JE#10

For me, these were the ten most memorable characters I’ve met this quarter:

Diego, David, Nancy, Mama Chona, Pilar, Border Brujo, Concha, Ivon, Ximena, Lydia.

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Border Brujo: Bienvenidos/as to the 2013 Summit on Silence, en El Paso, Tejas. Lydia has opened up her home for our meeting. We are gathered here today to speak about silence. Together we will exorcise with the word the demons our cultures have placed within us. We will speak about the silences we have experienced or kept. With us today to participate in this diálogo are Mama Chona, Lydia, Pilar, Concha, and Ivon.  Madres e hijas who will share their experiences of silence on the border.

Ivon: I’ll start. Before I couldn't speak to my mom about anything, I couldn't be who I am when I’m home in El Paso. Now that my mom has opened up her ears to listen, we are starting on a new path towards understanding.

Mama Chona: Maybe if your mother had taught you more proper Spanish, you would be able to speak to each other. I taught my children to speak and act like proper Mexicanos, even though some of them married wives I don’t approve of.

Border Brujo: You speak, therefore you are misinterpreted.

Concha: At least you can still try to speak to your mother, all I ever wanted was recognition from my mother, and she abandoned me without explaining why. After that I was left alone with the silence of the dessert. I passed this silence along to my daughter.

Pilar: As mothers, we do what we know is best for our children. Like Mama Chona is saying, we raise them to be hijas and hijos buneos, to not get in any trouble, to not abandon their religion. My daughter, Julia, abandoned her identity and her religion, everything we taught her.

Lydia: Yes, I did what I could with my daughters. I always thought it was Ivon’s lifestyle that has brought so much misfortune upon our family, that she caused her father’s death and her sister’s kidnapping. But now I am coming to love Ivon’s pareja and their son.

Concha: I wish I had more time with my daughter, Rosa. We had to work so hard up until she married and left. There was so much I should have told her, but didn’t know how.

Mama Chona: I never wanted to tell my children about their history, I didn’t want them to know.

Ivon: I think if we’ve learned anything from this summit and from this past quarter, it's that learning and speaking about our histories is the most important way we can come to love and understand each other.

Pilar: I can’t talk to my daughter, now that she converted. She rejected us.

Mama Chona: If everyone could stay true to what we as mothers taught, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Ivon: Yes, but don’t you think the silence is more harmful than productive? Even if talking is painful?

Lydia: I am learning that yes, you’re right. I implore the other mothers to follow my example. I tried it, and we still have a long way to go.

Border Brujo: Mothers and daughters, will you try to break the cycle of silence? 

...

END.