Tag Archives: Culture

August 16, 2025 · 5:17 AM

“I No Spic Inglish!”

As a young girl, I knew I had the best Daddy in the world. Although my parents were divorced, he’d come for me throughout the years.

I loved it when he took me to the parks. My daddy may have been short, but he was a big kid at heart and loads of fun. He had a knack for mimicking different sounds. Children laughed whenever he cried out like Tarzan on the jungle gym. He wouldn’t hesitate to push me high on the swing. I squealed with delight when he ran in front and scrambled away right in time before I could kick him. He’d twirl me on the merry-go-round until we couldn’t go anymore and tumbled on the ground from exhaustion. Me from laughing hard; he from running in circles.

Daddy worked as the produce manager in a huge grocery chain store. He was a hard worker and a model employee. A friendly and robust people person, he never grew tired of chatting with his customers and telling them jokes. His dark eyes twinkled with glee. The mirth in his thick Puerto Rican accent, mixed with his animated personality, charmed all.

Sometimes Daddy caused havoc, but always in fun. He often mimicked the sound of a kitten near the produce stand at work to see the children’s reactions. Once, an elderly woman hunted everywhere for the pobrecito. Then another time, while whistling like a bird, he had customers looking up for one. He even imitated a newborn’s cry.

“Excuse me, sir, but don’t you hear a baby crying somewhere?” a worried customer asked.

“A baby? No, no,” he answered. “No baby over here.” Daddy chuckled as he related to me how he watched the mystified customer walk away, shaking her head.

Daddy told me another story about a little boy in a shopping cart. The boy kept staring at him the whole time. His mother was across the aisle, weighing her vegetables.

“I smiled at da boy and asket his name, but he dun say noteen,” Daddy explained. “He just keep lookin’ and lookin’ at me, like I’m ugly or somethin’.”

“Then what did you do?” I asked and chuckled.

“I dun do noteen . . .” Daddy’s eyes twinkled.

“Go on,” I persisted, knowing of his pranks.

“I just smiled big and stuck out my bottom dentures at da boy.”

“No, Daddy, you didn’t!” I laughed, remembering him doing that very thing before, enough to startle anyone.

“Yeah, but then da boy started cryin’, so I got outta there fast,” Daddy said guiltily. “I dunno where I get these jokes. You got a funny papi, eh?”

“Yeah.” I giggled. “Muy loco, all right. Tell me the story about the goat sucker in Puerto Rico,” I said, wiping my eyes.

“¡Oh, si!” Daddy exclaimed, slapping his thigh. “¡El Chupacabra! Dis thin’ dat went round to all the animales suckin’ their blood dry.”

“Yep, that’s the one,” I said.

“Man, da people get so scared and say it’s some kind of diablo. They say, ‘sierra la puerta’, close your door, El Chupacabra is goin’ to suck your blood!”

“Ya ever see one, Daddy?”

“No, no, I never see dat thin’ in my life.” He chuckled and added, “I dunno if I believe it.”

“Well, it’s sure an awful, scary story.” I shuddered at the possibilities.

Yes, my daddy has always been a natural-born storyteller. I could sit and listen to him for hours. “Tell me again about the first time you left Puerto Rico on the plane.”

“When I left my hometown Utuado in 1952?” His eyes flickered miles away, as he mused. “Flyin’ in dat two-engine airplane made me so scared. I needed to go to el baño so bad. The stewardess want to tell me somteen. Pues, I dunno what she say; I dunno any Inglish then. She talk louder but I dun understand; I just wanna go. I try to make her understand me, so I jell to her, ‘I no spic inglish! I no spic inglish!’”

As I listened to his broken English, I laughed until my sides ached and my eyes watered.

“Daddy, you didn’t know how to speak English when you were nineteen?”

“No hija, I didn’. Later, my cousin in New York explained to me that da stewardess just wanted me to put my seatbelt on. Ay bendito nene,” Daddy laughed. “I didn’ understand noteen.”

“Hey Papi,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Ya know what?”

“¿Que mi vida?”

“Ya still have an accent.”

“Ju tellin’ me, man.” He laughed.

This is a story about my father (who recently turned 92 years old). His character is one part of the tapestry of Running in Heels: a Memoir of Grit and Grace. Now, I’m translating the memoir into Spanish to honor my Puerto Rican roots and reach hearts that need this story. I can’t do it without you! Help me bring grit and grace to new readers.
👉 Support the Translation Project >>> GoFundMe <<<

11 Comments

Filed under Language Barrier, Memoir Excerpts

Tagged as Boricua, Chupacabra, Culture, Daddy, Family, father and daughter, jokes, memories, Papi, pranks, Puerto Rico, Utuado

July 15, 2014 · 7:31 AM

“Dun You Forget.”

Into my pre-teen years—although I tried to hide my true feelings—I became self-conscious, which developed into a guarded inferiority complex. While not as shy as my mother had been, I felt like an outcast: I came from a broken home, my family was poor, and I was still on the school’s free lunch program. My clothes were hand-me-downs. We didn’t own a car. I didn’t even own a bike, although I always wanted one. We didn’t go on vacations to Disney World, like the other kids bragged about, nor could we afford the latest trends or luxuries like others.

