Escuela Primaria Benito Juarez- Lui

Escuela Benito Juarez, donde pase 6 años corriendo y enfandando a los maestros.

Las Salidas de la Escuela y la graduacion - Lui

What a wonderful day! Graduation is here for my brothers! Those little babies who I held 18 years ago, are done with their free schooling years! Bring on overly expensive college!

Yesterday I was remembering the days of my graduations, and in Mexico los dias de Salida de la Escuela. De verdad no recuerdo haberles llamado graduacion. La Salida de la Escuela mas importante para mi en Mexico fue La Salida de la Secundaria, oh equivalente de Estados Unidos, 9no grado.

For me this graduation was super special, because I was the first kid to make it through and my future in the schools there was bright. I had the 2^nd highest grades in my school, which meant that a scholarship for La Preparatoria was going to be mine.

En la Salida de La Secundaria, como cada salida de la escuela, era un requerimento tener un Padrino/ Madrina. My mom had already told me a list of cousins ready to be Padrinos or Madrinas; but having suffered through uncomfortable silence of 3 hours with my Padrino at my Elementary School graduation was too painful to think about again. So I rebelled and told my mom that I would be finding a Padrino on my own. I was terrified when I told her that, because I knew exactly who I was going to ask. All she said to me was “Fine, but you will have to explain it to your Father”. It appears I was not afraid of my dad either…. Come to think of it, where did all of that bravery go?

I was going to ask Victor to be my padrino. We had met Victor on the street, he worked at the factory down the street from our house, he frequented the store that Don Manuel ran in the room we rented to him. Meche liked him and had once made me go up to him to tell him she said hi….. I was 13, she was 14 and Victor was 18 or 19, really never knew. Victor was a bit taller than me, had dark skin and long curly hair, skinny body frame, small pointy nose and dark brown eyes. My favorite feature of him was his long curly hair, it seemed to dangerous and mysterious, like the singers of the rock bands I listed to at the time…. la Ley, Heroes del Silencio, Fobia… come to think of it Victor looked like a Mexican version of Enrique Bunbury, and by Mexican version I mean with dark skin and dark eyes and that hint of Indigenous fighter.

 I had gone up to him and told him that My sister said hi, and that we should be friends. He had smiled and told me sure, stop by and say hi anytime. I saw him several time after that, after all we had been keeping track of his whereabouts before. All of my friends and I were crazy for him, and he loved the attention we would give him. So one afternoon after school got out, around 7:30 I found Victor on the park bench where he met his girlfriend, and went up and asked him to be my Padrino. I was expecting for him to laugh at me and say no, but he agreed to. Surprisingly he agreed to all of my terms… yes, of course I gave him terms, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.  He would meet my dad, he would come to a meal at my house and he would walk with me to get my diploma. I also told him that he didn’t have to get me a gift.

My school had prepared a big production of the graduation, there was to be dancing performances, speeches, and our chorus would perform a few songs, accompanied by the best players or recorders at our school… I was one of the recorder players. The class was about 200 kids, called one by one to the podium to receive their diplomas. Our Chorus sang a beautiful medley of love songs, and the recorders played a song about brotherhood and peace in the world. I was a terrible singer, as have always been.  So I was told to not sing, only to pretend to move my lips… which worked out perfectly, I didn’t know the songs at all.

180 names later, I walked across the stage on my uniform, we were all required to wear our uniform, with my padrino walking next to me. I had the biggest smile on my face and still remember all of the girls who had been so mean to me for three years, crying their faces off as they were sure they would never see each other again. I wasn’t sad about not seeing them ever again, I knew that was happening because I was moving to PA; but I was sad about the life I was leaving behind, the careless days of being a teenager, the days of talking about silly things with my dear friends Elizabeth and Teresa, and the days of chasing after boys after school. And today… 15 years later, I look back and think about how wonderful that ceremony was and wonder how my brothers will remember their graduation, their high school days and most important, how will they move forward in their lives.

Refreso en Bolsa by Bety ... written by Lui

I really miss los Refrescos en Bolsa... they are teh best thing in the world. Imagine this, a soda in a clear plastic bag with a straw, just amazing! and nobody makes Refrescos en Bolsas like Don Manuel.

