* * *
On the very first day of preschool, after we recited the Pledge of Allegiance, Hermana Díaz announced that we would learn our ABCs. I knew she meant the letters that I saw in Papá’s books. Did she mean that once we knew what those letters were, we would be able to read?
I soon learned what she meant. That day and every day at school, after we recited the Pledge of Allegiance, we would sit at our desks and work on our ABCs. Hermana Díaz would say each new letter, and then she’d have us say it too, until she was satisfied with our English pronunciation.
Because Mario was older than I was, he had already learned some English from his friends in the neighborhood, so Hermana Díaz spent more time working with me. Even at that young age, I wanted to keep up with my brother. I would say the letters aloud and she would help me hold my oversize pencil and trace them on my Big Chief tablet.
I couldn’t help wondering if the Big Chief could read what we were writing. If he were here, would he let me try on his feather headdress? My mother had told me stories about the Native American reservations in South Dakota. She even teased me sometimes, saying that she’d adopted me from one of them. Maybe the Big Chief was from South Dakota, I thought, though I didn’t really know where that was.
Like Mami, Hermana Díaz loved to sing. To build our vocabulary in English, she taught us the song “Jesus Loves Me.” I knew this song in Spanish as “Cristo me ama,” so I was surprised and pleased to hear it in English with the exact same melody. English and Spanish words could represent the same things, I realized, as verse by verse, we learned the song in a new language. They could convey the same happy and sad emotions, too.
* * *
Mario had only a few lessons with Hermana Díaz before he started first grade at Bradley Elementary School, but I continued to see her twice a week. Mario and I had gone together to preschool, but now my mother usually walked with me, carrying Laura, and dropped me off at my classroom. Sometimes she’d leave and go home to start dinner, but often she’d stay and visit with a friend who lived near the church. When the class was over, Mami—or Tía Angélica on one of her frequent visits—would pick me up, or I’d go home on my own. Then it was my job to watch Laura while Mami did her chores or cooked our meals.
Hermana Díaz always started her lessons with the Pledge of Allegiance, and then she would drill me on what I had learned last time. I would recite the alphabet in English and write the letters on my tablet. Hermana Díaz would tell me something in Spanish and then repeat what she’d just said in English. She would make me repeat it too. She taught me to read in English but not in Spanish, and I never did learn to read more than basic Spanish.
After my reading lesson, Hermana Díaz would have me count as high as I could. I could already count a little bit in Spanish, telling myself “uno, dos, tres” as we walked the three blocks to church. Before long I could count in English, too. Soon I could count past one hundred, and I was counting everything I saw—people, trees, cars—in English and Spanish, chanting happily to myself in both languages. I found it exciting to practice two things, my new language and my counting skills, at the same time, and from those days, I developed a lifelong passion for counting and playing with numbers in my head.
While I was learning the alphabet, Mario was learning to read books in school. And because he could read books, he got to visit the library with my father. They would go off together on a Saturday, and my father would check out books for Mario on his library card. I wished I could go with them, but I knew I wouldn’t be allowed. Mario was older and he was a boy, so he had privileges that I didn’t have. And one of those privileges was to spend extra time with Papá. That was just the way things were.
I knew that the books my father borrowed from the library were in English. Mario was speaking English in school, too. We talked in Spanish when we played with our friends, but I noticed that the older children spoke English to one another. Increasingly, we spoke English with our cousins in Las Cruces, although we still spoke to my Abuelita Juanita in Spanish. And we spoke Spanish to my mother and Tía Angélica, too.
When Mario started first grade, my father began to speak to him in English, saying this would help him do better in school. I decided to speak to my father in English too. So while my father didn’t take me to the library as he did Mario, he began to speak to me in English sometimes, and he corrected me when I got a word wrong. He and my mother spoke to each other only in Spanish. My mother understood very little English in those years, but she encouraged my father to talk to Mario and me in English.
