“See, God?” I said to myself. “I don’t need You. I can take care of this myself.”
Exhausted, I laid my head down on the curb and fell into a deep slumber.
two
growing up rivera
Most people think the Rivera family is in the music business because of my father, Don Pedro Rivera, but the truth is my mother is the one who knows how to sing. My father has always loved music, but Doña Rosa, as everyone calls her—she’s the real thing. She has the most amazing voice but unlike her husband and her children, she never wanted a career in music. She sings in the choir at church, but that’s where her ambition stops. “I lost my children long before Janney’s plane went down,” she once said to me. “The bigger they get, the less I see of them.” If she had it her way, we would all be living within walking distance of one another, surrounded by immediate family every single day. In fact, there was a time when we all did live within five minutes of her house on Ellis Street in North Long Beach. That was the happiest she has ever been.
Mom and Dad first met at a concurso de canto, a singing contest, when she was fourteen years old and he was fifteen. Mama was a good girl. She came from a family of eleven but when she was seven, she was sent away to live with her madrina, whom she was supposed to take care of in her madrina’s old age. From what Mother tells me, her godmother was not an easy lady to live with, and those years were no walk in the park. For the most part, she grew up devoid of any sort of affection and because she wasn’t living at home with her own family, she never developed a relationship with her siblings, much less her parents. So when she met my father at the tender age of fourteen, immediately she fell in love. At the time, my father was selling lottery tickets on the street, an activity my grandfather—my mother’s father—looked down on. My grandfather forbade my mother to see my father but for the first time in her life, she didn’t care what he had to say. She loved Tata but passion for my father took over.
Not too long after they met, my mother and father packed their things and ran away together. My father took her in, married her, and cared for her from that moment on. He worked hard to provide the best he could, but those first years together were very difficult. They moved from pueblito to pueblito, living in itty-bitty shacks surrounded by lots of poverty, always looking for new opportunities yet not always finding them. Times were tough. To make things worse, at one point my mother’s father managed to get my father thrown into jail for having run away with an underage girl. He served his sentence all while my mother patiently waited for him—she never complained about their situation and remained faithful to him. No amount of pressure or convincing was enough to make her change her mind. As soon as he got out, they went to live with my father’s parents for some time until they got back on their feet.
While my father’s family was more supportive, they were also very traditional, and I mean that in the worst possible sense. My paternal grandfather believed that a man should periodically hit his wife in order to make her submissive and obedient. My father didn’t understand why he had to do it and, of course, neither did my mother. Yet she never complained to her children or family, never said anything bad about my father. She was una mujer a la antigua: no matter what happened, she always stood by his side.
My brothers Pete and Gus were born in Mexico and from the moment he became a father, Don Pedro Rivera became a devoted family man. He worked as many jobs as it took to provide for his family because for him, no matter what he’s going through, no matter what he’s doing, family always comes first. Always. And that’s a value he engraved in all of his children’s hearts. It’s something we all live by.
With two little boys in tow, things only got harder. My parents did what they could to survive, but the situation wasn’t getting any better, so in 1966 my father crossed the border to the United States, searching for work and better opportunities for his family. He went back and forth six times until finally, in 1968, he decided that it was time for my mother and the boys to join him. When they crossed the border to start a new life in Southern California, my poor mother was terrified. Not only was she moving to a new country and a new life, but also she was a few months pregnant with my sister, Jenni, or as I’ve always called her, Chay.
The first years in the U.S. were rough. Really rough. My father, a notorious self-starter, took several jobs—picking the fields, working at a plastic factory—all of which he hated. He is a self-made man and taking orders from others made him miserable. He continued with these jobs for a while until he was finally able to save up some money and decided to work for himself. He tried it all: he sold fruit at intersections, worked as a photographer at weddings, Sweet Sixteens, and Quinceañeras; he sold buttons at concerts, invested in beads for jewelry or curtains. . . . When we got our stands at the swap meet, we would sell anything and everything anyone was willing to pay for: fake nails, cassettes, and electronics. My father always said, if we have to sell diapers, we’ll sell diapers! Anything was game. And through each and every one of his crazy ventures, my mom was right there by his side. At the swap meet, she manned one of the stands. When they started a bar, my mother was the waitress. When they started a restaurant, she was the cook. Any business he started, she was always one hundred percent with him, all while being a full-time mom to her children.
