I do realize that I am not really prudently secretive/closed-mouth enough to meet “accepted norms” and do share too much about my life; however, for me this video* (* https://youtu.be/
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After our Louise & Alton Martin family moved to Devine, TX from Stockdale, TX in 1952, I had many fulfilling interactions with Mexicanos, Chicanos, Tejanos, Hispanics, Latinos, Latinx:
- Our neighbors across Highway 173 just outside the city limits of Devine–the Peñas … and their birthday piñatas, and knowledge of wild plants and their uses for food and medicinal purposes, and abejas;
- Mexican music in the air from Mr. Peña’s beer joint near the feed Mill where I frequently worked from elementary school days until I left for Texas A&M-College Station, & such musica from cars and homes, including standing & listening outside a Mexican dance in Bigfoot, TX;
- a beautifully sexy pachuca girl in high school & the lovely Chapa girls who walked past the Mill in Devine on Saturdays during periods I worked there;
- words & phrases I learned from the Peñas, in the first grade at St. Joseph’s Catholic school, and from many chicano & latino friends later in life, Spanish class during my freshman year in high school and in college, & from discussions with dorm-mates Jose Luna and Jose Lopez from Dominican Republic (and associated danzas folkloricas, etc.);
- Lupe Hernandez’s delicious tamales made from our hog-heads and empanadas de camote first eaten in Dilley Texas;
- visits to Latin America later in life, etc., etc. …
All of this influenced an appreciation for Latino culture.
But the four (4) memories of when I was most mesmerized by aspects of Latino culture were:
- In a bar in a place I truly shouldn’t have been about my senior year in high school (1963-64)–in Piedras Negras, Ciudad Acuña, or Nuevo Laredo–where under the influence of bastante cerveza–I got hooked on the sound of the bajo sexto and the güiro.
- Perhaps a little earlier in the 1960’s, dancing with older latina women in a big coliseum-like building in Lubbock filled with latinos (Mature mother-like women who rested me on their bosoms and carried me around the dance floor to polcas & valses (This period was pre-cumbias for here in Texas.) … Hortemio (Temo) Hernandez, an experienced fieldman for my Uncle Peggy, took me to this dance one Saturday night. I was the only gringo there other than the police.
- From a young age, I had always appreciated acordeon music, including what I heard in western Brasil in the 1980’s from Paraguayan musicians! … But I really fell in love with the acordeon and raspy voice of tejano Michael Salgado in the 1990’s. (1639) Michael Salgado Cruz De Madera HQ – YouTube )
- In about the 1990’s I started really listening to corridos, and fell in love with some of these stories. Corrido – Wikipedia (1639) MICHAEL SALGADO – CORRIDOS PARA MI GENTE (ALBUM COMPLETO) – YouTube
(I probably should have listed the very attractive pachuca here also.)
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One other thought. WE ARE NOT A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS!
I did appreciate this following presentation to which I listened this weekend, with San Antonio-born, red-dirt Oklahoman-raised San Franciscan, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz as the key speaker: (1639) Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, “Not A Nation of Immigrants” – YouTube [Not A Nation of Immigrants] | C-SPAN.org
Gracias por complacerme un poco.
pablo
7 S’s / VV->^^
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