Chapter Two of Mexico Book "Mexico: An Itinerant History"

Trip number three: Another border town experience--lots of walking to get there

Little would I know that at the end of 1983 I would not go back to the country of Mexico for almost another ten years. However, in the meantime, I did go and see and learn about more of the world, and to some degree acquaint myself better with the general Latino culture that pervades Mexico. The first two trips at age 11 and 13 did not add up to more than 24 hours, but it gave me a foretaste of what to expect in the future. When I finally went to Tijuana in the spring of 1993, after only first visiting California a few days prior, my world view had come a long way as far as the Spanish language and more Latino knowledge, or an increased perspective of looking at who and what us North Americans are about. (And that picture of North America includes not just the United States and Canada, but Mexico and its Latin neighbors, both in Central America and the Caribbean). Living in Chile for 22 straight months may do that to a person. But besides my mission in South America, I was fortunate to go and see other places.

Giving a synopsis of the near ten-year span of 1983 to 1993 should further shed light on who I was and what I was becoming. Was it all leading to a Masters degree in this field at UCLA another decade later? Hardly. There were many years of pining for an acting career or some kind of job in film or television. The problem was or is: the heart of the actor needs to accompany such dreams of grandeur. Nevertheless, the present me still aspires to write, and whether it involves a visual medium or not is now not as valuable to my development of hopes. Is it fiction, or is it truth? These are some of the polemical dilemmas to decide on as one meanders through the avenues of creation.

What were some life experiences that led me to physically walk to Mexico again as a 22 year-old?

My parents finally separated for good in 1984, an ominous year for reasons of coincidence due to one rather superb author.¹ Our third consecutive Caribbean cruise at the holidays went ahead undeterred, and we ventured from the Carnival cruise lines to that of Royal Caribbean. I suppose I had grown accustomed to going periods without seeing my mother: the ship’s social planners managed to compensate for this fact by providing a single mother and her daughter with whom we would eat our meals and surprisingly become rather familial with. A little more on that in a sec.

We continued our exploration of the Caribbean by traveling all the way down to the bottom of the Lesser Antilles: Barbados, Antigua, San Martin, and then back to the then familiar US Virgin Islands and Bahamas again. Martinique was cancelled and replaced due to some type of labor problems there. I still look forward to going there, especially since I have learned more French since.

We spent the new year of 1985 on the boat, all decorated and festive as you could imagine. My faux champagne gave me a false sense of euphoria, sipping it as the year of 1984 expired, somewhere on one of the back decks by one of the salt-water pools. Going on these yearly pleasure trips could be a little vexing to me as a young adolescent. Ages 12, 13, and 14 can be rather awkward to a young man as far as romance: by my last trip I was definitely interested in relationships with the opposite sex but scared in most ways due to my own interpretations of the Church counsel to wait for official dating until age 16. I had seen how my sisters and others had broken this rule and I for one was not satisfied with the results. Nevertheless, the feelings were very much present on a constant basis more or less as any human, I suppose.

The summer of 1985 finished for me making a visit out to Kalispell, Montana with my dad and two sisters. The serendipitous matching of the cruise line had paid off that year by my father visiting Lois earlier in the year out west, presumably in Calgary, and then her reciprocal visit to Bloomington a few months later. Their relationship seemed to have fizzled after the third visit; it seemed religious differences figured into their opting for separate ways. Besides smoking, not too pleasant for my dad, she believed in the gift of faith healing and that she could use it with more authority than that of my father. She had a couple friends who had a “discussion” over the falseness of our faith with him, and perhaps that was the final straw.

Religious Influences

I went into my first year of high school looking forward to seminary class at the institute; our religion was always a pretty big deal to me. I thought of myself as being at a cool age because that was the same age of Joseph Smith when he first had his encounters with the divine. Almost every aspect of the Church of Jesus Christ has at one point or another inspired and guided me, usually for the better. Sometimes actual or perceived persecution would make me more resolute. I met a few “antis” for the first time in Montana, a state where numbers of Mormons are big enough to be of concern to the spiritually uptight.

To be a practicing LDS in southern Indiana was to be somewhat of an outlying rebel, but a safe one at that if practiced correctly. It kept us out of trouble more than it put us in moral or physical danger. It compelled us to do a few good things there and again. We were small in number, much fewer than Jews or Catholics, who also are minorities in this mainly Protestant/secular town. Once we had a get together with some B’Hai kids: maybe they were the only ones in town smaller than us, except Jehovah’s Witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists.

One aspect that drew me about our religion was the history. We have more than just the Bible to draw on, and the Book of Mormon conjures up a tremendous narrative for the Americas and thus the natives of the New World, a favorite subject of mine since before I could read. It was at one of the several wards in Kalispell that summer where a teacher captured my imagination and inspired me to write or create a future film entitled Moroni’s Run. Anyone familiar with the Book of Mormon could imagine the adventure and action that such a movie would include: Indiana Jones posed back in 400 AD ancient America, with golden plates to bury rather than discover while being chased by pagan hordes.

