Everybody Is Nobody

Banned Book Report:

Nobody’s Son: Notes From An American Life, by Luis Alberto Urrea. Tucson, U. of A. Press, 1998

Information that is frightening to the rich and powerful should be the headline, the lead story, shouted, shared and splattered over the Interzone. As if it might change their minds.

Last June the Arizona Department of Education [sic] shut down the “Mexican American Studies” curriculum in Tucson schools, and in December a judge “justified” the action. No matter that students in the program had a nearly 50% higher graduation rate than the rest of the kids. The law (ARS 15-112) says you can’t teach a class aimed at a specific ethnic group. What this really means is that you can’t teach a version other than the “white”-washed European version.

No one is disputing the accuracy or quality of the censored texts; only whether they should be taught. So I borrowed one from the (socialist!) local library, to see what frightened the cowardly government into suppression of knowledge in the public schools.

“Nobody’s Son” might be a reference to Richard Wright’s classic “Native Son”, since the main characters could both be said to be an offspring of the societies that spawned them. Or not. This is not an epic novel, but a collection of stories from childhood, cultural criticism, and existential introspection.

Nobody’s Son is also the title of the first section, the tale of Urrea’s conflicted parentage, citizenship, childhood, and language. Blue-eyed Mexican dad, New York mom, rough ‘hoods, typical poor childhood and atypically vicious family fights, sometimes race-related. Harrowing and darkly entertaining, but nothing new as crappy childhoods go. And nearly all of us south, central and north Americans are mongrels.

The English language is a mixed breed to begin with, he notes, it’s impossible to speak “English Only.” No argument here; for business reasons alone it’s wise to be bilingual in border states. Intentionally creating misunderstanding does not help if we actually want “justice for all.”

His dad teaches him to be proud to be a “greaser.” Mexicans repaired the pioneer wagons and greased the westward wheels. “So when they call you that, hold your head up. It’s a badge of honor. We helped build America.” (p. 10) That seems safe, patriotic, and inclusive. Does suggesting Mexicans belong here threaten the power structure?

By the time Salem, Massachusetts was founded, his Spanish ancestors “…had been prowling up and down the Pacific coast of our continent for several decades. Of course, the Indian mothers of these families had been here from the start. But manifest destiny took care of us all—while we greased the wheels.

“Them wagons is still rollin’.” (p. 12)

Maybe this is where the book starts stepping on toes. To point out the fact that the war on native peoples is ongoing, is to subvert the accepted historical narrative. The United States is still trying to steal Natives’ water and land, and suppress what remains of their devastated cultures. Courts and classrooms are now the battleground; lawyers, judges, and legislators have replaced the cowboys and cavalry. Every treaty has been broken and innocents still die unnecessarily. The powerful may prefer to hide this fact lest we withdraw our silent assent.

Part two of the book is five short pieces, the first a fun memoir of early childhood in Tijuana. Life itself is “magical realism” when everyone believes in ghosts. Reminded me of my own hijinks, raised among religious folk. And, like mine, his childhood playground is now in the shade of a freeway.

Next is the obligatory “growing up Catholic” piece that everyone who grew up Catholic seems compelled to recount. The twist is the religious discrimination sub-text; black, white, or brown, you got beat up if you got caught wearing the Catholic school garb. This section made me laugh a few times, and ends with young Urrea getting a nun-administered ass-whipping, as if his street battles weren’t enough.

I guessed what the Ed Abbey essay was about before I started it. Abbey was pretty flagrantly racist toward Mexicans, but Urrea decides to forgive him and accept the rest of Abbey’s work anyhow. Which is what I had to do way back; you don’t have to like everything your favorite writers crank out. This section felt like it was stuck in to make the book fatter.

“Whores” is seething revenge on the macho culture that made his childhood miserable. After supper at a family holiday, a group of the most macho make a visit to a low rent Tijuana house of ill repute. As he recounts the darkly comedic evening, he savagely attacks the misogynist and bullying aspects of Mexican culture. A lot of solid punches in a short piece, angry and heart-rending.

 

“Sanctuary” is the strongest piece in the book. Chronically ill, with both parents working, the author ends up in the hands of his father’s co-worker’s “hillbilly” family. He gets well, but also learns how a loving household functions.

His own home felt like a battleground, but

 “At Mama Chayo’s house, however, everyone was loved. Period. There was always enough love to go around….

“By love I don’t mean drippy sentiment…. Love, in that house, was a bedrock fact, not discussed nor fretted over, never analyzed and barely recognized. Love simply was.”

Abelino and Mama Chayo “…had been married forever, and they still loved each other enough that they could love everybody else. True love seems to be a spiritual loaves and fishes; it doesn’t get used up, but keeps regenerating itself to feed all comers.” (p. 133)

The young author learned from his saviors what happiness feels like.

Mama Chayo dies suddenly of a stroke, and

“Right at the end, after all the many mourners had passed by…right before they closed the box forever and carried it to the hearse, Abelino stepped up to her. He didn’t weep. He stood silently, gazing down at his one love, his one true destined love, the companion of more than a lifetime, and he studied her face. Then, with no emotion showing on his face, he reached into the coffin and put his palm against her cheek. His big, iron, calloused worker’s hand. It trembled slightly, and it landed on her flesh as delicately as one of her butterflies. Just a second, no more. But all the love in the world was there, in his palm. All the love in the universe, and all the tenderness, and all the grief, and all the beauty collected there in his hand and lay against her lovely cheek.” (p. 151)

My God, people! You mean these Mexicans are capable of love like everyone else? Bad news for racists: you are wasting a lot of time, energy, and hate; people are the same everywhere.

The last section of the book is a meandering reverie, of a road trip undertaken after the death of his mother. Having driven many an aimless road trip across the same intermountain west, I found it a bit dull. The “old west” is full of weird people, far from their ancestral home, often stupid and/or xenophobic.

In that sense, this section serves once again to connect Urrea to the rest of us. Nearly all of us in the western States and northern Mexico are from somewhere else, rootless hungry ghosts. And, people are strange when you’re a stranger. I am fourth generation in Arizona but I still feel like a tourist sometimes.

Nobody’s son turns out to be everybody’s. Cultural differences aside, we’re all just humans and the way forward is with love. What sort of racist brutes would suppress such information? The good old-fashioned Arizona Department of Education [sic]! The common humanity of “Nobody’s Son” is a refreshing and often humorous antidote to such intentional hate and ignorance.

%$#@!

Do Not Be Ashamed

You will be walking some night

 in the comfortable dark of your yard

 and suddenly a great light will shine

 round about you, and behind you

 will be a wall you never saw before.

 It will be clear to you suddenly

 that you were about to escape,

 and that you are guilty: you misread

 the complex instructions, you are not

 a member, you lost your card

 or never had one. And you will know

 that they have been there all along,

 their eyes on your letters and books,

 their hands in your pockets,

 their ears wired to your bed.

 Though you have done nothing shameful,

 they will want you to be ashamed.

 They will want you to kneel and weep

 and say you should have been like them.

 And once you say you are ashamed,

 reading the page they hold out to you,

 then such light as you have made

 in your history will leave you.

 They will no longer need to pursue you.

 You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.

 They will not forgive you.

 There is no power against them.

 It is only candor that is aloof from them,

 only an inward clarity, unashamed,

 that they cannot reach. Be ready.

 When their light has picked you out

 and their questions are asked, say to them:

 "I am not ashamed." A sure horizon

 will come around you. The heron will begin

 his evening flight from the hilltop.

-Wendell Berry