My father gets a lot of credit for what he’s created and accomplished, but my mom was just as important in building the family business. She gave up everything for us to make it in this country. She has gone above and beyond for her family, and she even went as far as sacrificing her teeth. Around the early eighties, when Chay came up with the idea to make and sell buttons for the Menudo concert, my mom had been saving up for several years to get her teeth fixed. But my father’s crazy business ventures always came first. So she gave him the money she had saved to buy the button machine. Sure enough, Chay made a killing selling buttons at the concert, and so my mother’s teeth had to wait several more years as they built their new business.
Dad used that same machine to make buttons for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and with the fourteen thousand dollars in profits, he launched himself into yet another business venture: music production. One night at a bar, there was a mariachi band playing, and he really liked what he heard. After the show, the band members and my father got talking, and it turned out that they were looking for someone to help record their songs. My father, never one to shy away from a business opportunity, offered to do it himself.
They worked together to produce an album, which didn’t end up being a bestseller, but that didn’t deter my father. It was only a question of time before he’d find something that worked. He continued to look for talented banda, mariachi, and norteño artists and slowly began to create a small but loyal following within the Mexican-American community of Southern California. It’s something no one had ever done before and there was clearly a hole in the market because business started to grow extremely well. In 1987, he launched his record label, Cintas Acuario, where he would eventually go on to discover and record such bestselling artists as Chalino Sánchez, El Chapo de Sinaloa, Graciela Beltrán, Rogelio Martínez, Paraíso Tropical de Durango, Lobito de Sinaloa, Canelos de Durango, Voces de Rancho and many many others, including my brothers and sister.
And because everything in the Rivera family is a team effort, as soon as Dad’s business began to take off, it became the family business. We all worked, and any success was our shared success. Shortly thereafter, we opened Música del Pueblo, a record store on the Pacific Avenue retail strip in Huntington Park, yet on weekends you could still find our family selling cassettes at the Paramount Swap Meet.
• • •
As the youngest of six siblings, I grew up in adoration of my older brothers and sister. Gus and Pete had already left our parents’ home by the time I was born, but Chay, Lupe, and Juan were still around and to me they were the coolest, funniest, kindest, smartest, most talented people in the wor
ld. When talking about the Rivera family, people sometimes say to me, “You’re no one, you’re just their little sister!” What they don’t know is that’s the biggest compliment anyone can give me. I love being their little sister! Being a part of this crazy, loving, talented, boisterous family is my greatest joy in life, the thing I am most thankful for.
My first memories of growing up are with Juan and Lupe. They are the closest to me in age since Juan is three years older and Lupe is nine years older. I admired Juan most in the world. He was the coolest guy I’d ever seen. He was super slick, and there was something about the way he acted, even the way he moved, that exuded so much confidence. He’s always making people laugh and everyone is automatically drawn to him. At first, people tend to either love him or hate him, but once they get to know him, they love him all the same. When we were kids, you couldn’t walk down the street without someone recognizing him. I thought he was a king. I followed him everywhere he went because I wanted so much to be like him.
To me, Juan has always been Juanelo or Wualelo, when I couldn’t yet pronounce it correctly.
“Wualelito, Wualelito, wanna play?” I’d ask him.
At the time, Juanelo was obsessed with WrestleMania so I, too, became obsessed with WrestleMania. We would wrestle all the time. We’d usually play for a while, then inevitably something would happen and I’d go running to my mom to tell on him.
