I remember going to Catholic church as a kid with my grandmother in Miami. She would take us to mass on Sundays when she was willing to fight us. We refused to go because it was in SPANISH. The whole thing! We didn't want to be there! "Mami" as we called her, "we don't understand anything that man is saying and the singing is scary". It's funny now but she was so serious about us knowing GOD and the saints.We loved her but didn't understand what the whole deal was behind us speaking Spanish and going to church. It was never explained.
In my house, rice and beans and any kind of meat was the norm. Adobo was our salt and pepper along with sofrito. I thought everyone cooked with that. On Saturday mornings she had a habit of cleaning and playing salsa or merengue music.Gosh knows we didn't want to hear that. Didn't she know it was Saturday and cartoons were on? How dare she. So whether we wanted to or not, we had to be there listening to the sounds of Johnny Ventura and Gran Combo de Puerto Rico blasting out of her house while we played outside.
Dancing was a big part of our lives. That came from her. My mom and aunts were dancers. They still dance. My grandmother always said that when she died she wanted to "go" dancing and with a beer in her hand. I thought to myself that it was strange that was just her. August 1992, my grandmother passed away in her favorite spot in North Miami Beach on a Friday night. They said she had just finished dancing to her favorite song at the time, she sat down and her heart gave out. Til this very moment, she is the only person I know that went on the way she wanted to. Pretty cool.
It wasn't until that summer that I got what she wanted for us. See we were already Americans by birth, she just wanted a little bit of her to live on in us. I always say I became Latina that year because I dove full heartedly into my family's culture. I felt it was the only way to still keep her around. I listened to nothing but salsa and merengue. I listened to all of her favorite artists. I started to speak Spanish and wanted my mom to cook the things that she made.
All of these years later, and she's still here. People tell me I look the most like her. I throw sofrito in EVERYTHING. All of her grandchildren have had kids. I can honestly say I see her spirit in my daughter, who is just about 4 years old.She's always dancing and singing and I mean the girl gets down. But the funniest and most intriguing thing I see is she speaks her own dialect. She will hear the adults talking in Spanish and she'll just butt in with these crazy words that she thinks has meaning. She even initiates conversation by just starting up with my mom and she knows what it means. I make sure my kids understand their Heritage. I make sure it is a part of who they are. Who they will be.