Our faith places a lot of past and future hope in the American natives; this being an obvious link to Latin America. We are an American religion not just because Joseph Smith founded the Church in New York, but also because this scripture he uncovered brings alive the ancient world of the original Promised Land: the Western Hemisphere. Lamanites have survived the Gentile hordes since the first genocides of the times of Columbus, and this for a reason: to help fulfill the prophecy of the coming and return of Christ to the earth, all of which is assisted by the conversions of those who live on this side of the planet dating back thousands of years. It sounds incredible, surely, but so does the Bible I always say!

Who was I?

As far as secular pursuits, the ages of 12 to 22 were good and bad when reviewed in summary. Scholastically, I was solid in some areas, and weak in others. Overall, I seemed to have progressed in a few areas of human development and perhaps digressed in others. Perhaps the number one influence on me in a psychological sense was my parents’ divorce and the aftermath, but in a sociological sense it probably would be my affiliation to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other factors that affected my adolescence would inevitably involve class, ethnicity, nationality, gender, birth order placement, peer groups and last but not least, personal character (this is probably not taken into account enough by people in general).

As chance would have it in 1992, my friend and romantic interest was a graduating senior in sociology who chose to write a paper on children of divorce. Through her questions and theories about this topic directed towards me for her class paper, I came to believe an idea about this phenomenon: it takes about ten years for a person (and usually a child) to digest or somehow come to grips with the divorce of their parents. I could see this being true for me, particularly when a strong epiphany struck me about myself at the end of the summer 1993.²

It has been another ten years since, and this is not the time to take analysis of this second decade, because that may come out more in the last six trips to Mexico I record, numbers 4 through 9 out of nine so far.

So the factors that influenced me for this decade are numerous as I have mentioned, and in the ten-year time span of any individual one could enumerate dozens and dozens of life influences. It is not of utmost importance to know exactly who I was when I revisited Mexico for the third time, or how I had changed in that time from the second visit as a mere young man, or boy. Besides, I myself or few others know the answers to such things as a real psychological profile, which could just as easily end up being an endless therapy session, proving too introspective and futile.

Meanwhile, the point is an itinerant walk through Mexico, not necessarily my head. But nevertheless, some thoughts on this matter: what lead me back to Mexico? Was it more mental or physical, or more likely some combination of the two?

Drive towards Spanish

Since I was very young I wanted to learn Spanish and had romantic notions of travel, adventure, war, and the exotic. Science fiction always had a profound affect on my thoughts, as well as action and intrigue. Indiana Jones encapsulated a lot of my surreal fantasies: an Alexandrian man in the real world who went beyond into the supernatural realms of faith and danger. Referring to danger, one of my desires as an aspiring international missionary for my church was: I wanted to go to the most dangerous mission in the world. I figured if any missionaries in our church had to face danger, it might as well have been me. This despite the fact that by the time I was 17 or so I had had quite enough of the whole “camping for fun” notion, not to mention considering hard labor as a real drudgery.

Having taken the 3^rd grade private sessions of Spanish back in 1979-80, my freshmen year of Spanish in 1985-6 was rather easy. Apart from already knowing basic things like numbers and colors and days of the week, my 1^st year teacher at Bloomington South, Pedro Sainz, was also brand new to teaching, and many days seemed to wile away in anecdotes and basic jibber jabber. Years later as a public teacher of Spanish, I would slip into a few 10-15 minutes of these “breaks”, but I believe I normally tried a lot harder than Mr. Sainz³. Like all growing teachers, I’m sure we all have an interesting trajectory of our pedagogical itineraries and lesson plans as paid professionals. So basically I coasted in Spanish my freshman year at Bloomington High School South, but it at least introduced a few concepts, new words, and reiterated what I already knew. As a Cuban-born/ Puerto Rican/ New Yorker, Pedro, as he was popularly known, did introduce a culture that was interesting in its own right.

My second year became more trying with Mrs. Hunsicker. Despite her less than native ability to speak Spanish, she had a stronger curriculum than Sainz and I couldn’t believe she actually wanted us to know verbs! One lasting decision that I made that year was to be an exchange student with Spain as my oldest sister had done with France years prior. This lead to Ricardo Salvador Boso coming to my house for three weeks while I was a junior in 3^rd year Spanish. Rather than going with the rest of the students that school year (1987-88) I stayed home to keep up with classes and to play in the church basketball tourney and eventually went to his house right after graduation in summer 1989.

Mrs. Morrow was a very effective Spanish teacher for my last two years of high school. She emphasized quite a bit of listening, reading and writing, I suppose this process was a natural segue from the early years of memorization and conjugation. She was a seasoned pro and liked me somewhat, perhaps a bit since I took her Gifted and Talented Humanities class as a sophomore. As I have told many people in learning this language, it has not been that easy. I didn’t get the best grades or try that hard on the out of class homework. But I usually tried my best during class.

