We grew up hearing different stories of how the lake was created by the Stone Mother. Long ago, there was a mother who had four daughters: North, East, South, and West. The mother raised them alone, their entire lives spent in the desert and the extremes of its environment. In each grain of sand, the daughters felt a rooted connection to the land, but still, each wanted to travel in her own direction—inevitably, leaving her mother behind. When they finally grew up, their curiosity about the world beyond the desert, along with all the wonders this other realm held, took hold and they ventured out on separate paths. The mother, both saddened by their loss and willingness to leave her and their home, cried so intensely the skies envied her ability to create such moisture. She carried on this way for days, which turned to months and years. Finally, her tears gathered in salty pools so strong they gravitated toward one another’s weight. The mother created a lake out of tears, but the bitterness she would not let go of turned her into stone. She is called the Stone Mother, and to this day, she sits watching over the lake—waiting. I imagine her singing through the lake in waves: Come back to me, my children Come back to me.
As a child, I feared different things, but I was never afraid of drowning. Floating on my back, I trusted the water to carry me. I could be vulnerable with the lake. I could let go. I loved nothing more than swimming with my family, reenacting favorite scenes from musicals like Funny Girl, singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade” at the top of my lungs. The water was my stage, and the sandy beach was my make-believe audience. My entire life I’ve always felt different, like a Fanny Brice outcast because I didn’t exactly fit the mold of beauty standards in American culture; I was never the best at sports in my high school or anything like that, but I was smart. I got good grades and could lose myself for hours in a good book. Sometimes I even felt like an outsider with my friends, and occasionally with my family, but the lake always made me feel at home and like I belonged. To this day, I’ve never known freedom like swimming in a lake, treading water, diving, and imagining everything I could be. Swimming in the same lake my ancestors swam in made it all the more magic.
Grandma, my mom’s mother, is another person who always made me feel like I belonged. In her own way, she was water too—adapting to any situation and circumstance she found herself in. Grandma always found a way; she too was magic. Each summer, when we weren’t swimming or watching musicals or movies, Grandma would have us help in the garden, or she’d teach us how to bake and knit and embroider. With Grandma, I learned how to put things back together. From her laugh to her hugs and the food she made, Grandma was and is all the best things about love.
When I was a little girl, Grandma would sing, “ ‘Ain’t got no home, no place to roam,’ ooo-OOO-ooo,” to make me laugh. She did the twist-and-shout move, swinging her arms back and forth, spinning me during all the ooo-OOO-ooo’s. She made it so silly I thought she made up the song. It wouldn’t be until I was in my early thirties that I’d hear that song on the fifties XM radio station and I’d realize Grandma wasn’t lying; it was a real song. By then, the song would hold such a different meaning because I knew more about the world; I could never look at anything the same.
As a young girl, I didn’t understand how complicated living in America was and is as an indigenous person. The idea of citizenship and belonging to a sovereign nation while also being a US citizen didn’t really cross my mind. I knew we lived on my father’s reservation during the school year and visited my mother’s reservation during the summers. I knew I was enrolled in a different tribe, Duckwater Shoshone, my maternal grandma’s tribe. But, I had no idea there were 562 federally recognized tribes at the time. In the history books my school used, Native Americans were erased, relegated to the past, and portrayed as uncivilized savages. I remember having to memorize the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, but they didn’t let us get to (or left out) the part where the text called us “merciless Indian savages.” Imagine growing up in a country whose founding documents don’t recognize you or your people as human. There was so much truth I did not know. But I did know who I was, where I came from, and where I belonged.
I was raised to honor all parts of me. As a little girl, my family encouraged me to honor my voice through singing. My mother has been taking us to ceremonies since I was a baby, and as soon as I was able to, I contributed by singing along with everyone else. One of our neighbors even started a drum group for the kids in our neighborhood; the boys would drum, and we as girls would stand behind them, singing the tales of each song. I still carry those songs with me, and I thank my mother for that; she always made sure we were grounded in our culture, traditions, and ceremony. Today, my mom cruises while listening to ceremony songs so loudly in her car every time she picks me up from the airport I can hear the drum beats before I even open the door. It’s a sound that reminds me I am home. Most days, my mom will slip into a song, humming different melodies or songs from ceremony, pausing to say, “Sing songs until they become a part of you”—because of her, I know they are. Those songs let me know that I am never alone; my ancestors are always with me. Just being around my mom gives me that feeling of safety and protection—all the things that should come with what “home” means. It is hard to imagine what growing up without that looks like.
My grandma is a survivor of industrial schools, also known as boarding schools. These “schools” were created by the US government with the intent and purpose of assimilating and “civilizing” indigenous people under the praxis “Kill the Indian, save the man.” I didn’t learn about boarding schools until I became an adult. I did not learn this history in my US education. I did not know that Native children were forcibly taken from their homes, land, and families. In some industrial schools they cut off children’s long hair, beat them for speaking their Native language or singing their medicine songs. Some children had to shine shoes or had needles stabbed through their tongues or soap put in their mouths just for speaking and singing the only language they’d ever known. The government wanted us to feel cultural shame, forcibly training Native people to be ashamed of being Native because it wasn’t safe for us to be who we always were, who we have always been.
