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| Josie and Andy, a long way from Mitic and Huejucar, Jalisco, 1947 |
I must have been young, under five-years-of-age when I first heard the Spanish word “mandado,” vague, mysterious, never specific. I’m thinking about it now because I’ve reached the same age as my elders who would tell me they were going on “Un mandao,” some type of "mission" in my young mind.
As I child,
I spent a lot of time around my Spanish-speaking grandmother, aunts and uncles,
many of them migrants from Mexico, or maybe “refugees” is a better word, since
they fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the brutal tyranny
of the Diaz regime, his corrupt authorities, and the soldiers, rebels, and
bandits who raided ranches and villages, like Mitic (Mee-teek), my ancestors' ranch, taking whatever they pleased,
including women. The church wasn’t much help. Mostly, its hierarchy sided with
the government, seeing the rebels as Godless heathens and Porfirio Diaz as
God’s representative on earth.
They
brought only what they could carry or stuff in suitcases. For my grandparents,
it must have been a punishing slog, five-children in tow, the oldest barely
ten-years-old. They traveled by coach, train, wagon, and on foot, stopping so my
grandfather could find work, make a little money, and continue their trek to
Los Angeles, where they had family in Santa Monica, a place they knew was near
the coast and employers were hungry for cheap labor.
My uncle, Yndalecio,
“Andy” to us kids, used the word regularly. “Voy por un mandado,” he’d say,
only he’d pronounce the word, “mandao,” swallowing the last syllable, like a
Spaniard from Andalucia, those who rode with Cortez when he conquered the Aztec
Empire and later flooded into the wilds of Nueva Galicia, which later
became Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Michoacan, and Jalisco, Andy’s
birthplace, home to many light skin, blue-eyed Mexicans.
Sometimes, Andy
would surprise me and take me with him, but usually he’d go alone, a short
half mile walk from his home in Santa Monica, up to 14th Street and
Olympic Boulevard, a small business section, with a market, barber shop, pool
hall, bar, and café, where everybody spoke Spanish. I enjoyed when he stopped
at Gallegos Market and let me pick a toy from a rack filled with plastic
packages, inside cheap, colorful toys. He’d usually buy pan dulce, fresh corn tortillas, and whatever my aunt, Josie, told him she needed. Today, the location
of the original Gallegos Market is an overpass above the I-10, or Santa Monica
Freeway, today.
If he told me I couldn’t go on his “Mandao,” I knew he was stopping by the pool hall for a beer and to talk to his friends.
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| Both Mexican and American |
In the
1950s, my childless aunt, Maria Josefina, "Josie," to us kids, and uncle would offer my parents some much needed relief
by stopping by to pick me up and take me home for the night. I was the oldest
of five kids. You bet my mom jumped at the offer. Sometimes, I stayed a night
or two, and often for the entire weekend. My aunt and uncle’s house became
my sanctuary, where I was an “only child,” fawned over and given free reign of
the old homestead.
A young couple, looking for cheap rent, my parents lived in different Westside communities, but eventually bought a home in West Los Angeles, my dad’s hometown, bordering Santa Monica, which, in those days, was a beach resort, a cool respite for those escaping the inland heat, and a place whose dry climate drew many East Coast and Midwesterners to it beaches, looking to recuperate from various respiratory illnesses, like tuberculosis.
It’s where my mother’s parents', Eusebia and Nicolas Gonzalez, bought a home in the 1920s, near the town’s two brickyards, a major employer of Mexican labor, and where many workers toiled for years breathing in tiny particles of brick dust, and more than a few succumbed to “miner’s lung,” like my grandfather, Nicolas, once a rancher's son, who died in 1940 or so, his last years suffering from emphysema and coughing up bits of his deteriorating lungs.
As a
toddler, I spent much time at my grandmother’s home, a palace in my childhood mind, but pictures show more of worker's shanty at the top of the hill,
on 22nd Street, just off Olympic Boulevard, surrounded by other shanties inhabited, mostly, by friends and relatives, the Sotos, Garcia's, Guajardos, and Romos, from Mitic and other ranches, not far from the San Juan de Los Lagos, a sacred center for pilgrims from all over Mexico. It was in Jalisco’s highlands, "Los Altos," the people called it, a real battle front during the Mexican Revolution and the Cristeros War, in the 1920s. Though they believed they were coming temporarily, to work and to weather the clouds of war, most never returned, their children integrating into American life, Mexico a world away.
Marrying in
their late forties, my aunt, Josie, and uncle, Andy,
purchased a charming one-and-a-half-bedroom home, on 12th Street, a mile from my grandmother’s house and closer to the ocean. Some days, I could smell salt
and fish in the air, to a kid with a wild imagination, more invigorating than
pungent. Sundays, my aunt and I would walk to Ocean Park, see a movie, stroll along the boardwalk and stop at Top's, a greasy spoon, at the corner of Lincoln and Pico, to share one of the most delicious pastramis in town. We usually took the bus home, if we were too tired
to walk.
Back in the
40’s and 50s, they described Santa Monica as a worker’s paradise, a shared existence with the
wealthy who lived farther north, the entire region tranquil and soothing. In those days, living
close to the ocean wasn’t the big deal it is today, where people pay millions for a small plot of land near the beach.
In the old days, living too close to the ocean meant being shoe-horned into a
small cottage or frame home, suffering through cold, foggy, overcast days, in
winter, and humid days in summer, the smell of mildew in closets, sometimes
mold growing in corners.
Laborers, like the Mexicans, Oklahoma and Arkansas dust-bowlers, Japanese, and smattering of African Americans, it was more about being close to the work site than close to the ocean. Back then, the land was less developed, miles of farmland, and there were shacks for the laborers scattered throughout different communities. After Abbot Kinney’s canal fiasco, the discovery of oil in Venice, oil derricks shot up everywhere, and property values crashed. Beatniks, bikers, and drunks took up residence along the boardwalks and arcades, the Westside's beach communities weren't so glamorous.