Having Ricardo and his sister Daniela in Bloomington in October of 1987 was helpful to some degree as far as attempting some real communication in Spanish. Going to Castellon de la Plana almost two years later was very useful. I didn’t learn too much more after the Spain visit before entering in the MTC in November of that same year, but much of this three-week immersion focused me for what was to come. My Spanish preparation and motivation were quite earnest during the nine or so weeks I spent in my class with nine other students in Provo. I probably possessed the most communicative skills in our small class, eagerly entering into the new decade of the 1990s but not always Speaking Our Language. I had an option to stay the two months at the training center or go through accelerated in one. I chose the former, mostly since I thought I could finally understand more of the lessons that I didn’t get in high school, thus being more prepared for the intense trip to come.⁴

CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA

Chile is an interesting place and the time I spent there was significant for historical, political, and socio-economic reasons. No matter what people may tell you about this country, despite its flaws and quirks, it is a decent country with generally good people. I suppose this could be said about many places around the earth, but Chile certainly was good to me, as it has been for many gringos. Don’t make me list all the ones I have met who have lived abroad in Chile: there are many foreigners who have enjoyed this land over the years and far fewer who complain of it.

Chile, while very well encapsulating a Latin American way of life, is a far cry from Mexico in some respects and surprisingly similar in others. I would guess that many aspects of the majority of the neighborhoods of Chile and the rest of South America can be compared favorably to those of Mexico: some rich folks live in better neighborhoods, most live in a mixture of medium income and lower class dwellings. People live closer together, there aren’t as much vehicles as the US or Canada. Climates may vary, but lifestyles are similar.

Obviously the language is one commonality that unifies the region, and the dialectical differences can be profound at times but very often minimal. In 1995 my Spanish professor Dr. Rosenberg of BYU went to Chile for the first time. Upon returning he made the observation, “They speak another language down there!”⁵ He was more in tune with Castillian European Spain and its culture.

Latin American Contrasts and Perspective

To this point (July 2003), I have never had such an extended stay in Latin America as I did in 1990-1991. It became by definition a “Mormon Latin American” experience, yes, but due to this immersion including 14 months with primarily Chilean companions, it ultimately was a significant and somewhat profound one in its own right, regardless of religious affiliation or duty. I grew comfortable to some degree with the people and culture, and in a few ways considered myself not a full Anglo-Saxon Northern Yankee any longer, but felt a Latin part of me born within. This part of me waxed and waned over the years, but any connection to Latin America thereafter became either poignantly apparent or wistfully distant to my inner soul, and will most likely forever be so. This experience certainly endeared me to Mexico, and created a new perspective of this great neighbor to the south of my homeland.

Perhaps I can list a few ways, some geographical, in how a new Latin conscience came upon me from this stay in South America, and how this affects what Mexico is to me and others.

1. Chile is a rather large nation in itself, big enough to not reach all of its regions in a single extended trip. And yet, Mexico is much larger and in some ways due to demographics much more variegated. Chile may have a bigger influence from its European immigrants than Mexico does, both ethnically and culturally, but Mexico offers much more demographic differences and therefore offers a greater source for cultural depth as a nation of many, especially for indigenous elements.
2. Chile, being much further away from the US and the rest of the world, behaves much as an island would, secluded from even its closest neighbors in many respects. Mexico enjoys its own vibrant endogenous culture as any nation but it is much more integrated in a neighborly way with others. Thus Mexico is an internationally interwoven land more than much of Latin America to the south. The fact that Mexico serves as a bridge to the north also gives it a somewhat transitory position to many, and not just tourists. Mexico is also big enough in population that different regions have their own strong identities apart from one another, perhaps also greatly influenced by the various native populations. In smaller nations such as Chile, there seems to be a more homogeneous national ethic, despite some geographic extreme distances,
3. All Latin countries are cousins, much as Canada and the United States or Russia and Ukraine, sharing a mutual experience but separate in confounding ways. People in Chile may look to Mexico as a secondary Hollywood: they see music, television and film from this cousin to the distant north and can identify with them greatly; perhaps as we Americans do with Ireland, more so than say, Slovenia. Even Brazilian television seems very close to a Latino standard recognized by fellow Latinos much more than some glossy white or black image of Hollywood or New York.
4. Perhaps it is not coincidence that this very year (2003) the Mexican and Chilean delegations, as temporary partners of the 15 rotating security board members of the United Nations, tried to offer a compromise resolution to appease its partners in both the US and Europe over the conflict with Iraq. I argued in my final Masters paper that Argentina has served as a leading example for all of Latin America historically. In this new century perhaps Chile and Mexico will be social leaders due in large part to their economic growth and sustained developments. In some ways, as proved by free trade agreements and stabile governments since the 1980s, both Chile and Mexico have come to the fore as leaders within the region. So perhaps this makes them newly interested cousins who are compelled to approach each other for mutual combined strength.

