As a born and raised Tejana, finishing up my first semester as assistant professor in the great white north (aka the Midwest), I have taken in a lot of new information and experiences to help me reflect on issues relating to culture, identity, and my place in the world.
Having said that, indulge me as I take you on my much-needed and much-desired holiday vacation back home to San Antonio...land of the fluffiest and most delicious homemade flour tortillas and most beautiful winter weather this side of...hell, I don't know what side of what Tejas would be on. Suffice to say that sunny, breezy low 70's weather beats the single digits in Minneapolis any day.
Staying in my grandparents' garage apartment on the Southside was both comforting and taxing. My grandparents are getting older in age and my grandfather's health is ailing due to a quintuple bypass surgery he had a few years back. My grandfather is a living saint and one of my primary inspirations for pursuing a Ph.D. (and the cause of a close encounter fight at a friend's house over the holidays but that's another blog entry entirely). Throughout my childhood, he instilled in me the importance of an education, often sharing with me his experiences of working in the fields of Michigan during the depression, and how he would have to walk from his home on Mercedes Street off Frio City Rd. to downtown (now the Bill Miller headquarters) to collect welfare relief in the form of lima beans and flour. He had to walk to downtown and save the nickel for the bus ride back to carry the flour and beans, he tells me (more often now than before due to his ailing health and memory). I cherish his experience and his stories, but when I'm back home, I also want to visit with friends, which makes it tricky trying to sneak out of the garage apartment in the back of my grandparents' house. But I digress.
Visiting home, I had a modest handful of goals in mind: 1) Mission Flea Market on Wednesday morning, 2) eat as many flour tortillas as possible without going into dietary distress, 3) Visit with family and friends, 4) Kantina Karaoke as many nights as possible.
Mission accomplished on all counts.
1) Flying in on Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning at Mission Flea Market was my first stop. This is my safe space...the place where "everything is okay" if only for a few hours. Here, you can find anything your heart desires...from CD's to fresh fruit to a trendy pair of jeans to a brand new DVD/VCR player (which sometimes comes from a batch that somehow "fell off a truck"). My dad religiously attends Mission on Wednesdays (so much so that he has re-arranged his work schedule to get Wednesdays off). I, along with my partner Ernesto, met up with him for some coffee and tacos (yes, Mission does have everything). After a brief welcome and how are you, my father and I split up into our separate factions. It's a few days before Christmas and we mean business. Among my awesome purchases that day were new baby clothes for my nephew and some awesome lucite real insect key chains...one with a scorpion for my brother Joseph and another with a scorpion fighting a spider for Thomas. Awesomeness.
2) Ah, flour tortillas. From my sister-in-law's homemade labor of love to any taqueria around the city, I had my delicious fill of these wonderful, warm, tender and, if you're lucky, powdery treats which CANNOT be found in Minneapolis. Yes, corn is delicious and it is the food of our ancestors...but I prefer the colonized version of our dietary staple anytime, my friend. (And we wonder why San Antonio consistently ranks at the top of the "fattest cities" list.) My pick for best flour tortillas in San Anto? Gordo's Cafe off S. Pleasanton. Clues that this is an awesome Mexican restaurant: 1) the sharpie/posterboard menu posted along the walls, 2) shellaced and glitter pen outlined photos of Selena, Pedro Infante, and Emiliano Zapata, and 3) Christmas lights...always the Christmas lights.
3) I know I have visited with my family long enough when they start to slightly annoy me in that familiar family way. That being said, I had a great time visiting with my two younger brothers and only siblings (the older of which is back from Iraq and the younger who just had a baby boy in September). Both of them now fathers and husbands, I found it interesting/entertaining to see them negotiate their independent "men who like to drink beer" sides with their responsible husband/father sides, both of which I love equally. So, most of our time together consisted of drinking Buds and listening to obscure yet awesome gems from the genres of classic rock, country, and soul. On this trip, I realized just how large a role music plays in my life and that of my family. At the extended family's ritualistic visit to Grandma and Grandpa's on Christmas day, my Grandma was quick to pop in her favorite Alan Jackson CD (on repeat...like the hole time we were there), while my eight-year-old niece, when talking about her dog back home named, Lady, began singing the Styxx hit by the same name. "This is my Tejana identity" I tell Ernesto. "Christmas Day with Grandma playing her Alan Jackson CD while my niece sings Styxx."
4) Kantina! So, I had a blast on the Wednesday before New Year with some close friends at the most awesome karaoke spot in San Antonio (and all of the world for that matter), Kantina Karaoke, where you can sing any song your heart desires (in English and Spanish and I'm sure any other language if you so desire). That night I sang my much-anticipated (at least for me) "Don't Stop Believing" and another gem honoring Minneapolis' legendary Prince, "Purple Rain." But the night before leaving San Antonio, rather than get a good night's sleep and pack, I talked Ernesto into going for a quick drink and pool game at Kantina. As we walked in around 9:00, the early birds/regulars are watching Family Guy on the big screen TV near the bar. Soon after starting a game of pool, a couple of guys start with some hard-hitting karaoke - Marvin Gaye, Al Greene, George Strait. I'm like, "Hold on, I gotta get in on this." I tell Ernesto that we're all playing a little game of "one-up." And I'm gonna one-up 'em. So I bust out some Etta James "I Would Rather Go Blind." And, as expected, I get my props for the selection. I go on to sing some other gems from Redbone, Billy Paul, and even some Tanya Tucker (yes, when I die, I just may not go to heaven, but I sure as hell hope I can get back to Texas). I have to say, that singing amongst that handful of local karaoke enthusiasts was the best night I'd had at Kantina. I was so proud of the selections I had sung that night, that I texted my younger brother...to which he responded the next morning "Were you drunk?" Maybe I was. Maybe. I. Was.
The next day during my last day in San Anto before venturing back north, I drove my rental along I-35 from the southside to the airport with a sense of melancholy, but also a sense of grounding. San Antonio hadn't changed. And neither had I. We're like family members who are separated for only a little while doing things that have to get done before we're reunited again. Having just heard that my brother is being deployed to Afghanistan in July, I'm hoping that this will be sooner than later.
