Caramelo (63 page)

¡Ya pa’ que te cuento!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing this book has been like making a walking pilgrimage to Tepeyac from Chicago. On my knees. Many fed and sheltered me along the way, and to all, I am grateful. A special thank-you to my friends Barbara Renaud González, Josie Méndez-Negrete, Josie Garza, and Ellen Riojas Clark. Bert Snyder, thanks for my daily dose of Vita-Berts. A Vita-Bert a day keeps the writer’s block away! To Ito Romo and to Gayle Elliott for driving me along the route my father drove from Chicago to San Antonio, thank you.
Gracias a
Dorothy Allison and Eduardo Galeano for the manna and water of their words. Thanks to the angels who kept my home in order while I was away: Juanita Chávez and Janet Silva, Armando Cortez, Mary Ozuna, Daniel Gamboa, Roger Solís, and Bill Sánchez. Thanks as well to Reza Versace for nurturing body and spirit.

For research assistance I am indebted to several individuals for their
testimonios
and investigations. First, to my father’s cousin,
mi querido tio Enrique Arteaga Cisneros, hombre de letras, cuyas páginas me ayudaron para inventar el mundo
“when I was dirt.” Mr. Eddie López for sharing his personal papers on World War II, and to his wife, la Sra. María Luisa Camacho de López, for her invaluable knowledge on
rebozos
. Mario and Alejandro Sánchez assisted on library research. The historian Steven Rodríguez reviewed my historical references. I would also like to thank my friends Gregg Barrios and Mary Ozuna for memories of San Antonio in the early 1970’s, and thanks too to my sister-in-law Silvia Zamora Cisneros for her Chicago memories. Garrett Mormando, Pancho Velásquez, Marisela Barrera, César Martínez, Franco Mondini, Jasna Karaula, Ito, Barbara, Alejandro, thank you for conversations that allowed me to steal from your past. Liliana, I owe you for the grandfather story. Prayers were provided by spiritual mothers Elsa Calderón
y
la Sra. Camacho de López. Quality-control proofreaders: Ruth Béhar, Craig Pennel, Liliana Valenzuela, Ito Romo, Norma Elia Cantú, Barbara Renaud González, Gregg Barrios, Macarena Hernández, and Ellen Riojas Clark. Thank you! The patient staff at Mail Boxes Etc. on West Avenue off Blanco in San Antonio, Texas, deserves to be publicly thanked for their excellent care with this manuscript and with me: Felicia, Dorothy, Connie, Jeffrey, and Priscilla. Thanks to María Herrera Sobek for song research.

A writer is only as good as her editors. I am indebted to Dennis Mathis, who pilgrimed alongside me the entire trek. Ito Romo and Alba De León were my
coyotes
across the borderlands, and Liliana Valenzuela was my scout into the interior. Susan Bergholz, the literary agent/guardian angel who never sleeps, read these stories as I slept, and sent them back with comments before I resumed my journey the next morning. Thanks to
la santísima
Robin Desser, my editor at Knopf, whose absolute faith in me kept me hobbling forward.

I thank my family in Chicago for patiently accepting the distance and silence this book required. I wish to thank my spiritual family in San Antonio for the same.

The book’s epigraph comes courtesy of Ruth Behar’s
Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), p. 18. I am indebted to the excellent research of Rodolfo Acuña’s
Occupied America
, James D. Cockcroft’s
Outlaws in the Promised Land
, Carlos Fuentes’
The Buried Mirror
, and Elena Poniatowska’s
Todo México
.

Doy gracias a las ánimas solas
, those souls in perpetual fire, my fellow writers clanging their chains in support. Denise Chávez, Julia Alvarez, Norma Elia Cantú, Norma Alarcón, Helena Viramontes, Sonia Saldivar-Hull, Tey Diana Rebolledo.
Gracias a todas, todas
.

I would like to give thanks to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for their assistance, wings that allowed the manuscript to take flight and become the book I saw in my heart.

There are many individuals, many circumstances in my life that helped me to become a writer, but five major elements bear repeating here. My father’s opposition to my life as a writer. My mother’s support of my choice. The Chicago Public Library. Dennis Mathis, the most wonderful friend and my literary mentor. Susan Bergholz, my agent, who dreamed beyond my dreams and allowed me to earn my keep with my pen. I am indebted to all.

During the decade I was writing
Caramelo
, these lives slipped across the border from this life into the next: Thomasine Cordero Alcalá, Eulalia Cordero Gómez, Efraín Cordero, Joseph Cordero, Dolores Damico Cisneros, James P. Kirby, Gwendolyn Brooks, Carolyn Schaefer, Jeana Campbell, Marsha Gómez, Arturo Patten, Jerry Mathis, Albert Ruíz, Kevin Burkett, Kip, Danny López Lozano, Drew Allen, Paul Hanusch, Emma Tenayuca, Libertad Lamarque, Federico Fellini, Lola Beltrán, Astor Piazzolla, Wenceslao Moreno, Manuela Soliz Sager, José Antonio Burciaga, Ricardo Sánchez, Jim Sagel, Eugene P. Martínez, Hector Manuel Calderón, Jozefina Martinovic Karaula, María Félix, Peggy Lee, and my father, Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral. Countless whose names I do not know, die daily attempting to cross borders across the globe. As I was completing this book, thousands died in the disaster of the 11th of September, 2001. Thousands of deaths led to these deaths, and, I fear, thousands will follow. Each connected each to each. With them die a multitude of stories.

