Tag: mexicanas

Real Women Have Curves


My Spanish students love this movie!

I really loved the movie Real Women Have Curves (2005, Directed by Patricia Cardoso) even though I’m not a woman and I’m not from Los Angeles. I laughed throughout the movie because I could identify with the Mexicans who were portrayed accurately in the movie. We could see the importance of family unity and how going to college could be perceived as a threat to this unity. Education is not viewed as a positive goal in a Mexican family that has relied on manual labor to survive. Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros) wants her daughter Ana (America Ferrera, as of late as Ugly Betty on TV) to work in her sister Estela’s dress shop instead of going away to college.

Ana finally gives in to her mother’s wishes, but you can see that Ana is not only unhappy there, but she really does not belong there because she has so much more potential than that of a laborer. But that’s how Mexicans think sometimes. Even though Carmen complains about how hard she has worked as seamstress throughout her life, she is willing to subject her daughter to the same punishment of manual labor.

Carmen also criticizes her daughter about her excessive weight, even though Carmen herself is overweight. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Ana is beautiful in her own way. Her boyfriend Jimmy tells her that she’s beautiful and he seems genuinely sincere when he compliments Ana.

If she were in Mexico, many men would consider her beautiful simply because she has a nice smile, a nice personality, and is pleasingly plump. Once when I was in Mexico, my cousin saw a pleasingly plump woman and he flirted with her by saying, “Oye, esa gordita viene con atole?” Well, if you don’t know Spanish, I better explain that in this context gordita means both pleasingly plump with positive connotations and also refers to a food that is made of corn flour stuffed with chicken or beef; atole is a tasty, hot drink made from corn. I guess this sentence doesn’t translate well, so I’ll give you a similar example in English. Suppose an attractive woman, say dressed seductively in a short skirt, struts her stuff past you, jiggling all her assets, my cousin could say something like, “Does that shake come with fries?”

This difference in beauty standards reminds me of a story that Rosie O’Donnell once told on a talk show–I believe it was Johnny Carson’s–before she was really famous. She talked about how she went to Mexico with a thin, beautiful Hollywood actress, which at the time I wondered why she would go to Mexico with another actress. Well, now that she’s famous and I know a little more about her personal life, I know why she went to Mexico with a thin, beautiful Hollywood actress. Anyway, Rosie and her thin “friend” were at a bar where all the men were hovering around Rosie instead of her friend. Finally, Rosie asked one of the Mexican men why they found Rosie more attractive than the beautiful actress. One of the men said, and you must imagine Rosie saying this with a Mexican accent, “The bones are for the dogs. The meat is for the men!”

Well, this movie really got me to think about my mother again, whose name also happens to be Carmen. My mother never valued education and there was absolutely no possibility of college in my future. She always told me that I would work in a factory when I was old enough to work. But she would always complain about how factory work was wearing her down. She always came home sore and tired from working.

One day, she showed me her swollen hands and said, “Someday you’ll see what it’s like to work hard. One of these days you’ll be working in a factory just like me.” I didn’t plan to ever work in a factory, so I told her, “That’s why I’m going to college!” She said, “Why are you going to college if you’re only going to work in a factory?” She couldn’t imagine any other occupation for me.

She eventually found me a factory job–a job that would have been ideal for my mother, but not for me because I had such higher aspirations. However, since I lived under her roof, I had to live by her rules, so I began working the midnight shift in a peanut butter factory two days before my eighteenth birthday, while I was still a high school junior. I really hated this job! When I got out of work at 7:00 a.m., I immediately had to get ready to go to school even though I was ready to go to bed.

I was always tired in school and often fell asleep during my afternoon classes. I told my mother that I couldn’t work full-time and go to school full-time. She told me that if I didn’t work, I couldn’t live with her; I would have to move in with my father, which she had always described as being my worst possible destiny. So, I continued working at the factory, but when I couldn’t take the stress of working and going to school anymore, I dropped out of high school. My mother didn’t complain because I was still working, and I was contributing to the family financially.