“El Wuanelo me anda pegando!” I’d say. “Juanelo is hitting me!”
And all my mother would say was “Vas a ver, Juan, vas a ver . . .” and I was so happy because it meant Juan was going to get it. I’d be so incredibly mad at him but then five minutes later, I’d forget what had happened and I’d be fine.
“Wuanelito, Wuanelito, wanna play?”
Juan is so forgiving that five minutes later he, too, would be okay. To this day, whenever we’re on the phone and we start to get upset because we’re not agreeing on something, I’ll say to him, “Brother, I think we should hang up.”
“Me too,” he answers. “I’ll talk to you later.”
So we hang up and five minutes later one of us calls the other and says, “Wanna get something to eat?” And just like that, we’re back to normal again, as if nothing ever happened.
In addition to wrestling, when we were little, Juan loved playing with cars and marbles, and since I wanted so badly to be like him, I became that girl. I never wore a skirt, never brushed my hair, hardly ever agreed to take a bath. I was the dirtiest little girl you’d ever seen but I didn’t care! While other girls wore pretty dresses and played with dolls, all I cared about was playing outside with my brothers. The dirtier I was, the more fun we were having. It would drive my mother crazy. “Take off those dirty jeans! Get out of that big T-shirt! Brush your hair!” she’d yell. But before I could even say anything, my big brother Gus would step in.
“Mama, deje a la güera que está hermosa (Leave her alone, Mom, she looks beautiful).”
“See, Mom,” I’d say with a gigantic smile on my face. “¡Yo estoy hermosa!”
• • •
As much as I loved spending time with my family, I absolutely detested going to the swap meet. And it’s funny, when I read Chiquis’s book, I was surprised to find out that she actually loved it! I couldn’t stand it. I hated having to wake up early. I hated how dirty it was, how extreme the temperature changes were. In the morning, it was super cold and in the afternoon it was scorching hot and everything was filthy.
Back then, we didn’t have allowances so whenever I’d ask my father for money, he’d simply give me a black trash bag and say:
“Here you go, Hija. Whatever you collect in cans . . . that will be your allowance.”
It wasn’t meant to be a punishment or anything; it was just the way it was. Because I saw my parents work so hard, every day, doing everything they could to make life better for us, I knew I had to pitch in. We all did. We were hard workers and you can say what you want about the Rivera family but one thing is certain: we have an unbelievably strong work ethic.
So my brothers and I would set out to find cans, picking through trash and crawling under cars. The cans were all full of trash and spit and loogies. I wanted to die. I was so grossed out, it was disgusting.
When I didn’t set out on my can-gathering expeditions, I’d hang out with my mom at her stand at the swap meet and sometimes I’d fall asleep under one of the tables. My brothers Lupe and Juan would complain:
“Why does Rosie get to sleep while we’re the ones working? Not fair!”
“Leave her alone,” she’d say. “Pobrecita mi niña. My poor little girl.”
But Lupe and Juan wouldn’t give up and while I was sleeping they’d gather rubber bands and hit me with them. I’d wake up in pain and so angry! I became terrified of rubber bands as a result. For years, all they had to do was threaten to hit me with one to get me to agree to do something. In fact, to this day I am still scared of rubber bands.
• • •
My brother Lupe is the funniest, most outgoing, loving, business-savvy man you’ll ever meet. He has always been like that, ever since he was a kid. He was so cute and extremely loving with me, the youngest woman in the family, but when it came to my mom he went all out with love. He was always kissing her and hugging her, always taking care of her. My mom used to say, “Lupe, you can’t get married; you’re going to leave me for your wife.” Lupe is incredible at showing that he loves you. He goes overboard and when you’re on the receiving end of all that love, it feels amazing.