Papá was gone most of the day, though, and he wasn’t the kind of father who liked to play with young children. He was too impatient to spend much time talking with us. Still, he could sometimes be an ally. One time, Mario and I were jumping on the living room furniture and Tía Angélica started to scold us. Papá interrupted her, saying it wasn’t her place to reprimand us. If we wanted to jump on the furniture, that was fine with him.
It wasn’t until we were older that we had any real conversations with Papá—in English or in Spanish. At that time, the only person who was teaching me how to read and write in English was Hermana Díaz. She was a good teacher and I respected her. As I got to know her better, I came to learn that while she was very strict and clear about her rules and expectations, she was affectionate and really did love children. Even so, she was quick to correct me and Mario, and immediately put an end to any horseplay in her class. Of course, once Mario started first grade, I was her only student. No other children from church families ever took lessons from her, even though my mother asked her friends if they’d like to have their children join me.
One day I saw something new on the wall of our classroom: a large, colorful poster covered with irregular shapes and lines that seemed to go in all directions. “This is a children’s map of the United States,” said Hermana Díaz. I didn’t know what that was. I studied the map carefully while my teacher pointed out the states, rivers, oceans, and highways.
There were pictures on the map too. “This is where we are now, in the state of New Mexico,” Hermana Díaz went on, pointing to a drawing of Native Americans standing outside an adobe building. I had heard my parents use the words “New Mexico,” but I had never understood what they meant. “And this is where you were born,” she said. “In South Dakota, nearly one thousand miles away.” My teacher traced the lines on the map that outlined the different states. I wondered if we could see the lines marked on the ground outside.
I didn’t remember anything of our time in South Dakota, but at home, we had a sugar bowl with a picture of Mount Rushmore on the side. I was fascinated by the four presidents whose faces were carved into the side of a mountain: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Even if I didn’t completely understand who they were, I knew I had seen the enormous sculpture when I was a baby. From listening to Papá talking politics with Tía Alma and Uncle Sam, I even knew that John F. Kennedy was the president now. My mother loved to discuss the fashions worn by the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. Was President Kennedy’s face carved into a mountainside too?
Now, on the map, I saw a picture of the same four presidents whose faces were on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. I still didn’t really know what a state was or the difference between New Mexico and Mexico. But everyone I knew had been born in Texas, New Mexico, or Mexico. I was the only person who’d been born somewhere far away, in another part of the United States!
I felt proud that I was learning English. I was also proud that I had seen Mount Rushmore, even if I didn’t remember it. Maybe when I was grown up, I thought, I would drive my car there, and when I did, I would know how to speak English to anyone I met along the way—even the president.
Mario, Hermana Díaz, and me, around 1961
Me and Mario at Uncle Sam’s house on Alamo Street, Las Cruces, around 1961
Chapter 3
The World Becomes a Dark and Scary Place
“La
ura-ca-louda, Laura-ca-louda,” I chanted. My one-and-a-half-year-old sister looked up at me, her face happy and expectant. “Look at the pretty butterfly,” I said, pointing at the bright orange creature fluttering over the flower garden.
“Butterfly,” Laura repeated after me, pointing. “Laura,” she added as she pointed at herself. My little sister loved her name.
From the moment she was born, Laura had a special hold on everyone’s heart. She was in a hurry to keep up—with Mario and me, with our cousins, with anyone. She had never bothered to crawl, instead pulling herself up using tables and chairs so she could run after us. “Me run,” she would say, holding her hands in the air as she sprinted away, giggling. She was very active, a happy child who lit up the room with her joy and energy.
Laura was in a hurry to talk, too. “Adiós,” she’d say, looking at Mami. Then she’d turn to me and say, “Bye-bye!” She’d run away and come back to us a moment later, saying “Hola” and “Hello.” One of her first words was “dress,” and even as a toddler she showed a preference for girlie clothes. She would crawl onto my father’s lap and babble, pretending to read aloud from his book.
She had my mother’s vivaciousness and interest in people and my father’s delight in learning. Everyone said Laura was the smartest of all of us. Her entire personality said, “I like people! Look at me!”