A la Virgen de Guadalupe, a mis antepasados
. May these stories honor you all.

Permissions Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Ruth Behar:
Excerpt from
Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story
by Ruth Behar (Beacon Press, 1993). Reprinted by permission of Ruth Behar.

Fairyland Music:
Excerpt from the song lyric “Moon Men Mambo,” words and music by Paul Parnes. Copyright © by Fairyland Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Fairyland Music.

William Peter Kosmas, Esq.:
Excerpt from the poem “Es Verdad” from
Obras Completas
by Federico García Lorca, translation by Sandra Cisneros (Galaxia Gutenberg, 1996 edition). Copyright © Herederos de Federico García Lorca. All rights reserved. For information regarding rights and permissions, please contact
[email protected]
or William Peter Kosmas, Esq., 8 Franklin Square, London, W14 9UU.

Little Crow Foods:
Excerpts from “CoCo Wheats Jingle.” CoCo Wheats is a registered trademark of Little Crow Milling Co., Inc., Warsaw, Indiana. “CoCo Wheats Jingle” copyrighted to Little Crow Foods. Reprinted by permission of Little Crow Foods.

Edward B. Marks Music Company:
Excerpt from the song lyric “Piensa en Mi,” music and Spanish lyrics by María Teresa Lara. Copyright © 1937 by Edward B. Marks Company. (Copyright renewed.) All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Edward B. Marks Music Company.

Maytag Corporation:
Excerpt from “Norge” appliances jingle. Reprinted by permission of the Maytag Corporation.

Peer International Corporation:
Excerpt from the song lyric “María bonita” by Agustín Lara. Copyright © 1947 by Promotora Hispano Americana De Música, S.A. Copyright renewed. Excerpt from the song lyric “Cielto lindo” by Quirino Mendoza y Cortez. Copyright © 1950 by Promotora Hispano Americana De
Música, S.A. Copyright renewed. Excerpt from “Veracruz” by María Teresa Lara. Copyright © 1938 by Promotora Hispano Americana De Música, S.A. Copyright renewed. All rights controlled by Peer International Corporation. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Peer International Corporation.

Solutia Inc.:
Excerpt from the “ACRYLAN Jingle.” ACRYLAN is a registered trademark of Solutia Inc. for acrylic fibers and textiles. Reprinted by permission of Solutia Inc.

Warner Bros. Publications:
Excerpt from the “Yogi Bear Song” by Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, and Hoyt Curtin. Copyright © 1960, 1967 by Barbera-Hanna Music. Copyrights renewed. Yogi Bear is a trademark of and copyrighted by Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc. Excerpt from the song lyric “Pretty Baby,” words and music by Egbert Van Alstyne, Tony Jackson, and Gus Kahn. Copyright © 1916 by Warner Bros. Inc. (ASCAP), EMI Music Publishing Ltd. (PRS) & Redwood Music Ltd. (PRS). Excerpt from the song lyric “Think About Your Troubles,” words and music by Harry Nilsson. Copyright © 1969 (Renewed) by Golden Syrup Music (BMI). All rights administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Warner Bros. Publications, Miami, FL 33014.

Warner Bros. Publications and Zomba Golden Sands:
Excerpt from the song lyric “Júrame,” Spanish words and music by María Grever. English version by Frederick H. Martens. Copyright © 1926, 1928 (Renewed) by G. Schirmer, Inc. (ASCAP), and Zomba Golden Sands (ASCAP). International Copyright secured. Reprinted by permission of Warner Bros. Publications, Miami, FL 33014, and Zomba Golden Sands.

ALSO BY
S
ANDRA
C
ISNEROS

CARAMELO

Every year, Ceyala “Lala” Reyes’ family—aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala’s six older brothers—packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drives from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother’s house in Mexico City for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother’s life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Like the cherished rebozo, or shawl, that has been passed down through generations of Reyes women,
Caramelo
is alive with the vibrations of history, family, and love.

Fiction

LOOSE WOMEN

With her novel,
The House on Mango Street
, Cisneros introduced one of the most lyrically inventive voices ever to emerge from the barrio. Now she gives us a book of poems with the lilt of
Norteño
music and the romantic abandon of a hot Saturday night. Celebrating the cataclysms of love and mapping the faultlines in the Mexican-American psyche,
Loose Woman
is by turns bawdy and introspective, flagrantly erotic and unabashedly funny, a work that is both a tour de force and a triumphant outpouring of pure soul.

Poetry

WOMAN HOLLERING CREEK

Woman Hollering Creek
is a story collection of breathtaking range and authority, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. From a young girl revealing secrets only an eleven-year-old can know to a witch woman circling above the village on a predawn flight, the women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.
Woman Hollering Creek
confirms Sandra Cisneros’s stature as a writer of electrifying talent.

Fiction

ALSO AVAILABLE
The House on Mango Street

VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES
Available at your local bookstore, or visit
www.randomhouse.com

SANDRA CISNEROS
Caramelo

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954. Internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction, she has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Cisneros is the author of numerous books, including a children’s book,
Hairs/Pelitos
. She lives in the Southwest.