So these are some outside/inside observations about Mexico that can be shared from my somewhat biased point of view in a global fashion.

Back Home from Latin America—the Lingering Longing

I will make a short list of other more personal observations about Mexico and Latin America leading up to the spring of 1993. Upon returning from Chile, Bloomington Indiana in the winter seemed a rather sterile environment for Latin contacts.

One incredible feeling was visiting the steamy warm apartment of my adopted grandmother, Ruby Bumzahem. She having been raised in Panama and later having married a Brazilian and moved to Chicago, was my lifelong link to Latinos. I tried my newly fluent Spanish with her and quickly realized that the years had done their trick on her communicative ability in her native tongue. At this point I wonder how native to her Spanish actually was! She grew up on some islands on the Pacific side of the isthmus, traveled normally by canoe, and perhaps knew another tongue before español, the national language as does all its neighbors for many political borders.⁶

When I visited Ruby I felt an incredible nostalgia for my own now distant childhood and an immediate pang of longing for everything warm and far away that I had then recently left in the country of Chile. Perhaps because Mexico is the next closest Latin neighbor to the United States it receives some of the warm sentiments that I harbor for my own childhood as well as the marvelous times and emotions that I had gone through in South America. Much as I would ponder years later, sometimes upon returning to visit my home state of Indiana I wasn’t really home until I saw Ruby.

So Latino experiences were few and far between for a time after my return to North America. Maybe that is why some of them are more memorable to me even now, well over a decade later. I enjoyed listening to the Spanish of John Leguizamo on his one man HBO special—despite the fact it was extra colorful and probably too offensive in many ways to be respectful towards some of the beliefs I had espoused full time for the past two years in Chile. Another chance encounter on television in Cedar City, Iowa, was a Spanish TV channel. I didn’t watch it too long at the expense of my father except to absorb the fact that it was pretty hard to follow. Maybe being away from Latin America three odd weeks had dulled my brain some. Or maybe the speakers “Mexican” Spanish was just a new sounding style to comprehend. The truth of the matter was and is that if the speakers go too fast Spanish can be really difficult to dissect, I guess like any non-native tongue.

The following year (1992) I took Spanish classes at Indiana University. My first two teachers were a couple, apparently both from New York. Their style was of the European Spanish variety. Following them was an honest Spaniard, who taught from the epic poem El Mio Cid: El Campeador and a host of other old poems from the Golden Age of Spain. He was a fun instructor who had a certain artistic panache. These old pieces of literature gave a further base for my understanding of the Latin world. Obviously classes serve a formal purpose to ground us in an area, and this one acted as a cultural fundamental course for getting the history. This gave more raison de etre for the border town in Tamaulipas across the Texan border known as Matamoros.⁷

Then I went to Provo for the next four and a half years. Having started strongly at Indiana I was at least a sophomore, and after testing out on language I was practically a junior within four months at BYU. In one historical sense I had moved to old Mexico, because for a few centuries New Spain had claimed what is now the state of Utah, settled by Europeans starting in 1847 and achieving statehood by 1896. As already mentioned, it wasn’t until the Mexican-American War that was being fought out at this same time period that the US claimed so much of the present western half of the country. Ironically the Mormons contributed to the American settlement of the West while trying to escape its physical environs. Likewise I felt emancipated and had finally escaped the environs of my mid-west hometown. Ahh, the fresh cold January air of a brand new time zone! And so close to the real Mexico!

I learned during my years in Provo and working at various places around Salt Lake City that Utah has a sizable Hispanic population, somewhere around ten percent while I was there (1993-1997). Utah was also growing fast as a state; apparently 40,000 new residents on average were arriving per year during my stay. I suppose one could assume that a greater percentage of that newcomer share was Hispanic, more specifically Mexican. In a state that had only just past the two million mark around 1995, these are dynamic numbers. It might be safe to say that like much of the American west, Mexican citizens were seeking out many jobs and were re-populating what once was nominally theirs over a hundred and fifty years ago.

As a fulltime teacher at Pacific High School in San Bernardino, sometime during the 1999-2000 school year, the local papers proclaimed how whites had finally become a minority in the state of California. By no means am I implying that Utah will reach this same rate of diversity eventually, but Utah surely is becoming more diverse, as is the entire US, largely in part to Mexico emigration. I would love to do a breakdown of what the corresponding populations, birthrates, and immigration statistics are for the 31 Mexican states and the 50 American ones in the last 50 years and more importantly what the projections of the next fifty years will bring, but suffice it to say that the US is becoming more Hispanic, as noted by Latinos finally outnumbering blacks this year (2003).⁸

As noted previously in the introductory parts of this book, Mexico historically was much more of North America than it is at its present time. I think it only makes sense that demographically this would become an eventuality decades or centuries later, especially considering the birth rate among what some so-called secularists consider strictly poorer groups, but definitely different cultural norms shared by Latinos (This same ethic is shared by Latter-day Saints, Muslims, Hindus, and orthodox Jews plus many other cultures across the world.)