My grandma did not experience this in her boarding school; at least she doesn’t talk about those things. Once, I asked my grandma, “Why didn’t you run away? Why didn’t you go home . . . ?” She told me, “I didn’t have a home to go home to.” She talks about boarding school as having food and a warm place to sleep. The memory she likes to tell from her boarding school experience is about her winning the talent show by singing “Blue Moon.” When she shares this story she sings: “ ‘Blue moon, now I’m no longer alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own . . .’ ” and I can tell she’s happy each time she tells this story to me because Grandma did find love with my grandpa and the family she made with him. For me, the best part is: my grandma never stopped singing. She stills sings to us to this day in her Native language.
It is a miracle that my grandma survived and is still here. It is a miracle that any of us indigenous people are still here; to me, this speaks to our strength as a people. My mom reminds me of this each and every day as she tells me to pray and give thanks for everything I’ve been blessed with. I include all my family in my daily prayers; I am especially thankful for my granny, my grandma, my mom, and my sister—without them, I wouldn’t be here today. They survived in a world that tried to kill our people. They and our people continued singing our songs even when it was still illegal to do so up until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1978, just seven years before I was born. I will always be grateful that I was born in a time where I am able to sing ceremony songs, belt out ballads, write and perform poetry using the breath and air I am thankful to hold in my lungs, and none of it is illegal. I am grateful that I get to sing, and it is all because my grandma and all my ancestors never abandoned who they were. I can sing Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s song that I’ll always consider my grandm
a’s “Ain’t Got No Home” song, but I can give the words “I’ve got a voice. I love to sing . . .” new meaning. I get to sing and not have to be ashamed of who I am or the cultures I come from.
There’s another version of the Stone Mother story. One of our elders tells it like this: She is our mother of all mothers. She had children who all got along when they were little, but as the kids got older, they misbehaved, argued, and fought. So the mother had to separate them. She sent a boy and a girl to the south and a boy and a girl to the north. She told them to build a fire each night so she’d know they were okay. She saw the fire from the kids she sent to the south, but she never saw a fire from the kids who went to the north. So she cried and cried; her tears formed the lake. Her heart turned so cold she turned into stone.
In this version of the story, the Stone Mother teaches us the importance of lighting one’s fire. We need to show each other and our ancestors that we are okay; we do this by lighting our fire—sharing our gifts, living our purpose, and not being afraid. The Stone Mother gives us the greatest gift a mother could give. She gives us a way to heal. We can swim in a lake created out of tears, which means we can learn how to navigate any hurt or trauma that comes our way, we can fight and swim and tread water and learn how to balance.
I think stories and songs come to us at different points in our lives. I believe they are told and sung in different ways to reflect the mirror we need to look into. I carry many stories and songs. Some have been passed down for generations through tradition or ceremony—as blood memory. And some have yet to be written. But I am always one song away from my next destination. I light my fire to show respect for the journey. I am an indigenous woman who heals not just my heart but also all those whose blood I carry inside me. Each time I write and sing I am lighting my fire; I am honoring my ancestors, because singing makes me feel alive and my ancestors live through me.
Wilmer Valderrama is an actor, producer, and activist raised in Venezuela. He, along with America Ferrera and Ryan Piers William, founded Harness, a group dedicated to connecting communities through conversation to inspire action and power change.
Wilmer Valderrama
I HAVE BEEN ACTING and performing for as long as I can remember. But the first acting job that put me on TV regularly was playing the role of Fez on That ’70s Show. Fez was short for foreign exchange student, and the running joke on the show was that no one knew what country Fez was really from. No one knew his native language or what his real story was. They just knew he was this funny, overly confident, and kind of crazy dude with a mysterious accent. So my job was to create a made-up nondescript accent for Fez.
Little did people know that, as I was creating that unique accent for Fez, I was working through my own very thick accent. In fact, the first year playing Fez is how I finally truly became fluent in English. I was seventeen years old, spending every day learning my lines, reading scripts, and performing with a group of other mostly native English speakers. It was the best language training I could have hoped for.
If you would have told me when I was a little boy in Venezuela that I would learn English on the set of an American TV show, I wouldn’t have believed you. Even though I was born in America, my parents moved the family back to Venezuela when I was still a toddler. I grew up there in a small town—Acarigua in the state of Portuguesa—where there was only one movie theater. It showed RoboCop all year round. Are you feeling bad for little Wilmer right now? Well don’t, because I freaking loved RoboCop. I must have watched that movie a million times. I was obsessed with the bad guy, Clarence Boddicker—who is one of the greatest villains in cinematic history. I knew that movie backward and forward, and my favorite scene was when Clarence and his gang are standing in the back of a moving delivery van with the rear doors flapping open, exchanging gunfire with the police who are chasing them. One of Clarence’s minions, Bobby, has made a critical mistake in the robbery they just tried to pull off, so Clarence viciously ejects him from the moving vehicle, saying: “Can you fly, Bobby?” This line rang through my head all the time as a kid. I thought it was hilarious, and I ran around trying to act like Clarence as a little boy.
