Civil Code of 1941 states very clearly: “All marriages
of white persons with Negroes, Mongolians, members
of the Malay race, or mulattoes are illegal
and void.”
No intermarriage is allowed,
so why weren’t Mexicans
included?
It’s a detail overlooked
by the law, one that means
las señoritas de la USO
can marry white sailors,
but they can’t marry blacks,
so all this scandalous
interracial
jazz dancing
might sooner or later
lead to CRIMES OF THE HEART,
a passionate headline
with a bittersweet
echoing sound
that makes
lonely housewives
pay attention
to my articles.
I imagine the sailors
and police
notice too.
After fear, my next-best seller
is anger.
After the Imaginary Great Air Raid
Reporter #2
Last year’s Japanese invasion of Los Angeles
never happened, but predicting that it would
helped us sell plenty of newspapers,
and now this interracial dancing
angle
might be almost
as profitable.
Why wait for real-life drama
when I can just go ahead
and speculate?
Helping Abuela in the Backyard
Ray
With zoot suits dangerously illegal, my parents
make me stay home and scrub laundry
in a shed, or hoe weeds in the victory garden,
eggplant, jicama, okra, tomatoes,
jalapeños, cilantro, squash,
it’s amazing how many flavors
can be angrily yanked from the earth
when my grandma uses my muscles
and her faith in the generosity
of dirt.
Rice, potatoes, flour, pinto beans,
I’m sent to the store to fetch big cloth
sacos filled with food, then I help Abuela
bleach the sacks—girls’ work,
so I absolutely refuse
to have anything to do
with stitching bean sack clothing
or embroidering flowery
designs.
Memorias
Abuela
I remember long ago
when I was young enough
to climb a pepper tree at home
in México,
or play
at making snails race,
then run, run, run away
when the soldiers
of Pancho Villa
came.
¿Cómo es posible que una vida—one life
can hold
both the revolution
of 1910 in my birth tierra
and this worldwide guerra now,
with my oldest grandson gone
and the young one always
in trouble?
Patches of Time
Ray
Tierra. Earth.
Guerra. War.
So many rhymes
inside my grandma’s
tired old mind.
It’s easy to watch her twirl a polka,
then show her my own
modern moves.
Together we laugh
as she tries to imitate
my COOL new way
of inventing
a HOPPING jitterbug
garden-crossing step.
By the time we’re finished, it’s hard to say
whether we’re dancing through her youth
or mine.
The Month of Flowers
Lorena
Voladas, our grandma calls us, flown girls,
carried away by a wind
of wildness.
So we quiet down as we obediently agree
to carry flowers to the altar of María
each evening in May, marching in a long
procession of girls and women, all of us
dressed in white, our heads covered
with lacy veils, as we deliver armloads
of homegrown roses, el ofrecimiento,
an offering and a plea
for the safety
of soldiers,
our brother
overseas.
Las voladas
Marisela
Las voladas is a criticism
meaning “flown-away girls,”
but I love the soaring SOUND!
If only I really could FLY up high and FAR away
from the painful SIGHT
of gold stars in windows,
each one in honor of a father, son,
or brother
lost
FOREVER.
Inside each of those grieving homes
there’s a funeral flag, folded
and treasured,
all the stars
of the U.S.
sparkling
with SORROW.
Sneaking OUT
Ray
I know I’m not supposed to wear my cool suit,
but I’m a ZOOT cat, hip cat, Lindy Hopping vato LOCO,
so I won’t let anyone tell me how to dress
or when to go out dancing, sí, simón, I slip away
no matter how often Papá warns me,
and even when Mami tries
to make me feel guilty
by praying for the safety
of Nicolás,
I still climb
over the windowsill
at midnight
when everyone else
is sleeping.
I wear a black hat
to cover up my ducktail hair,
and shoe soles that I made myself,
building them up high
with old tire rubber,
just like huarache sandals
from Tijuana,
so they’ll
last longer
and save leather,
helping the war effort—but also
a double-thick sole works like an anchor,
making me strong
when I lift a girl
UP
over my head,
swing her HIGH,
make her FLY,
turning both of us
into dance contest
SUPER-heroes!
Robbed
Ray
Policemen are supposed to protect people.
Instead they yell, spin me around,
order me to take off my shoes
then my socks
naked feet
exposed heart
all my feelings
so OPENLY displayed
on the surface
of my face.
When they toss my shoes and socks
into their car, I RACE away, barefoot
on the spit-stained
ugliness
of sidewalks,
strangers laughing
STRANGELY.
Did You See That Dark Kid?
Sailor #1
Cops sent him home barefoot.
They even made him take off his socks!
Deadly weapons, that’s what those foreign shoes are,
the homemade ones with thick rubber soles
that must weigh as much
as a brick.
City life is so lively that the sight
of a shoeless Spanish boy makes me laugh
even louder and longer than that newspaper cartoon
about Zoot Suit Yokum, the stupidest guy
in the world, a not-super-hero so dumb
that all us navy recruits argue
about who gets to read
the Sunday funny section
first.
It’s a
lways me.
I win because I’ve got the most muscular
attitude in the world.
Feeling Like a Bully
Sailor #2
I don’t like the way laughing
at that barefoot kid made me feel,
but still, Zoot Suit Yokum is so silly
and foolish
that I tell myself
we’re just having
a bit of fun in this big, wild city
before heading out to kill
or be
killed.
Any teen in a big suit must know
that he’s taking the risk of being
stripped down to ridiculous
naked
feet.
Barefoot?
Mami
¿Sin zapatos?
¡Ay, no!
Dios, protect Nicolás from los Nazis
and Ray from la policía right here
in our own
city.