As I wrestled with these feelings of mediocrity, I became ashamed of my Puerto Rican heritage. I didn’t play the blame game, but felt second-rate, forever on the outside looking in. I determined not to let anyone see through my brittle exterior to see a weakling. In school, because I didn’t feel part of the “in” crowd, I enviously watched as the popular kids voted for class president, vice president, or secretary. In my mind, I believed the ritzy kids went to summer camps, swimming lessons, and Girl Scout meetings. After all, they paid for their school lunches, not the state. They wore the latest fashions, not hand-me-downs. Their straight, pearly whites glistened when they smiled. They even pronounced their words perfectly. They lived in big houses whose parents had “nest eggs.”

“Some are more privileged than others,” Grandma explained to me. “But we are all the same in God’s eyes.”

I wasn’t about to argue with Grandma’s statement. All I knew was that there never seemed to be enough funds to do anything extra. My grandparents were extremely frugal. They didn’t believe in splurging or in keeping up with the Joneses.

In the early seventies, several public schools were still racially unbalanced, so the federal courts stepped in. Miami’s school districts bused students from one neighborhood to another to achieve integration.

Busing made my life plummet from bad to worse. I attended Miami Shores Middle School, a predominantly white school where kids commonly called Hispanics “spics.”

Because I was of Puerto Rican descent, I was the target of their taunting. “You spic English?” they scoffed, using their favorite line. They even gave me grief about my naturally full-sized lips (something others now pay money to have done).

To make matters worse for me, my grandma—unpretentious and a bit old-fashioned—insisted that I wear dresses to school past my knees, even though other girls wore the trendy mini-skirts and mini-dresses. Almost all my clothes were second-hand, and at eleven years old—going on twelve—that bothered me.

“Grandma, this isn’t what the girls wear nowadays!” I groaned.

“Dis is what you’re wearin’, and you shouldn’t be ashamed. Your clothes are clean and pressed,” she said with finality in her usual accent.

I threw up my hands. “Grandma, you’re gonna make me get into fights!”

“You are a Christian girl,” she retorted, her eyes wide and fierce. “Dun you forget that.”

* * * *

Thanks to you, Grandma, I haven’t forgotten.

I’ll always remember my beloved grandma, who passed away in the eighties, whose birthday would have been July 26th. In her simplicity, she impacted my life and instilled in me values and principles I shall never forget.

10 Comments

Filed under Grandma, Memoir

Tagged as behavior, Culture, Hispanic, integration, memoir, Musing, personal, poor, pre-teen, Values

February 8, 2014 · 12:46 AM

El Chupacabra in our Tub!

“I can draw just as good as our uncle can, or you,” Big Brother Ruben said matter-of-factly.

“No, you can’t,” I corrected.

“Can too.”

“Cannot.”

“Can—”

“¡Niños! Callense ya!” Grandma cut in. “Dis is why you two can’t be together.”

Ruben and I looked at each other, puzzled by what she meant. But this statement became the reason Ruben and I usually had to trade places during Daddy’s visitation. Because we siblings horsed around and played too “wildly” together, when our daddy would come for me to go to his house for the weekend, he’d drop Ruben off to stay with our grandparents or with Mama. This was the normal arrangement. On rare occasions, we visited together.

My brother loved to tease me to get a reaction out of me. One weekend together at Daddy’s was no exception.

“Com’on, will ya?” Ruben impatiently waved his arm as if it would fall off, standing with the bathroom door open.

Curiosity got the best of me. “Hold your horses,” I said, trying to sound like Mama.

Big Brother looked like the cat that swallowed a pigeon, a canary, or something.

“You better not be foolin’ me,” I warned.

“Don’t be so sentimental,” he said, practicing the use of big words.

“Am not.”

“Are too. And you’re never gonna guess what’s in here.”

“Can too.”

“Can not.”

“Gimme a hint.”

Ruben shook his head. “Negative.”

“Cuz, it’s gonna be nuthin’.” I stomped my foot and crossed my arms, dying to know what was inside. “You just tryin’ to trick me.”

He stood in front of the closed shower curtain and held onto it. “Ready?” Ruben asked, with eyes wide.

“Go on . . . it ain’t nuthin’.”

“It’s too . . . it’s—” With one swoop, Ruben yanked the curtain and cried, “¡El Chupacabra!”

I let out a long scream at the huge form floating in the tub.

Daddy came running out of breath. “¿Qué fue?” he demanded. “What’s wrong? What happen here? ¡Caramba! I hear you all da way outside.”

“Daddy, Ruben told me it’s ‘El Abra Ca Dabra, the goat sucker,’” I whined, mispronouncing the word.

“¿Qué? ¡Oye! What s’matter wit you?” Daddy demanded in his accent. “Why can’t you play nice? You dun do dat to your sister.” He popped Ruben on the head with his hand.