When I was a little girl, he took care of me. One of the fondest memories I have of him is that whenever we were going somewhere—to school, the store, anywhere—he didn’t want me to get lost so he’d make me hold his index finger. “Rosa,” he’d say—he’s the only one who calls me Rosa; I actually hate my name—“as long as you hold my finger you’ll be okay.” So whenever we were out on the street together, I would hold his finger tight. And he knew when I was scared because I would hold it even tighter. I’ll never forget that feeling of being taken care of and being loved.
That isn’t to say that Lupe wasn’t a prankster like the rest of us. One day, Juan, Lupe, and I were home alone. When I was about six and Juan was nine, he would babysit me when my parents had to go out and do something and I just loved it. He would cook what he thought was an amazing meal: white rice and chocolate cake. I happened to love it so anytime Juan babysat me was a treat!
That particular day, Lupe was hanging out with us and after our sumptuous meal of white rice and chocolate cake, we were out in the garage playing and Lupe—who knew he could always count on Juan to do anything, no matter how stupid or crazy—suddenly pointed at a dark corner of the garage and said:
“Hey, Juan, you see that big old beehive over there?”
“Yeah, man, it’s huge!” said Juan.
“Yeah, well, I think you should knock it down,” said Lupe.
“Yeah?” said Juan, a glimmer of doubt in his eye.
“Yeah, I think you should get a big stick and knock it down,” Lupe continued.
“All right!” said Juan, blindly following our big brother’s lead.
So there goes Juan and right behind him was me, being nosy and never wanting to miss a thing.
First he tried hitting the beehive with a stick but when that didn’t work, he grabbed some rocks. He started throwing them as hard as he could and suddenly the entire beehive came crashing down.
“Whoa, you did it!” I squealed with excitement. But as soon as I turned around, my brothers were nowhere to be seen. Juan had run back to the house as fast as he could. He flew through the door, while Lupe—who hadn’t even stepped out into the garage—closed it right behind him. The bees were swarming all over the place and I was alone in the garage. I was terrified! I started banging on the door, begging them to let me in but the two of them just stood there laughing their head
s off. They laughed and laughed and when I realized they weren’t going to let me in, I had to run all the way around to the other side of the house in order to come in through the front door. I swear there was a trail of bees following me and once I got inside, my brothers were still laughing so hard they were out of breath.
“You guys are crazy!” I yelled. “You could have killed me! What if I’m allergic? I could have died!”
But Lupe just stood there very calmly and said, “No one told you to go outside, Rosa. I told Juan, not you.”
That’s how it always was in the Rivera household; we were always playing pranks on one another, making jokes, having the time of our lives. When we were older and saw the movie Jackass, it was like “Dude! My brothers did all that same stuff and for free!” Even my mom and my grandma had gotten so used to it that they would watch Jackass and sometimes comment among themselves: “Ay, pues mira, Juanito did that once . . .”
• • •
The first house I ever lived in was on Gale Street in Long Beach. It was a small, bright green house right by the freeway but it had an enormous yard. Surely we must be rich, I thought, to be able to afford such a huge yard! My brothers and I spent day after day playing in that yard and we were never bored.
Even though the house was tiny, somehow we managed to share it with all sorts of animals—dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and squirrels. One day, Dad even brought home a duck. The animals roamed freely around the house and we lived with them as if they were part of the family. Whenever an animal died, my brothers made up funny stories about it. That’s why when Dad’s duck mysteriously disappeared one day; my brothers told me it was because it had committed suicide. For some reason they thought that would make me feel better. (It didn’t.)
We all learned to love animals, which is something that has been passed down from generation to generation. My kids, Chay’s kids, Gus’s kids, if they ever find an animal on the street, they bring it home and take care of it. I think I am the only one who kind of grew out of it. When I was about twelve or thirteen, one of our cats ate my two lovebirds. I absolutely adored those birds and it broke my heart! I felt betrayed and made a vow to never experience that again. I still respect animals, but I keep my distance and don’t allow myself to get too attached.
My Broken Pieces : Mending the Wounds from Sexual Abuse Through Faith, Family and Love (9781101990087) Page 2