Laura and I were never far from Mami. All day, Mami would sing along to the radio, so we always knew where she was. Sometimes she’d pause in her work to twirl us around the kitchen. Mami and I would laugh and laugh as Laura danced until she was dizzy.
Except when I went to see Hermana Díaz, most days after breakfast I would bolt outside to play in the backyard, and Laura would toddle after me. My mother would remind me to be careful, watch out for Laura, and not get our clothes dirty. We were allowed to be outside without Mami as long as we stayed in the yard, where she could look through the window and see us.
Then one day when she was nineteen months old, Laura didn’t wake up at her usual time. “Let her sleep,” Mami told me. “She’s just tired.” Papá had gone to work early, as usual, and after Mario left for school, I decided to see if Laura was awake yet.
“Laura, Laura,” I said, seeing that my sister’s eyes were open. But Laura was hot and fretful, and she didn’t seem to know I was there. “Laura, look, here’s your baby,” I said, holding her favorite doll, Cucá, in front of her. Abuelita Leonor had made Cucá for Laura, and normally my sister’s eyes lit up when she saw her doll, but today she didn’t respond. She just lay curled up on the bed, her eyes half open, burning with fever.
“Mami, something’s wrong with Laura,” I called, but Mami had already come into the bedroom with Tía Angélica. Instead of answering me, Mami and my aunt looked at each other with worried eyes as they bent over my sister.
I knew something was really wrong when my mother snatched up Laura and ran outside. We didn’t have a phone at home. Papá had the car at work, and anyway, Mami didn’t know how to drive. She raced to our neighbor’s house, rang the bell, and banged on their door. I ran after her, terrified at the sight of my mother crying and pleading for a ride to the emergency room. “¡Ayúdame, por favor! Mi hija está muy enferma. ¡Por favor, ayúdame!” Help me, please. My daughter is very sick. Please, help me!
Another neighbor heard my mother’s anguished cries, and a few minutes later, her husband pulled up in their sedan. He leaned over to open the door, and my mother climbed in, clutching Laura’s limp body to her chest, tears streaming down her face. Together, Tía Angélica and I watched them drive off. Even though my aunt was with me, I felt alone and scared. I didn’t know what to do.
In another minute, we were surrounded by neighbors. Everyone wanted to know what had happened. My aunt just replied that Laura had a very high fever and was very sick. “Come, Sylvia,” Tía Angélica said. “Let’s go inside.” I helped her with the breakfast dishes, the two of us wrapped in a cloud of worry.
Tía Angélica and I stayed in the house all morning and afternoon, not wanting to miss Mami if she came back, but she didn’t come. It was a long, quiet day. Normally I would have spent the whole time outside, but instead I played quietly in my bedroom. When my mother and Laura returned, I wanted to be there so I could help take care of my sister.
When Mario came home from school and learned what had happened, his face crumpled, as if he was going to cry, and he went into his bedroom. Usually he’d change his clothes and go out to play, but that day, he just stayed in his room. Tía Angélica went in to talk with him, and afterward he came out into the living room and sat down next to me on the sofa.
In soft voices, we spoke about Laura. “Do you know what happened to her?” Mario asked me.
“No,” I said. “Mami was crying and saying Laura needed a doctor right away. Laura’s face was hot.” But I sometimes had a fever when I was sick, and Mami didn’t cry or take me to the hospital. Instead, she would rub Vicks VapoRub on my chest before I went to sleep, and I would wake up feeling better.
Mario picked up a book and started reading, so I went into the kitchen to watch Tía Angélica prepare our dinner.
Papá came home in time for dinner, but he was alone. He told us Mami had called him at work from the hospital, so he had driven straight there to see her and Laura. But when visiting hours were over, my mother had refused to leave Laura’s side.
“Papá, how is Laura? When is Mami coming home?” I asked him, but he just shook his head and didn’t answer me. The dinner table was quiet without Mami and Laura.