Radio Alegria – Lui

I find Pandora Radio to be one of the greatest internet inventions, think about it… you tell it what you like, Enrique Bunbury, Michael Buble, Zumba, Selena and it produces a huge range of music that based on the selections, based on the tones, sounds, voice ranges… just incredible!! Plus is mostly commercial free and it lets you skip up to 10 songs per hour. No, I’m not being paid by Pandora Radio to be saying this, but maybe I should look into this…. Anyway, Pandora gave me a great gift the other day, it played Vicente Fernandez. It sounds silly I realize this, but the music of Vicente Fernandez reminded me of my favorite radio station growing up, Radio Alegria Canal 1100.

Radio Alegria is the Radiofusora from Moroleon Guanajuato; the next town from Yuriria. They played a somewhat wide range of music, and had a little bit for all tastes of music and different moods for throughout the day. I still remember most of the programming, years of listening to the station help me remember.

6:00-7:00 – Psychic line. People would send in letters and ask the psychic to help them figure out if they were making the right decisions on their lives.

7:00- 8:00- Amanecer Mexicano: First song they would play every day, every single day, Las Mañanitas; which is the traditional Mexican Birthday song. It always came with a Dedicatoria, meaning people had sent in letter or call in to request the song be dedicated to a certain person. Las Mañanitas would be dedicated to people with Birthdays or dias de Santo. Then most of the songs for that hour were traditional Mexican music, Vicente Fernandez, Los Tigres de Norte, Banda el Recodo, Alejandro Fernandez.

8:00- 9:00 – Horoscopos y Musica Pop. I still remember my Horoscope would be read at around 8:25 and for a whole month in 1993 they would also play a song by my favorite singer at the time Bibi Gaytan,  Manzana Verde.

9:00- 10:00 Noticias y Comentarios. This one is a bit more blurry in my memory since I was in school at this time or would turn off the radio to go do chores.

10:00- 11:00: Nothing memorable

11:00- 12:00 : Vicente Fernandez y Amigos. Aaahhhh!! All time favorite. How awesome does one have to be to get a radio show for 1 whole hour!!! They would alternate one Vicente Fernandez song, one of somebody else from the wide selection of Mexican Mariachi singers. I would always hope they would play one of my favorite Vicente Fernandez songs, Por Tu Maldito Amor y Aunque Mal Paguen Ellas.

12:00- 1:00: Telefono Directo- The complaint hotline. People from the town would call and complain about trash not being picked up, about their neighbors, about things that the borough had not taken care of… it was wildly entertaining!

1:00- 3:00:  Musica Grupera- Around 1990 Musica Grupera became very popular with new Grupos, like Grupo Liberacion, Grupo Libra, Grupo Ilucion. Grupos were bands of 4-5 men who sang romantic music. I was into Musica Grupera for about a year around 1990… Selena would play on this hour, and she was one of my favorites, for obvious reasons… Feisty female singer in an industry where only men were successful.

3:00- 6:00 : Regular programming, which was mostly pop music.

6:00- 7:00 : Hora de Banda. Traditional Banda music, like El Recodo, Banda Limon, Banda Maguey, Joan Sebastian. I didn’t’ listen to this one as much, TV took over.

7:00- 8:00- Las viejitas de ayer- Oldies but goodies, at the time they played music from the 70s, 60s and I loved it .

8:00- 9:00 – Musica tropical- Mostly cumbia, to my misfortune I didn’t really start listening to Cumbia until I moved to PA.

Couple other things that I remember about the radio station was that most of the Radio Locutores were men, and they sounded so very handsome… who knows, most likely they looked like dogs! But I still had a voice crush on them. When I lived in Mexico Radio Alegria was not very friendly on playing music that was sang in English, or Rock. I got my Rock music and English music from another Radio station as I tried to find myself.

Pandora Radio doesn’t compare to my Radio Alegria, which will hold a special place on my memories of music for the rest of my life.

The scent of Navidad - Lui

Traditionally in the United States the scent of Christmas is gingerbread, pine, candy canes, sugar cookies, and maybe chocolate. I never thought about the scent of Christmas in Mexico until one day while visiting an office for work.  At this office they had Christmas decorations and the most distinctive Christmas scent I have experienced since moving to USA.

Growing up in Mexico Christmas is a very drawn out ordeal, being a very catholic county we drag out the entire event and make it about the Super Star of the show Baby Jesus and his birth. We do the traditional Novena, prior to his birth, or what we traditionally call Posadas.