Well, having explained some of what I can of the global or regional picture as to Hispanics (of all races) and their expansion and integration with a Caucasian European and African “north”, now it behooves me to explain how it was I physically returned to the country of Latinos, this time in the state of Baja Norte known as Tijuana.

BYU—segue to Mexico 1993

Transferring to Brigham Young University at the beginning of 1993 was one of the most invigorating new experiences of my life. My return and stay in my hometown of Bloomington for fourteen odd months was not really that bad, but it left some room for improvement and left a lot more to my imagination than I was then receiving. It was great to reacquaint myself with my parents; especially since my letter writing was not very stellar during the two-year mission while so far away. Upon being back home I occasionally saw my sister Monique, but probably as often as my other sister Jenny and my new brother-in-law Evan⁹, they were attending Brigham Young some 1600 miles away.

Returning to the United States in general was great after the time in South America with its own reverse culture shocks. I felt I spent a lot of time catching up on certain things I missed, like movies or the war in Iraq. It was surprisingly hard to catch up on the Panama incident with Noriega, which happened way back at the beginning of my mission at the end of 1989. At the time it upset one of our MTC teachers who had served in Panama and incredibly piqued my curiosity, perhaps more than the fall of the Berlin Wall just a few weeks before at the end of that year. I only managed to go to the Chicago Temple once that whole time in Indiana upon returning from this spiritual adventure, much to my regret.

Things became a lot better in Utah. For me many things improved despite not having a car like I did in Indiana. Most things were accessible by foot, or least most things I was interested in. I suppose some of my social privileges were limited because of the lack of a car, and certain ways of seeing more of Utah for myself, but I loved a bunch of new freedoms. I also loved the fact there were more opportunities to carouse with Latinos, even on the occasional chance I had to watch TV¹⁰.

Ironically I replaced a Latino young man at the BYU dorm I moved into. I forget his name, (Enrique, or Jose?) but apparently he was a returned missionary and a hellion, which was one of the reasons he was kicked out of Taylor Hall, room 3116. There were only a few other returned missionaries on our floor: two were brothers of freshmen on the floor and the third was a Resident Assistant, which was typical for their positions on campus. So I was the old man 22 year-old among these few dozen “pre-missionaries”as many female coeds referred to them. I had a good time among these young bucks, even becoming close with some. One friendship was directly involved in the Mexican trip, and that was tall, friendly Bill Wade.

I replaced someone in the priesthood presidency, and thus became a better friend of Bill, the Elders Quorum President. He was a tall blonde and a quite mature yet playful kid from El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego. I had only been in Provo a month or so when he invited me to visit with him and some other ward members down in his hometown. I, having never been to California or anywhere west of Utah, took this as my break to finally go to the Golden state. Besides, he had invited about five or six girls as well and this sounded pretty cool, too. I didn’t have a car but that didn’t stop me from walking across half of Provo (and mistakenly to Orem) to purchase my tickets. This was back in the days before the Internet was the way to go with procuring airfare. Imagine my disappointment a few days later when Bill uninvited me.

Apparently there wasn’t going to be enough room with vehicles for all the guys and the women, too, so us guys got the shaft. This was a hard blow to me because I had not only really anticipated this trip for the time I was on the invitee list but I had gone quite a bit out of my way to get the tickets, which I paid about 50$ more for than the others because it went up after the original promotion. (Walking to the ticket office in south Provo is not easy from BYU campus, especially with a detour to the edge of Orem).

Well, the idea of returning the tickets hit me like giving up a child, so I eventually decided I was still going to honor my “ida y vuelta” to San Diego but would not go with Bill and the gang. When Bill learned of this, the nice guy that he is, or maybe conscientious guilt avoider, said I could still hang out with them except for the first night since they would not be in town. So I was on my own that first Friday night, and the rest was with young Mr. Wade and all those girls (one of whom I think I had a crush on by then).

Bill was in a tight spot because he had to disinvite freshman guys that he was closer to (they had been friends since fall semester) and still keep face while honoring me, or at least my stubborn determination. I have always felt some guilt about “pushing” my way through to be a part of the original idea, but I felt it was right enough to do, and after all Bill offered not only the original invitation but relented to include me at the end. I was the only one of the guys who had already bought tickets, too.

I won’t go into full details about that week journey, my first trip to California, except to say we took a weekday for a train ride down to-Tijuana, MEXICO! Finally, after 10 long years!

I probably was recounting some weird nonsense to the people who were nearby on the train, undoubtedly making reference to some missionary story or Chile. It’s hard to be cool when so excited, although maybe I was “tranquilo” overall, I don’t remember. I hope I didn’t behave as foolishly as I did at the closing ward talent show by the Provo River or at Disneyland with the others that week, those geeky memories are still haunting me. Ugh.