In the movie, Ana gets accepted to Columbia University with a scholarship, but her parents are against Ana leaving the family in order to study in New York City. Her father finally gives his blessing to Ana, but Carmen doesn’t even say goodbye to Ana when she leaves for school. Carmen merely watches from her bedroom window. But you can see that not all Mexicans value education as much as most Americans who know the importance of going to college to get ahead in life.

When you consider this anti-education attitude of Mexicans in general, you can see why they have a high school drop-out rate of about 50%. At least the movie ends on a positive note with Ana going off to Columbia University and we get to see her walking the streets of NYC near Times Square.

DDR

Flor de Mayo


Irma Serrano, The Peoples Theater, Back of the Yards, Chicago, Illinois.

My mother always helped Mexicans who were new to Chicago. Whenever people threw away furniture, I would have to help her bring it from the alley to our basement until she could give it to someone who desperately needed furniture more than us. Many Mexicans came and went from my house because not only would my mother give them furniture, but she would also advise them on how to survive in Chicago.

My mother went to Mexico about once a year. She loved Mexico so much because the Mexicans in Mexico loved her and envied her because of her success in America. One year when she returned from her Mexican vacation, I overheard her calling the Spanish TV station and I asked her why. She had met a single Mexican mother with a one-year-old daughter. I don’t remember the woman’s name, but she also played guitar and sang songs she wrote herself. My mother had convinced this woman to come to Chicago because my mother knew people at the radio and TV stations. Important people!

So anyway, my mother told this woman she would have a promising musical career if she left Mexico and came to Chicago. Somehow, my mother convinced this woman to come to Chicago and she was scrambling to get her an appearance on the radio or TV. My mother was so sure that this woman was an extremely talented musician! I don’t know how she did it, but after a few days, my mother got her on the radio and on a TV show. I remember she rehearsed at our house a few times before her appearance. I was only about ten years old at the time, but I thought she performed very well, and she was so beautiful!

Sometime after her public appearances, she returned to our house to show us her new 45-rpm record. I don’t remember how well it sold, but she had a record! Her manager gave her the stage name of Flor de Mayo. We were all excited that Flor had made it, but none more excited than my mother who had exaggerated her connections to get Flor de Mayo to come to Chicago all the way from Mexico.

At my mother’s wake, many people, most of them Mexicans, came to pay their last respects to my mother. We had a three-day wake, which families no longer have. I saw a lot of people whom I hadn’t seen for years. The biggest surprise arrival was a woman who approached me, shook my hand, hugged me, and said in Spanish, “If it wasn’t for your mother, I wouldn’t be here in Chicago!” She was rather plump by then but still beautiful. I recognized her voice, but I couldn’t place her, so I asked her who she was. She said, “Flor de Mayo.”

DDR

Mexican hot chocolate


Mexican sombrero in a downtown restaurant

I have always loved Mexican hot chocolate. I mean real Mexican hot chocolate, made by real Mexicans. I generally drink it during the winter months, but I myself have never made Mexican hot chocolate in my life. In fact, I have never heard of a Mexican male making Mexican hot chocolate outside of a restaurant.

Usually, my mother or abuelita made it at home. They would bring the water in the pot to a rolling boil and then drop the brick of chocolate into the boiling water. Stir it with that wooden thing with the wooden rings–okay, I don’t know the Spanish name for it–that cosita until the chocolate brick melted. I loved the hot chocolate! Especially after all the TLC that went into it. You see, whenever my abuelita or mother made the hot chocolate, they would dip a spoon into it to taste it to see if it tasted good. They would dip the same spoon several times after removing it from their mouth. Not very hygienic, but full of TLC.

When I was married, my ex-wife would also like to make hot chocolate, too. Usually, unannounced. Using the same traditional Mexican recipe and Mexican TLC techniques. Well, our stove was next to the water heater and when my son was four years old, I would tell him the water heater was hot, hot, hot. “¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay!” And he would repeat “¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay!” and pull his hand back as if he had burned it.

Well, one day, I heard my ex tell my son, “Ask your father if he wants hot chocolate.” My son came into the living room and asked, “Dadá, you want ¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay! chocolate?” I had a tough time containing my laughter, but I could see the logic of his thought process and it made perfect sense! Now, I only drink ¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay! chocolate.

DDR