Las Posadas that we used to go to growing up were held at Doña Gaby’s house. About a block away, past the factory, the bike shop and the mysterious store that closed down. My mom knew Doña Gaby from selling her seeds for her birds and chickens. Doña Gaby lived in a small house, with her single daughter Trinidad, who we all knew only as Trini. Their Posadas were mostly people from the neighborhood, her daughter and her kids, her son and his kids, the people who lived next to her, the lady who owned the store by the bridge, and a few others who lived close by. All together we rocked the posadas for the 10 years that I remember.

Every kid’s favorite part of Las Posadas is always the Aguinaldos… the treats given at the end of the Posada. There were 9 days of posadas and 1 guest who was in charge of the Aguinaldos each year.  My mom would have a day each year and we would always be recruited to help.

An Aguinaldo is a bag of yummy goodness, packed with the traditional treats for Christmas. The basic staples for Anguinaldos are peanuts, animal crackers, an orange and a tangerine… all of this packed in a bag are the scent of Christmas for me.

I had never realized how much I would miss Las Posadas, or the scent of peanuts, animal cracker, oranges and tangerine in a bag and how much they all together would bring me the scent of Christmas. When I walked into that office was when it all came rushing back, one of their staff was eating a tangerine in her desk and it could be smelled throughout the small office, it only took me 15 Christmases in USA to figure out that I missed something so small about my Navidad in Mexico.

If it wasn’t for that person in the office eating her tangerine, I would have never connected the scent of tangerine to my Christmas. I would have kept thinking of pozole or tamales…. So Thank you random person in Newport PA, thank you for eating a tangerine at your desk and brining back the wonderful memories of my Christmas in Mexico.

Las lecturas - Lui

Las lecturas
Growing up I always liked reading... Didn't realize how much I had read until the last few years thinking about how I read my son books now.
My mom has always been very well read, she wanted to go to
School to be a teacher, but for reasons beyond her she wasn't able to. She always had books in the house and my grandfather was the only person that I remember reading the newspaper in my family.
Mom used to take us to the magazine shop and let us each pick our own magazine or comic book, she would get one too. I used to get Archie, and I remember my mom used to get either a cowboy adult comic novel or a mystery adult comic novel. For reasons beyond my imagination my mom used to let me read her adult novels... Which could have very graphic pictures and descriptions of very adult subjects. I didnt realize then what those were, only cares about reading.
Mom also used to get Good Housekeeping in Spanish and I used to read the articles in it. Once there was an article about different ways to style hair for the beach, and one of them was Sexy... I didn't know what that was so I asked my mom, she didnt want to tell me and demanded to know where I had seen that word; imagine that, she would let me read the adult mystery comic novels with sex scenes drawn in them, but freaked out when I asked what sexy meant!!! My mom is too funny!
I also read my older sister's science book and did half of the experiments in the book, the ones that the ingredients were available to me.
Also read stories of the Bible, which explained to more about God and life than my catecismo teacher had.
When my dad brought us books from USA to start practicing English I read those too... But found the pictures so violent that I had to put them away for a while.
I don't know how many books I have read in my life, but I know there is so much more to be discovered in the wonderful world of them.

The places we could go to by Lui

Hermanitas and I spent a wonderful 20 hours in NYC, where we travel to every year for a concert; Enrique Bunbury every year. We have gotten incredibly lucky that he has come there 3 years in a row, and hope for 4; we'll just have to see.

Almost every time we go we ask the same thing, if we would have stayed in yuriria, would we be doing this trip... And where would we go?

Most of us left there being too young to travel to the next town over without proper permission and adult supervision. As we were getting our documentation ready to travel to USA we had a number of trips under our belt, Leon twice, and Ciudad Juarez. Both with mom and dad, both with limited sight seeing or souvenir
hunting.

Mom did an absolutely wonderful job at taking us places, and letting us go in school field trips to see more places. We all had been to Morelia and Leon, where I had visited the zoo and planetarium.... Where I wanted to move to...

Thinking of our young age and where we had been I can say with certainty that we would travel to Leon to see Bunbury, that we could travel to Morelia to spend the day, that we would even venture as far as Acapulco to go
To the beach, and could even travel to mexico city just for fun.

Sisters and I have had our opportunity at wonderful trips, Philadelphia, Washington, New York city, Las Vegas... The more adventurous have been all over Europe, Spain, Paris, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Czech Republic.

No matter what country we are in, we have the adventure gene given to us by our parents an grandparents, and would continue to embrace it and find things in the world... Next in the agenda for sisters and I ... Nina wants to see the 7 wonders of the world, Bety wants to go to Japan, I'm on my way to Miami Florida and want to take my son to Australia.