An Aside about Travels—and Cultures

Here may lie a funny coincidence comparing my individual circumstances in making it to the border town of Mexico as millions of Mexicans who journey north to California and the US do conversely: I used my situation, acquaintances, and limited resources (I had a bank account and credit card, but used them sparingly) to go there at a high risk, perhaps in the social sense. The innumerable Mexicans who come here to work and live do so at much bigger stakes—risks such as personal harm or death, family separation, arrest and deportation, emotional and social stresses, etc, etc. But in both my case and the collective cases of those immigrants coming through our present borders, we in some senses are refugees of a similar phenomenon. That something for me may have only been a longing for a place that seemed in some ways better than my homeland only because of its difference, and maybe that is no different than the millions of other American tourists who go to Mexico every year.

But I would like to think that there is something more for me in Mexico than the average Joe gringo money spender. Perhaps geographic places actually have beckoning spirits that somehow call us; maybe it is in the simple language alone that inexorably invites us to return.

Sometimes it’s nice to not be in a majority, culturally, racially, or otherwise. Even better is it not to get the local language or customs too well. And I guess at times it is excruciatingly sweet to be in the middle.

To some people it is disturbing that there are such things as other cultures that are just “plain dumb” or “scary”, that do not follow any “normal rational logic” and are deficient or backward in some way. This could be typified as a non-cultured chauvinistic American attitude. One could also point to a lot of highly educated empiricists in the same manner, also known as snobs. I believe the healthier philosophy, and obviously in this assertion I am biased, is actually finding peace, enjoyment, and fascination that there are so many sundry systems out there, so different from our own. As much as I love American literature, for example, the world is not what it is without all the other varieties of books and stories that are out there.

In this type of pluralist vain, I can’t help but make reference to my own faith. Many might accuse the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of being a white male dominated culture that stays monolithic and is un-accepting of varying views of good culture or the inclusion of other world cultures. These types of arguments are made and often times readily accepted. As referred to earlier, the Book of Mormon is a body of literature that is quite different than other texts, either by secular or religious world standards. Denounced by many and treated as fantasy by others, we members of the church accept it as a whole new body of stories and lessons, apart from the standard Bible, to use as a guide and reference to our beliefs. We also have many other sacred texts, from ancient Abraham to last general conference from LDS Church leadership.¹¹

I grew up in an atmosphere of what I consider inclusive yet particular attitudes. My parents showed countless slides of western Africa from their days in the Peace Corps. They had joined a religion not considered very mainstream or traditional. I was not to use derogatory language towards any race or ethnic group. My adopted grandma was from Panama. Some of my close friends were of different races and faiths. I resented the South for having slaves and fighting against my country for this cause, I resented John Wilkes Booth for killing Lincoln as I did the coward who shot Martin Luther King, or for that matter the hateful mob who assassinated Joseph Smith. I also had deep misgivings for the record of the European and American atrocities against the Native Americans, or for any soldier who wrongly murdered or harmed any Vietnamese or anyone else. I believed in an immigrant nation where freedom was practiced, freedom of thought and of action guided by a fair and strong rule of law.

So why should I dislike Mexico or other countries for being different? Although I take issue with many poor policies of my own nation as well as other governments and their faults, one cannot truly disdain them simply for having differences from what we know here in the US. On the contrary, these differences can be celebrated. Maybe we can join mantras with our sophisticated neighbors is this discordant year, and proclaim as the French say, “Vivre le difference!”

Itinerants from Cali

So I was back to the familiar foreign-- walking there from I suppose Chula Vista, with my friends from California, Utah, Idaho, and Washington—all connected by our international church and BYU freshman ward, and maybe not too much else other than my stubborn commitment and Bill’s graciousness in my case.

I don’t know what got into me, perhaps a flight of fancy or simply giddy nerves, but as soon as we passed to the Mexican side I started bartering with the first guy who came towards us. I think he only had jewelry. This was not a normal accessory for me. Maybe it was to prove to myself and to the others that I could still speak the language. So I lowered his initial offer from 25 dollars to five for a shiny gold chain, all the while considering this as a present for my sister back in Utah. I wore that necklace for the following year. And I guess I officially started our party’s purchasing frenzy.

I’m not sure how many hours we spent there, walking a few blocks towards downtown, I suppose. I cannot recall eating but I am sure we must have…did I get an horchata? I probably didn’t know what that was yet. I do remember buying a few other things: a purple and black poncho that I got a lot of mileage out of for 8 bucks, a multi-colored leather backpack for something like 20$, a cloth bag with a pull string for maybe 8$, and perhaps that was it. Did I eat a tostada or what? Maybe if I had thought about it and written it down as recently as 1997, I might be able to remember. Which reminds me: what about this memory thing?

The Odd Memory

I have wondered for a long time how is it the brain remembers things. Recently in reading the epic story East of Eden by Steinbeck, I—whoops, I left this sentence hanging for too many days and now the thought is gone. Case in point!

