped in front of me at a red light. The license plate read IVAN 925. And there were two scorpion decals on the back windows. I immediately knew the driver was a Mexican from Durango, o sea, un duranguense. I just had to take a picture of his van and license plate. And just verify that he truly was a duranguense, I drove up alongside and saw that he did not look Mexican at all!

DDR

Petunia


Petunia

Long ago, my brother Jerry had a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named Petunia for a pet. “Why did you name her Petunia?” I asked him. Well, what is Porky the Pig’s girlfriend’s name? Petunia! And so, in a moment of sheer brilliance my brother had a pet Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named Petunia. He was always proud of his naming abilities thereafter.

Petunia had quite a personality.  She attracted people from all over the neighborhood since no one else had a pig for a pet. They would drive by just to see Petunia in the yard. One day, Petunia escaped from my brother’s yard and within hours someone had returned her home to my brother. Everyone knew where she lived. Petunia was very friendly, especially if you were eating. She would butt her head against your leg until you gave her something to eat.

I used to visit my brother quite often, so I used to see a lot of Petunia. I liked her, but not in the same way I would have liked a dog. When I moved next door to my brother, I got to see way too much of Petunia, but I was sorry to see my brother move away. But not just because I would miss Petunia!

Once, when he moved to his new house, Jerry left a case of beer on the rear deck to cool off for a party, and Petunia managed to puncture through the cans with her teeth. She drank the whole case of beer! She staggered around the backyard until she fell over and passed out. There were empty beer cans all over the deck.

My brother loved that pig more than any pet he ever had, including our dog, Duke. Some days, he paid more attention to Petunia than to anyone else in his family. Once when I was at Jerry’s house, I noticed that Petunia’s toenails were painted red. Jerry had painted her toenails and his wife Rita wasn’t too happy about it. She said, “He never painted my toenails!”

P.S. Yo-Yo Ma named his cello Petunia.

DDR

Burritos


El Famous Burrito¡ near UIC.

I’ve mentioned this before, but burritos are not a traditional Mexican food. My abuelita never made even one burrito in her entire ninety years on the face of this earth. Not even my mother made burritos. My father didn’t make burritos either and he used to cook up some weird combinations of ingredients that no one in our family ever ate even though he said it was delicious. Only my father would eat his concoctions, which were only made palatable by adding profuse amounts of salsa and/or jalapeño peppers. And sometimes, even he didn’t finish the entire serving. Despite his creativity, he never neared anything resembling a burrito. I guess because no one had invented giant tortillas back then.

Flash forward to the present. Somehow, mysteriously, burritos became American fast food. Yes, I’ve been known to eat a burrito or two on the go. Unlike traditional Mexican food that must be eaten sitting a table, for example, eating tostadas with all the trimmings on top requires expert balancing skills so the toppings don’t fall off. Imagine eating tostadas while driving! That’s why the burrito is the perfect driving food! It is self-contained and easy to manage while driving!

The burrito is one of the staple foods of American youth today. Including my oldest son. I think my son loves burritos almost as much as me. I think I once saved his life by throwing away a three-week-old burrito he had in the refrigerator. So, last week, he says we should go out to eat together. You know, so we can catch up on things, which usually means we hurry up and eat and then pull out our smart phones and ignore each other. However, we really do enjoy our time together.

Anyway, we ate a place called El Famous Burrito¡ with the exclamation point upside down at the end of the sentence instead of the beginning!  We were in a hurry and there was parking out in front, at Madison and Peoria. The most eye-opening revelation of our whole fine dining experience was learning that burritos could come in different sizes! They were offered in large, medium, and mini. But the mini burrito looked more like an egg roll! When I used to eat burritos before my son was born, they only came in one size. Large! I would usually eat one burrito along with three tostadas. Now, I don’t always finish a burrito. So, I ordered a medium. Well, the medium was exactly right for me. Although back in my younger days, I’m sure I would have ordered something else with it. But these burritos passed the most important taste test of all. They tasted Mexican!

DDR