Brief Postcards From The Early Days

Arrived in Palo Alto five days ago already, and we're still staying in a hotel. We've stayed in three different hotels in the Silicon Valley area in five days --from the Sheraton to a s*%t hole called the County Inn--... Not funny at all. My kids and my wife and myself want our real-life lives back. It's not like we're not enjoying moving to a new place --the people we've already met in Palo Alto are all fantastic and the surroundings are beautiful-- it's just that we were not ready to having to literally disinfect the house we're moving into. Since we received the news of the fellowship last April, everything had rolled so smoothly, we were actually expecting some backlash at any time. We didn't know it was coming along with a big bottle of Clorox attached to it.

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Last night we were just walking around campus --at Stanford University, that is-- and we found out it's a favorite spot for newly weds and quinceanheras (sorry, no enhe in this borrowed) teclado) to get their professional-and-corny official pictures taken. It was fascinating to see a quinceanhera walking through the Main Quad with her chambelanes and everything else...

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Mexicanos here are everywhere. But, here as opposed to keep-it-weird Austin, everywhere only means low-paid jobs. West Palo Alto is so Lomas de Chapultepec. Beautiful, ubber expensive villas. So chic, so organic, so tofu and pilates. So Mexicans working, not living, there. You cross highway 101 and get to East Palo Alto, and you're right in Chimalhuacan. So third-worldy, so a bunch of families living in one tiny apartment so they can pay the are-they-out-of-their-minds? rent. Not in Texas anymore, I guess. Here, there's not 'para espanhol, oprima el dos', even if it comes with a funny accent.

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One of the (Mexican) guys that are cleaning the house we're moving into is my namesake. He was born in Michoacan but raised in Sonora. He arrived in Palo Alto two years ago. He told me one of his friends --a paisano I guess-- who was living in Texas and arrived in PA a couple of weeks ago asked him to stay at his place while he gets back on his feet. I wanted to ask Antonio whether he likes here or not, but we ran out of time. I had to come to the Knight Fellowship office at Stanford to turn in some documents, and he had to keep cleaning the sink in the house I will rent for 11 months.

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Strangely enough, Antonio is not (yet) a common name in the Palo Alto area. I guess Los Angeles, where the mayor's name is Antonio Villaragoisa, is still too far from here --not to mention San Antonio, Texas. So, so far, at Starbucks my latte cups have been tagged 'Tonino' and 'Tonio'. You tell them your name and they hear whatever it comes to mind. So, now, Valentina and I are engaged in a new and fascinating game: we pick a new name every time we go to Starbucks, and see what they write on the cup. This morning, Valentina was Tania. "With an 'i' or a 'y' "? the barista asked. Next time, I will be Jose Jose. I will let you know how it turned out in my next post.

Lorenzo y el Chilango Dude (I)

My son Emiliano--who is the author of the beautiful T-Rex drawing above displayed--was born in Mexico City, but we moved to Madrid when he was four months old. Living in Texas since he was three plus years old, he speaks Spanish with a quirky, definition-defying accent and mixes Mexican Spanish with castellano, all tossed up with some Uruguayan español and, of course, tons of Anglicisms at the end of every-phrase.

However, every time you ask Emiliano where's he from, he takes his Bandera Mexicana out of who-knows-where to wave it in your face while he stands out and claims, full of pride: "de Méjico" (the 'X' heavily pronounced as sounds a rock when it scratches the pavement). Don't blame me, but his former Spanish teacher who, just like him, was born in Mexico City and taught Emiliano how to behave like a Niño Héroe.



Such undeterred patriotism wasn't enough to convince Emiliano he is a Chilango, though. For him, the official--some guys still think is unofficial--demonym for those luckily enough to be born in Ciudad de México sounds like an insult nonetheless.

Last Friday, having waken up in a particularly good mood, I cheered Emiliano with a "What's up, Chilango Dude?" when I picked him and his madrileño brother Guillermo up at school. He looked at me with his rolling-eyes attitude--he's about to turn seven, so he's already showing some attitude proclivity--and said:

--Don't call me Chilango Dude.
--¿Por qué no? Eres un Chilango Dude--respondí yo, fun-spirited.
--Yo no soy eso.
--A ver, ¿dónde naciste?
--En Méjico.
--En la ciudad de México, ¿verdad?
--Sí...--Emiliano looked at me as if trying to guess where I was coming.
--Bueno, los que nacen en la ciudad de México se llaman chilangos. Hasta hay una revista allá que se llama así (a good one, btw).
--No, se llaman mejicanos.
--Son chilangos. Por eso tú eres un Chilango Dude. Y Guille, que nació en Madrid, es madrileño.
--I'm not a Chilango Dude!--boy, was he already enojado--, y Guille es español.
--Whatever you say, Chilango Dude--remember when Charlie Brown got mad? Now you got the picture.




No matter how hard I tried to make him understand I was not joking--well, just a little bit--Emiliano didn't consent to embrace his inner Chilangoness. He didn't mind he loves to eat chilaquiles verdes, he treats himself to chile piquín-sprinkled popcorn and is able to sing some Cri-Cri songs a capella from beginning to end.

When you live in a place different from your hometown or that of your descendents, it is always funny and fascinating to see how your sons grow their own identities out of that outstanding mixture of background, origin, environment and temper.

Trying to impose an identity--your identity--over your kids is not just useless, but absurd. But it happens, though. I guess my sons will develop their own and, when the right time comes, Emiliano will embrace his chilanguería in his own particular way, just as Guillermo will embrace his inner madrileño--he's already got the chulería mood, for instance. It won't be the same as that of those chilangos and madrileños who've forever lived in Ciudad de México or Madrid, but it will be as authentic and unique.

'Cause I think we all are entitled to shape our identity not out of the place that we were born, but out of the places we belong to.

How about you? Freaked out at your immigrant child's identity crisis?