Imagínate, God, how it feels for a mother
to work hard, hard, hard
just so her children
never have to run
shoeless
like I did
when I was little, so many sharp
rocks, shells, and broken bottles
hidden in beach sand,
slicing
my bare toes.
City Life or Countryside?
Papá
The work was a lot harder
when we followed crops,
moving every season,
never feeling settled,
no chance for our children
Now Ray is the only one still studying,
I couldn’t keep the girls from dropping out,
but look at him, beaten up, barefoot, ashamed,
maybe he’d be better off if we’d stayed
out on the road, Lost Hills for cotton,
Sanger in peach season,
no place to dance
in fancy clothes
that pull like a magnet,
attracting attention,
policía,
trouble.
June Gloom Comes Early
Lorena
Fog is on its way.
There will be no work.
The lag between seasons
so endless
once spinach is over,
and peaches
won’t start
until agosto
swimming season
August heat
crazy
loco.
So I work with Abuela
in her quiet little victory garden,
where she tends fruit trees
and vegetables,
all these patches of hot chiles
so spicy
that red heat
scalds my fingertips
just as brightly
as any cooking flame.
Food grown at home
means less bought in stores,
leaving plenty
for the army,
navy,
marines.
All Marisela ever talks about
is her favorite cubano musician,
the one she calls Manolito, showing
that she knows him, and maybe they’ve
already crossed the line way past friendship,
but Ray likes to speculate—which
military branch
will he choose
when he’s old enough
to fight and die for
our country.
I agree that marines have
the most attractive uniforms,
but there’s something to be said
for the air force, warplanes
soaring high above our heads
on their way
to wherever Nico
might be wishing
to be rescued,
or waiting
to be
buried.
MIA.
Missing in action.
It’s a gloomy,
pre-June telegram
that sends all of us
on a pilgrimage
to an altar
on a hilltop.
While the rest of us walk slowly,
our bodies and minds weighed down by horror,
Abuela travels on her knees, letting the road’s
rough gravel
scrape her skin,
a plea
made of flesh,
her prayer
a trail
of raw,
bleeding
hope.
Fear
Ray
MIA means “missing in action,”
but in Spanish it also means mía,
“mine, belonging to me,”
like that day last month when I walked
on my own two straight piernas, my legs,
while Abuela shuffled painfully along
on her bent, bleeding knees.
I felt so useless and selfish,
just a little kid who can’t fight beside
my brother, or search when he
goes missing.
I know the prayers
flowers
altars
make my grandma feel dream-filled
and hopeful,
but I need a plea
that I can experience in my bones,
not just words in my mind,
so I DANCE
all alone
each night
at home
while everyone else
is asleep
and only God
sees me
furiously
leaping. . . .
Mind in the AIR
heart on the ground
my silent
prayer
for Nico
RISES
and floats.
Divided
Marisela
My dreams and heart
are spinning all over
moonlit
dance floor
with MANOLITO . . .
but the rest of me
stays close to Abuela
and my mother,
helping them pray
for my missing
brother.
Nonsense
Lorena
A few nights after the procession
to that hilltop altar of Santa María,
we danced at the Aragon Ballroom
on the Venice pier, until sailors
got drunk and chased Ray
onto the beach,
then the boardwalk,
a crowded trail
of chaos
that suddenly turned
into a fight . . .
but my little brother
wasn’t the only kid
kicking and punching,
even though he was one
of the few
arrested.
How can something
as simple
and ordinary
as a jitterbug
get so twisted,
like a vine
on a fence,
tendrils
of fear
twining
high
as we
desperately
try
to grasp
calm
common
sense?
Vision
Ray
All I did was defend my sisters
against wolf-whistling brutos.
I wasn’t even wearing my cool
zoot drapes.
But cops always see me
as an invading foreigner
who walks and talks
with too much
CONFIDENCE.
Being a citizen born in the U.S. is never
enough protection, so from now on
maybe I’ll thi
nk of myself
as a wanderer,
not shut out
or locked in
but separate and FREE.
Punished
Marisela
Radio newsmen call us wild.
Printed headlines make us sound even worse,
using words like immoral, dangerous, vile.
Everyone talks like we’re the ones who are SCARY!
All Lorena and I did was DANCE,
and Ray just fought back
when he was ATTACKED.
Ay, how beautifully I tried to fly above the floor,
and now I’m scolded by Mami and Papá,
who don’t seem to believe in my innocence.
What if I’m not allowed to be a jazz owl anymore?
My sister and I still need to go out, work hard,
and bring home money, walking back late
with our chaperone, Ray,
who never stops risking his life
to escort us.
Maybe I really do need to be more cautious
like Lorena.
Ready for Anything
Reporter #1
Rowdy.
Riled up.
I choose my ominous R words carefully,
trying to describe rumbles of restlessness
in the ramshackle neighborhood
where Mexicans have been brooding
for a long time, angry because their shacks
were torn down to build that sturdy armory
for training new sailors and stockpiling
ferocious war weapons.
Now it’s all finally turning into a real story!
Sailors scare local girls.
Zooters frighten navy wives.
A military man’s car cuts in front
of local teens who are walking around
in their fancy suits, just waiting
to break beer bottles
and challenge authority.
Retaliation. Revenge.
When the inevitable turmoil
finally rises up, I’ll be there,
ready to write
about
rage.
One word that I plan to repeat over and over
in this long article about dangerous influences
is Afro-Cuban, with respect to music,
because it sounds even more vicious
than Aztec warriors
demanding
a sacrifice.
Latin dance.
That’s what the other reporters prefer.
Latin jazz.
Yeah, even older readers love the rhumba,
so they feel more comfortable with words
that make people think of tropical romance,
but comfort doesn’t move newspapers.