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| My grandmother, Eusebia, holding me, a newborn |
In one
journal, the Franciscan friar, Crespi, wrote about his expedition stopping to
rest at an Indian encampment on a bluff about one league from the ocean, where
a spring provided the villagers with fresh drinking water. Historians concluded
the friar’s description sounded much like the spring that flowed on the campus
of University High School. The friar wrote how the springs reminded him of the
tears St. Monica shed for her wayward son, Augustine, “las lagrimas de Santa
Monica.” The name stuck. The flow of water, now blocked, on the high school campus known as Indian Springs.
*****
Mandado is a complex word, with origins in the noun “manda,” which means a promise, a gift, to bequeath, or a religious vow. Then there’s the verb “mandar,” which is more of an order, a command, or decree. It can also connote “to dominate, to start, to deliver, as in a blow, or to throw, as in 'throw a stone.'” Cubans and Chileans use the word to say “leave” or “go away.” In Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay it can mean to offer a drink, or to undertake an errand, as in my uncle’s case.
When I returned from Vietnam, my mother told me, while I was away, she had flown to Mexico City to make a "manda," a pilgrimage, to visit the Virgin and pray for my safe return from the war. My mother never realized how her "manda" may have pulled me out of a few jams, true miracles.
I wonder if
in my uncle’s mind, when he said “mandado,” it could have meant so much more to
him than it meant to me, an English dominant and Spanish deficient American
kid. When he told me he was going on a “mandado,” and I couldn't go, to me, it meant he was off to see his friends at the barber shop or pool hall. After, he'd return with a bag of pan dulce, tortillas, maybe cotijo cheese, that smelled
awful, or sometimes a rock-hard cylinder of chocolate he’d boil to make hot
chocolate, which I’d take a knife to and cut off a slice to eat, like
Hershey’s. Sometimes, our elders pass on rituals without even knowing it.
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| a funky neighborhood, even a smog check business |
Today, in the mornings, as I’ve retired and passed my uncle’s age, I've adopted his ritual. I go each morning for my own mandado, because of a car, my range farther than his. I might drive to a different part of town, Mar Vista, Palms, Venice, Rancho Park, Culver City, and Santa Monica, just to wander about. Often, though, like this evening, I walked along Venice Boulevard, two blocks from my home, past a motley assortment of storefronts, a smog/auto repair shop, a tattoo parlor, a hairstylist, art gallery, a Pho noodle shop, and a nondescript apartment complex.
On the next blocks there are Middle Eastern, Himalayan, East Indian, South American, and Mexican restaurants. Sometimes, I just walk, listen, gab, and
gaze, but other times, like today, I was on a mandado, an errand, like my uncle Andy, and I stopped at the Camaguey Market for fruit, milk, and oatmeal. The checkout girls all know me.
Originally
a Cuban grocery store, Camaguey, what the local kids call, “Cama-gooey,” now
caters to Latinos of all stripes, college students, Muslims, Hindus, and some Africans, exotic spices hanging on one rack.
There’s a butcher in the back, carne asada, marinated, and ready to go. There are all kinds of fruits and vegetables, not just
bananas but plantains, nopales, cut up in a bag or a de-spined leaf. Near the counter, there is a wall of ointments and salves, candles in glass
imprinted with the Virgin Mary, and some stuff that might be used in Santeria
ceremonies, and at the rear, two women cook Brazilian food.
Next door
to Camaguey, is the Venice Bakery and Restaurant, in business now thirty-plus years. I bought two bolillos, and a
treat, today's special, fresh tamales. "I'll take uno de cada uno," I told the girl, who spoke both Spanish and English, fluently, so went back and forth between languages. The bakery carries warm breads, freshly squeezed juices, pan dulce and a Cuban desert, pastelitos de guayaba, tres leches, choco-flan, all sorts of cakes and muffins. The restaurant serves a fusion of Cuban, Mexican, and
Central American cuisine. On weekends, it's hard to find a place to sit.
When I
moved into the neighborhood, in 2000, on my early mandaos, I noticed the Bakery was a meeting place for
older Cuban exiles, who sat out front, seemingly, all morning, drinking coffee, slapping down
dominoes, and talking vociferously about whatever was on their mind, sports, politics, even about Fidel and his brother, Raul. I
wouldn’t doubt some of them had been at la bahia de los cochinos, the Bay of Pigs, in the
early 60s. One or two might have even been Cuban spies, picking up whatever
intel they could send back to Havana. No matter, they’re all gone, now replaced by a strong contingent of Mexicans and Central Americans, college students, and locals.
So, when my
uncle would tell me he was going on a “mandao,” he might or might not have meant an
errand. It could have been more like a foot-cruise, since he didn’t really
like driving and kept his light blue 1953 Chevy, spotless, in the garage. Maybe he'd take a wayward stroll, or
an exploratory expedition into a different neighborhood, what my friend Michael
Sedano calls, “A walkabout,” in the Aussie "outback" tradition.
He might have gone on an unplanned stop at a friend’s house for a sip of brandy. He may have just wanted to walk around the local park, Memorial Park. Maybe he just wanted to breathe in the cool, afternoon ocean air, and reminisce about the past, about the family he left behind in Mexico years earlier, a poor village of Huejucar, in Jalisco, where he returned only once to visit and vowed never to return.
I know it’s what I do as I walk, go for my mandao, reminisce about
the past, maybe more than I’d like, but I don’t want to forget about the future,
even if only for one more day, the end of the line not so far as it once was but just as bright, maybe brighter.
