EL PASO'S CITY council is planning
to demolish the historic Segundo Barrio
where much of the Mexican revolution was
plotted and planned, where Pancho Villa
ate ice cream cones and his men got drunk and went to
church, where Francisco Madero plotted & where
Mariano Azuela finished the classic novel, Los de abajo. And
where Teresita and Tomás went to live after the
older city council forced them out of their house
up on the hill for attracting too many unsavory Mexicans.
Same as it ever was.
So now the city wants to tear down the historic
Mexican village in the heart of the city and at the heart of the history of both countries, and they want to replace it with a “Lifestyle Center.” A shopping mall. I was sad
when my ol’ pal Susie Byrd explained: They will tear down the Mexican village to build a faux representative Mexican village!
Teresita’s house, for example, will be a parking lot.
Progress!
Plastic adobe! Clean authentic Chinese
Mexican paving tiles! Burbling fountains!
Sanitary “Mexican” restaurants serving the best
blueberry margaritas and processed cheez-food
mega-nachos! La Gap, La Banana Republic,
El Tower Records Superstore selling the latest in
peasant music and fashions! 7-11 could concoct a new
authentic “Mexicanny” guava Slurpee! No beaners in
sight!
No unsavory smells of caca, frijoles, dogs, goats,
history, or cigarettes. No borrachos. No putas. No friggin’
lowriders, though the lowriders could probably get a gig
taking tickets at the Teresita parking facility.
Wandering Puerto Rican and Guatemalan mariachis!
Chocolate shops selling cowshit and burroshit
joke chocolate patties! T-shirts of Pancho Villa
hanging out where there is no trace of his having been anymore or ever again!
Go, El Paso, go!
I wondered aloud if they were going to install
animatronic Mexican robots. They could have robot
women nursing android babies and old fiberglass cobblers hammering nails into rubber cowboy boots, bandido droids
rolling by at 10:30, Noon, and 3:45
on solar-powered electric hybrid horses.
Churros! Git yer churros rat cheer!
#
We walked miles in the heat while Romo and his compadre Carlos
Showed Susie Byrd all the historical buildings. No doubt
The barrio is rough and tumble. Winos and crack-heads
squat on corners and steps of rooming houses. Ugly muffler
shops & crumbling bodegas. Yes. It’s true. But also
our history. Our ghosts. Our legacy—all of ours.
It’s
America, after all.
Then we got to 500 S. Oregon St. (If anyone reads this
& is a Hummingbird fan, get down there before it’s
demolished, because it’s the last place on earth still
standing
where Teresita and her father lived. All other sites are gone.
Gone. And the tractors are coming.)
This
is the ugly red brick rooming house where she lived. Here,
where she did miracles for the pilgrims who would not let her be.
Where she greeted reporters from around the world and sat for interviews
and was often insulted by the wise-ass bigoted U.S. press of the day.
Here
where she looked out the window—that window right
there—
held the curtain back with her hand as she looked upon El Paso and the
hordes
that had followed her. Same hills in the distance. Same colors.
There was still a painted sign on the
wall, fading: ROOMS $1. It was chilling.
I lay my hands on the walls. Listened for voices
between the bricks. “Tía!” I whispered.
Teresita, can you hear me?
Across the street was a vacant lot where her
followers had set up their tents. And now—
there they were again, the same Mejicanos, all rascuaches in the same
dirt lot, nothing changed. Tents. Motley colors.
Now the camp
is a swap-meet and flea market. It could have been (was) still 1896.
I was standing in two worlds at the same time.
I looked at what she looked at: Mexicans gathered in bright tents,
primary colors, the sun-seared mountains behind. Barring
skyscrapers and cars, it was exactly the same view.
She could have been standing beside me.
Maybe she was.
The owners of the building had poured
filthy motor oil on the steps
to keep the dope-fiends from sitting
on the stoop. But they sat there anyway,
oil soaked into their butts. What was a little oil
to them? Their pants were already dirty.
And nobody thought of the ancient anointings with oils.
Some kind of strange new sacredness.
The doors were splintered from kicks
and bad history, splinters of wood peeling off.
I collected a bundle of fragments,
idolatrous, perhaps…but
I had to have physical evidence of her presence, not just
words or old pictures, not just stories but hard splinters
where her shadow had fallen.
Stupid bits of wino flophouse about to be demolished?
Priceless.
I said to Susie,
“Can’t you at least save Teresita’s
house? Make it a museum or
gallery or something?” She snapped,
“Are you going to raise the funds?”
Slam-dunk!
So
shirt pocket full of wood,
I walked away.
Turned back.
The upstairs windows had white curtains.
The window at the front corner: the curtain
Was pulled back as if by a hand, as if
By someone watching us go.
“Vato!” Romo said.
“Look at that!
Teresita
is looking at
you!”
(This is an excerpt from
Luis Alberto Urrea's The Wastelander's Notebook,
2006. Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for
nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a
prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life
experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.
Urrea's most recent book, The Hummingbird's Daughter, is the
culmination of 20 years of research and writing. The historical novel
tells the story of Teresa Urrea, sometimes known as The Saint of Cabora
and the Mexican Joan of Arc. )
