David Skinner Alvarado
Original letter in Spanish, Submitted to El Bohemio
"Letter Home" Essay Contest, Posted: Mar 31, 2005
Dearest Aunt Beatriz,
I write you with eternal affection, and with a weight in my soul from being separated from you and the whole family, knowing that a lot of time could pass before we see each other again. I think at some fundamental level I am like nearly every other Latin American person who lives in the United States: I remember my land and my people with a lot of nostalgia and sadness because I am so far from my family, from the elderly people that are dying while I am here.
Adapting to living in this country has not been easy at all. I went through a period like many people do when I faced a lot of hardships and I took any job I could get: I cleaned toilets, I waited on tables, I was a gardener, I sold cemetery plots on the phone, I was a car salesman, a door-to-door salesman, a Spanish teacher, a translator, a counselor for women who wanted to lose weight, and a security guard.
In 1991 I had 23 jobs in the course of a year, but more recently, in 1996 when I started working in construction, I began a different phase of my life. I gained a certain stability and prosperity, and I started to understand the reality of the different Hispanic sectors of California. What exists least among us is unity: we divide ourselves between Mexicans and other nationalities, between members of the norteño or sureño gangs, between Latinos who are established and assimilated, and those who are recent arrivals.
In the year 2000 I was working on the construction of an enormous mansion in Atherton with 52 other men. One of them was a smart, young, nice man named Ramiro. Strangely he always dressed in red and in only six months he was promoted three times and got generous raises in his salary. One day we found out the secret of his success: an active member of the norteño gang, he brought his bosses weekly gifts of pot (marijuana). It made me think: a 19-year-old boy who wasn’t very ethical had found an unconventional path to success that I, a 40-year-old man with strong morals, wouldn’t dare to take – and, as happens sometimes, in this case my ethics put me at an apparent disadvantage.
We find ourselves living through a very peculiar moment of history for the Latino population. I’ve seen commercials where President Bush speaks Spanish (his Spanish isn’t too bad). Big corporations are spending a lot of money in advertising directed at Latinos. It’s as if they are finally realizing that there are a lot of us, that our vote counts, that we like to spend our hard-earned money, and that we like to show our success by buying the biggest car with the most accessories and the best stereo. At the same time we have a governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who according to the media, is behind many of the policies that go against Latinos.
These are things that can only happen in California: a Hollywood actor who is muscular and known for his roles in action movies is now the governor of the state. Maybe having him as governor is no more than a reflection of Californian idiosyncrasy: fantasy prevails over reality, image over substance, appearance over truth, propaganda over facts. For many people, California is the world capital of vanity and superficial appearance. In almost no other place is the brand of a car or clothing as important as it is here. It’s funny to listen to what people from Boston and New York have to say about people in California. Sometimes they are perceived as airheads.
Our people here have many sides. On the positive side, they are very brave, hard workers who aren’t afraid of anything, with an incredible fighting spirit, able to work 16 hours a day if necessary. They are friendly, affectionate people who don’t abandon their elderly, who know how to enjoy life. On the other hand, there are a lot of drunks and drug dealers who break the law and continue to fill the prisons. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older, but the interaction between the Latino and Gringo society, between this country and us, seems to me a chaotic river. It’s as if the reality of daily city life were taken out of a mix of “Mad Magazine” and the magic-realism short stories by Gabriel García Márquez.
I’ll keep writing, beloved aunt,
With love,
David Skinner Alvarado
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