But besides “Can you fly, Bobby?” I didn’t know much English. Technically I was supposed to be learning it in school. I was pretty much always enrolled in a language class, but it was not at the top of my list of favorite subjects. I hate to admit it, but I barely paid attention in English class. I was way more interested in singing, dancing, and acting. Realistically, there was no future in the performing arts for little boys in Acarigua. In case the RoboCop year-round feature didn’t tip you off already, they didn’t make a lot of TV or movies in Venezuela. But doing plays was one of the main forms of recreation for a lot of kids. The whole community pitched in to write the plays, make our costumes, build the sets, and do our hair and makeup for our shows. For a place with so few resources, we were surprisingly well equipped for the performing arts.
So I had my thing. And it was not learning English. It was performing. I was a pretty happy kid with great parents and a great hobby. But one day when I was thirteen years old, my dad came to me and said: “Mijo, the good news is, we’re moving back to the United States. The bad news is, you’re about to be really sorry you never paid attention in English class.”
My dad’s prediction was dead-on. I was excited to go to the United States, but was incredibly stressed that I didn’t know English. My parents were risking everything to give me and my sister a better life and provide us with opportunities they never had. They worked very, very hard, but where we lived, working hard couldn’t save you. During that time in Venezuela, you could turn on the news and pretty much every single day see stories about decapitations, school buses getting sprayed by AKs, drug-cartel violence, bombings, senators getting murdered, police corruption, rioting, and more. The problems there affected the rich just as much as the poor. And you couldn’t just move out of your neighborhood or get a better job in order to escape the violence and corruption. It was everywhere. I know America has its own problems—every country does—but compared to where I was, America seemed like Disneyland.
Even so, leaving Venezuela was a huge risk for my parents, but they were fearless. They had to be. From my experience, many immigrants are fearless. They leave so much behind to brave something so new and challenging. My mother was a native Colombian and my father a native Venezuelan, but they knew America was the best place to bring their kids. They didn’t speak a word of English, but that wasn’t stopping them. And the least I could do was learn English and help them learn it too. I wanted to be as fearless as my dad. So I took my job seriously, thinking, I’m going to be unstoppable in America! All I have to do is learn English!
You know. No big deal. Just learn an entirely new language at the age of thirteen and then go ahead and conquer the world. Never mind that I couldn’t even count to three in English, didn’t even know the word for hello. I was petrified.
When we landed in Miami, we began the long drive across the country to settle in Los Angeles, where some of my dad’s relatives lived and could help him find work. I remember spending several days in the car, traveling from coast to coast. This is such a massive country, and there was a lot to take in, a lot to think about. In every town, city, or rest stop I would spot the American flags. They seemed to be everywhere. I would look at the flag and think about this wonderful place I was so lucky to get to live in. My dad talked to us during the drive to make it very clear that “we came here to start again. We came here to work. We didn’t come here to go to Universal Studios and Disneyland!” My job was to keep that candle burning. I knew I had to roll up my sleeves and get an education. Take advantage of the opportunities of this amazing place where I had been lucky enough to have been born.
But then shit got real.
There I was—suddenly a seventh grader in Los Angeles at a regular public school. Sure I was coming back to the place where I should feel like I belonged—it was technically my home country
. But I didn’t speak a lick of English. I was held back a year, since I couldn’t speak the language, so I was now in the same grade as my twelve-year-old sister. They put us in all the same classes so we could help each other out. We were always together and became so close that people thought we were dating. But we tried not to care what people thought. We didn’t have time for teen angst—we were serious and determined to become successful. Neither one of us had friends at first, so we just hung out with each other. Then when we finally made our own friends, I hung with the Mexican and El Salvadorian soccer players and she took up with a lot of white girls. So naturally, she lost her accent a lot faster than I did.
Having a thick accent and a sparse vocabulary didn’t make school easy—socially or academically. Math class was especially hard. Can you imagine learning pre-algebra in a language you don’t speak? Neither can I. So I didn’t. I started missing home in Venezuela, where all the kids would hang out doing plays or musicals. I wanted to feel that connection again and that amazing feeling of getting onstage. I started taking drama class and realized my drive to act again was much stronger than my embarrassment about my English. I was determined to get onstage.
The drama department was putting on a production of Beauty and the Beast, and I decided to audition. I loved the story—like so many kids, Disney movies were the backdrop of my childhood and provided me much of what I knew about morality and fantasy. My English was still very, very limited, and my accent just as thick. But I thought to myself, You can’t let these things be barriers. Throw yourself to the wolves and fight! Be fearless! I went right up to the drama teacher, who could already detect my extreme devotion to acting, and I said, “I’ll do anything. Just give me a chance. How about the beast? Let me play the beast. He doesn’t speak English, right? He’s not even human!”
American Like Me Page 18