In the last day I have read half way through his travelogue book Travels with Charley. I think this immediate distraction, as well as at least a hundred other things, have lead me to (temporarily) forget what that sentence was going to try to analyze about the new novel of Oprah zeitgeist. Starting another book, both reading and writing, while doing this can be disastrous.¹²

But attempting to achieve parts of the original point, how does memory work? Why and how, or perhaps when? Steinbeck admits at the age of 58 in his “search for America” that the notes he takes are usually lost or forgotten; therefore he forsakes them. He seems to possess an incredible knack for memorizing details, or at least enough clarity of memory or confidence in his own powers of observation to quite authoritatively chronicle his dialogues, his descriptions, his critical events like where he slept. While I can account for some odd places I have slept for the night, occasionally I think back to a time or place that I should recall and I can’t. Is this a weakness in the cerebral muscle, or perhaps a strength in streamlining the less important in order to cling to the proper and necessary information that makes us successful in retaining what serves us now?

This leads to the line of questioning: what is important to remember? What is critical to one person is trivial minutia for another. Many times I can remember (at the moment not specifically) being asked questions about a simple detail about myself or something that would seem apparent to recall but could not. I am not referring to names, words in other languages, facts or those elusive adjectives and terms that seem to always slip the mind. I am talking about much more subtly indemnifying things, like what did we do last Friday night, or where was the bathroom in a house, or a bunch of things people consider so matter of fact but to me doesn’t seem as crucial: does my car use 1030 or 1040 oil? Did I ever know this? Probably. Oh! One is better for over 100,000 miles and the other for the newer engine. All right, thank you Miss Wal-Mart cashier. Will I remember this by the next oil change in three months? Maybe now after recording it here.

Another specific case in point: I once spent about five days in the state of Washington with a friend whose siblings and parents all had residences within some twenty miles of each other. When I try to remember where I slept the first four nights, I am not sure I can remember which house it was. Was it her brother’s? I do remember that the last night of the trip I was at another brother’s because we missed our flight and were forced to stay an extra night. But where did I sleep the majority of the evenings? If I force myself to place my whereabouts I can at least invent a home and the room I may have slept in.

To a car person, forgetting what type a car one has driven is unconscionable. To me, a sports fan many would describe as avid, forgetting a favorite player is equally wicked and a sign of a fickle fan, one who feigns enjoyment of something and a professed loyalty for a team or person but who obviously lacks a true faith for the alleged allegiance. There are many exceptions of course, and the endless reels of names and events can become overwhelming, even to true devotees such as myself. But people usually remember things they really like and pay attention to. Not always.

Which brings us back to the recurring polemic—lest we forget—why do we remember certain things? I will briefly and hastily conclude before driving the question too far. My final statement on memory is that we remember things sometimes by choice and many times by chance. This ability is as much a gift of God as anything else, as arbitrary as whom we are born to and how we survive traffic mishaps. There may be ways to sharpen our memories but the end result is a gift from above, or possibly a self-assuming exaggerative proclivity.

Adios y Hasta Pronto

So within hours, like most border tourists, we were gone again. I remember it was dark by the time we left, so for the first time I had spent a little of an evening down in Mexico, even a new state of Mexico and my third overall. Of course, this trip was mostly about a new state of the US for me. Geographically they share water, land and history. One, Baja Norte, officially Spanish speaking, the other, the grandiose Golden State of California, officially English. But even in 1993 Spanish was a huge second language for the entire Pacific area. Perhaps by a few quirks of history this part of North America was claimed for the United States. Now in 2003, some claim that it is surely being reclaimed by its former language of New Spain. And this was my first ever trip to the North American Pacific.

Being currently inspired by Steinbeck and his travels across this land from Long Island, New York, after 25 years of “not knowing his own country”, I see in my own way I came to discover what many need to discover: the nation we live and believe in. I finally went to the land of where my connections came together. This is where my parents met and courted in 1964, where an LDS missionary hailed from who helped convert my parents in 1967, where my fifth grade teacher worked as an air traffic controller during World War II, where one of my first bishops and his family was from back in the 1970s, where our neighbors went on sabbatical also in the 70s, where one of my favorite church ward families moved back from in the 1980s, etc, etc. Not to mention Hollywood and its multiple forms of captivating my time and dreams.

I finally made it to the most populous state, and in some ways continued to untangle the mysteries of my own mind, and how the United States, Mexico and the rest of the world fit into that jumbled picture. Every American needs to visit and know Tijuana, right? Whether this is true or not, at least for Californians anyway, I had finally made it that far. I think I also discovered how much California reminded me of Chile, as I usually explain to many people.

The Chilean/California connection is one worthy of discussing, but I will leave that for later. I have much more to say about it after both returning to Chile in 1994 and re-visiting California numerous times and eventually moving here until the present.

How to finish my impressions of the third trip to Mexico?

