American Chica_ Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana [52]
“Mother, can Margarita come to my birthday party? I like her very, very much.”
“Well, darling, yes. Of course, she can come. But if she comes, none of the mothers of the other little girls will allow them to attend.”
“Why not?”
“Just because, Mareezie. That’s how it is.”
“I don’t want the other girls, Mother. I want her.”
“That’s fine, dear. You’ll get fewer presents, of course.”
“I don’t care.”
“And Claudia won’t make a big cake.”
“I hate big cakes.”
“And the two of you can sit in the kitchen.”
“I love sitting in there.”
“As you wish, Mareezie.”
Looking back at that exact point in my childhood, it’s clear to me that I may have known that I was divided, but I didn’t know there were more classifications than two. I had believed Peru to be seamless, that Antonio was a man like any other in my family, that the starkest difference I would ever encounter was between my father and my mother. As birthdays progressed, I saw that Peru has its sediments, too, and that its lines are drawn in color. “I’m indio with a little bit sambo,” someone will say on the telephone, if you’re planning to meet him somewhere for the first time, so that you’ll be sure to recognize him. Or a Peruvian will call a friend with distinctly Asian features Chino. “Oye, Chino! Ven p’acá!” We call each other morenita, cafecita, cholita: there’s a name for every shade of Peruvian skin. I’m reminded of my pre-political innocence now when I go to Latino conferences in this country, when an application asks me if I’m Hispanic, when I see the children of Spanish-blooded oligarchs line up alongside migrant workers to get a piece of affirmative action, as if all of us from south of the border are alike. “You know where I’m coming from, chacha,” says my chicana friend to me, “because you’re a person of color.” Oye, isn’t one hermana like any other?
Happy birthday, my dear.
MY MOST PROFOUND political education—the one that taught me about the limitations of my own power—awaited me in my grandfather’s house in Lima. It began when Juan Díaz, my father’s errand boy, pedaled up one day, propped his bicycle against the front fence, leaned in, and sang out for Antonio to let him pass.
“What’s inside, Señor Juan?” George and I panted after him, pointing to the fat envelope under his arm.
“Your tickets to the United States,” he said importantly, and strode down the garden path.
“United States?” George and I looked at each other. “Who’s going there?”
Everyone, as it turned out. But me.
It was time for my father to meet my mother’s family. My parents had been married for eight years now, had three children, and my American grandparents were inviting them to come. The plan was for our little family—minus me—to visit them in Wyoming, drop Vicki and George off, then Mother and Papi could go on the honeymoon they’d never had. To bring me, an active four-year-old, into the itinerary would be more than they could handle. “She’s too much,” I heard my father say. “Too much,” my mother agreed.
On the appointed day, I was taken from my sunny garden—from Flavio, from Antonio, from Claudia, from the loco, from all the living dead of Cartavio—and deposited, with a brown leather suitcase and a blue toy telephone, in the cathedral chill of my grandparents’ salon.
“Anytime you want to speak to us, just pick up this phone,” said my father, pulling my hands from around my mother’s knees and placing them on the plaything. “Don’t worry if you don’t hear us. The important thing is that your mother and I will be able to hear you and everything you want us to know.” With that meager assurance, my parents took my sister and brother and headed for the door.
On his way out, Papi kissed my grandmother and whispered loudly in her ear. “She’s not been to church,” I heard him say with a nod in my direction. “She’s not even been baptized. Why don’t you see if you can’t do it while we’re away. Maybe you can teach her some manners,