While Tía Angélica and I did the dishes, Tía Alma and Abuelita Juanita came over, and the adults spoke in hushed tones. “It’s serious; it’s meningitis,” I heard Papá tell my aunt, though I didn’t understand what that word meant. “Several people in the neighborhood have caught it, and a few have died. We don’t know about Laura—” He saw me there and didn’t finish the sentence.
After Tía Alma and my grandmother left, Papá told Tía Angélica to soak our clothes in boiling water to prevent further spread of the disease that had attacked Laura. It was evening, but my aunt started the old-time washer—a big tub and a hand crank—and washed all of our clothes, pajamas, towels, and sheets, even those that were already clean. She hung everything outside to dry, and late that night, yawning, I helped her make the beds with sheets that were crisp from the clothesline.
Our bedroom seemed eerily quiet with Laura in the hospital. Tía Angélica was preoccupied with folding and putting away the clothes, towels, and bed linens and didn’t say much to me. I still didn’t understand what had happened to Laura, or why she had gotten so sick.
The next day, I woke up to the sight of Laura’s empty bed, and I remembered that my sister was in the hospital and my mother was with her.
Tía Angélica made our breakfast, and afterward, Mario and my father went off to school and work. Before he left, Papá told us he would go to the hospital after work, but he didn’t say anything about when Mami and Laura would come home. Once again, I stayed inside all day with Tía Angélica. She forgot to turn on the radio, so our normally lively house was quiet. We were quiet too.
After lunch, later than the usual time, my aunt took me to my lesson with Hermana Díaz. Tía Angélica knew Hermana Díaz, and after my lesson, they decided to go to the hospital to visit Mami and Laura. I remember getting into Hermana Díaz’s station wagon, a long, low car with extra space inside and wood trim on the outside.
Any other time, I would have been excited to ride in the station wagon, but not now. When we got to the hospital, I waited in the car with my aunt, and after what seemed like forever, Hermana Díaz returned. She was very somber and said that Laura would get better, but she was still very sick. My mother was going to stay with Laura.
Without any warning, my world had become a very dark place. I missed my mother and Laura. Even at five years old, I knew that an illness that required a hospital stay was serious. No one had explained to Mario and me what was wrong, bu
t I couldn’t forget Papá saying that some people had died. My sister might die, or if she lived, she might not get better for a long time. We were very scared.
Mario and I were not allowed to visit our mother and Laura. After a few days, we missed them so much that my father drove us to the hospital.
“Let’s get out of the car,” Papá said, pulling into a parking space. He showed us the window that was Laura’s room, and Mario and I stared at it while Papá went inside. A few minutes later we saw Mami at the open window, leaning out through the curtains.
“There she is!” Mario exclaimed as my mother waved at us.
“Mami! Mami!” we called, though she was too far away to hear us. She blew us a kiss and then retreated back inside, leaving Mario and me fighting tears.
When my father came back outside, Mario and I were still looking up at the window where Mami had been. Papá must have seen how sad we were. “Let’s go get an ice cream,” he said, pointing to the Dairy Queen next to the hospital.
It was always a special treat for us to get ice cream. We left the car in the hospital parking lot and walked to the Dairy Queen’s outside window to place our orders. Mario asked if he could have his ice cream cone dipped in chocolate, and to our surprise, Papá said yes, even though it cost extra.
I was fascinated with the swirl that the Dairy Queen worker put on the tip of the ice cream. As she dipped Mario’s cone into a pot of melted chocolate, I wondered why the ice cream didn’t melt too. After Papá paid, we sat on the outdoor bench, licking the sweet ice cream and talking about how Laura and my mother were doing.
“Laura would really like this ice cream—she loves chocolate,” Mario said. We all agreed but said that Mami would have to feed the cone to her; otherwise, it would be too messy for her to eat. If Laura and Mami were here, I thought, I’d give them my ice cream and not save even one bit for myself.
Path to the Stars Page 3