It wasn’t a big trip, or long, or especially educational, but making it was significant to me. This side of the country opened me up to a better understanding of how Mexico is so close to us and yet so far away.

It was dirty, the people seemed poor, and yet it is within close proximity of the immense wealth of the most populated region of the country, southern California. Do we know what this means?

Conclusion: Perception of Reality

Seeing things in film and television have their value. So does reading the newspaper, magazines, and books and essays. Someone like Hemingway would say the personal experience is the most valuable to anyone’s soul, and yet most of his fame is through fiction, things imagined. Steinbeck also gets most of his acclaim from his made-up stories; despite the fact both he and Hemingway wrote non-fiction. This is true also with Michener, and possibly London, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald. Is it that we give a hoot of their opinions simply because they are excellent tellers of fantasized stories?

Of course these are not their only gifts as famous authors. The stories they write and publish tell so much about us, as humans, they give voice to the countless millions who never get a chance to share their stories and opinions, their struggles and hopes. These writers, as well as many women who I could mention like Buck and Angelou, Morrison and a dozen others, know how to reach our souls through their words.

My search of Mexico is only trying to reach my own soul, perhaps. There is something there that draws me out, that extends my understanding.

Mexico is not limited to its current borders alone, nor is any single nation. No, a place with a character and identity is a living and breathing entity, and maybe if we can understand it then we might be able to grasp the infinite, the unknowable parts of each of us. But somehow we must start in a physical way, externally guiding our spirit through the elusive channels of light and darkness.

I walked the streets of Mexico at night.

Somewhere my subconscious was filling its brain with dreams untapped, thoughts unfelt, smells familiar yet new, memories from a childhood when things were bright and faith was simple, when what I learned was at times shocking or frightful yet invigorating. Going to a new land awakens the little and grappling minds of our smallest selves, necessitating re-learning everything as if we were born anew.

Many are not comfortable re-learning foreign things because it is too much strain on a supposedly mature and veteran soul; “I am too good for that silly Chinese nonsense because I have my bearings and culture and necessary knowledge, why consider more when I am safe and comfortable?”

One fact that comforts me is that the great John Steinbeck was not comfortable with what he knew and exactly what it all meant at the age of 58 as a Nobel Prize winner. This is good, this is refreshing. The ambiguity of who we are and where we are is something worth exploring. Sometimes physically, sometimes spiritually, we must explore those oft frequented and also quite lonesome paths. I believe he ended better than Hemingway, too, at least at the end.

Do I have to make up stories to achieve a status of authorhood? No, just write.

Right.

1 George Orwell. His greatness was confirmed to me in my writing composition class at IU in 1992. Before, I mainly had admiration for Orwell more for Mr. Courtney’s influence back in that same year (1984), which one could reasonably assume was zeitgeist. I knew Orwell was semi-prophetic; I later learned he was a master of his craft. I suppose re-taking this general elective since high school (1988) was a good idea. I have a quirky theory that an A- in a class is perfect because it means you did well, learned the material but were not stressed so much that you didn’t enjoy it. This mark fit much better on my transcript than the D+ that carries over from my final year of high school.

2 This occurred at a precise moment leaving the Hills home in Provo, Utah, in August while in the process of walking out the door to work at the Missionary Training Center down the hill. This almost sudden self-realization was a very good feeling of almost euphoric joy and cathartic self-awareness. Then again, I might be over blowing the whole thing.

3 I also probably played more movies as a teacher than Pedro, but I do admit some films didn’t have as much to do with Spanish as I wanted. As part excuse, sometimes I would use a movie as a reward for working hard and trying to learn.

4 Two months in the MTC was great in another way: it weaned me of my dependence on television, film and periodicals.

5 He was the dean of the Spanish and Portuguese Department and I took my first graduate class with him that Winter Semester 1995. His specific examples cited were mostly from a sit down meal.

6 As a side note, if one were to go north or south from Panama, one could pass through six straight Spanish countries either way. One could argue that Panama is located at the linguistic or perhaps cultural heart or mid-section of the Spanish-speaking world.

7 This means “Moor killer” and perhaps El Cid was the greatest of them all, at least in legend. Spain inevitably became almost exclusively Roman Catholic, especially from 1492 to the end of the Franco regime in 1976, it being one of the most extreme nations in this sense. Moors were mostly Muslims and were officially exiled from the peninsula by Ferdinand and Isabel the same year the American West Indies were found by Colombo (his real Italian name as opposed by his popular surname in Spanish, Colón).

8 There are black Hispanics who are counted as Latino, so the black category perhaps is more accurately deemed African-American non-Hispanic.

9 Evan was a very old-time friend from younger years, he went to Brazil on his mission and married my sister while I was in Chile and his brother, one of my other old friends, was serving in Germany/Austria.

10 This was usually in the dorm basement while doing laundry.

11 The words of the prophets are considered true and sacred, sometimes as much as ancient scripture. They are shared worldwide at least every six months.

12 Ancient Comparisons, July 2003