My brother flinched but kept grinning at me, mouthing the words, “boba,” before he disappeared.

“Mija, you know what dis is?” Daddy asked, holding me by my shoulder.

“It’s a pink, dead pig!” I screeched. “Why is he in the tub of water?”

“Gloria is goin’ to make pernil. We gonna eat him.”

“Roasted pig? No, Daddy, that’s yucky.”

“Whachu talkin’ ‘bout? I betchu never had it before,” he said, closing the shower curtain. “You’ll see,” he winked, taking my hand. “It’s gonna be so good.”

If my daddy said something, he was usually right.

It was yummy.

(Excerpt from Running in Heels – A Memoir of Grit and Grace)

Note: Featured in La Respuesta online Magazine, Feb-Mar 2014 Art & Literature section http://larespuestamedia.com/chupacabra-in-the-tub/

6 Comments

Filed under El Chupacabra, Memoir

Tagged as Boricua, Chupacabra, Culture, Family, memoir, sibling rivalry, sibling teasing

Aside

Love Spoken Here

Visiting Daddy in the early seventies, on weekends and during summertime, I remember how he loved to watch Lucha Libre. His favorite wrestler then was Rocky Johnson (the father of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). Also a die-hard Yankee fan, Daddy loved his baseball team.

“¿Vite? You see dat?” Daddy shouted and pointed to the TV, asking no one in particular. “Man, dat Mickey Mantle can hit dat ball sooo hard . . . !”

Daddy and my stepmother, Gloria, were raising my brother Ruben. Yes, I was a bit jealous. Although Daddy spoke both languages to me, I never became as fluent in Spanish as my brother had. I understood the language more than I could speak it.

Daddy enjoyed many hobbies. He knew his fruits and vegetables, having worked on his father’s land in his prime. He loved gardening and showing off his avocado and gandules (pigeon peas) plants that he had planted himself, just as much as he loved chewing and sucking the juice from raw sugar canes.

Although Gloria hardly spoke English, we managed to communicate well enough. She treated me like her own child, showering me with loud smooches and tight squeezes. When she talked to me in Spanish, I responded to her in English and my broken Spanish. In the mornings, she’d asked if I wanted “Con Fley” because she knew I liked cereal, and then asked if I wanted her to fix me a huevo frito, too. She was such a great cook; we all loved her comida. Seeing her work in the kitchen, preparing mouth-watering delicacies, was a common sight. Meals were her priority. She often cooked wearing rollers under a hairnet, sometimes in a floral house dress, and always chanclas on her feet.

Back then, feathered friends scurried about in the backyard, and a number of them were nesting on eggs. I liked feeding the ducks and watching them swim in the pond. Not so much with the chickens, though, I knew they were for consumption. But I couldn’t keep from watching in agony whenever Gloria ran after one, caught it, and then wrung the poor creature’s neck. It gave me the creeps. Then I’d stay clear of the messy job of plucking feathers. Gloria also chose whatever Daddy planted in the yard to complement any of her flavorful traditional entrées, whether her arroz con pollo (rice and chicken), arroz con gandules (rice and pigeon peas), or pernil (roasted pork). Each dish was first sautéed in sofrito (a mixture of bell peppers, garlic, onions, and capers blended into a paste) in a deep caldero. The aroma alone made your mouth water. Gloria served side dishes of fried sweet plantains, large Florida avocados, simmering red beans with new potatoes, and always with a big pot of yellow rice.

One Sunday, after a tasty meal of chicken stew, we drank café con leche, a strong espresso made with hot milk and sugar.

“Mary, did you like Mami’s pollo guisado?” Daddy asked, sipping from his cup.

“¡Si!” I answered, practicing my Spanish. “Muy bueno.”

“Oh, yeah? You wanna know somteen’?” Daddy’s eyes twinkled.

“¿Que?” I asked, blowing on my cafesito, too hot to drink.

“Dat’s no chicken you ate . . . dat was un pato.”

A duck? I stared at Daddy, and then at Gloria, then at the leftovers in the pot. I didn’t feel so good. My stomach felt queasy. I raced to the bathroom without a moment to spare when my entire lunch came up.

Gloria helped wipe my face in the bathroom and pleaded, “Ay, Marí. Perdóname.”

I knew she felt terrible about what happened. But when I looked out the window, I couldn’t quit thinking about how I fed those cute, adorable ducks. And I had eaten one!

With no hard feelings toward anyone about the duck incident, I enjoyed being at Daddy’s house and forgetting my troubles back home with Mama. I noticed the way Gloria fussed and cleaned house; the same way she enjoyed cooking: fast, thoroughly, and con mucho gusto. She didn’t like dirt. She had every chair in the house, even the couch, covered with plastic! When it was time to clean the bathroom, she poured a bucket filled with soapy water on the floor, walls, and tub, scrubbing, mopping, and drying until everything was squeaky clean. She never relaxed until the evening when one of her novellas came on TV. Daddy and Gloria were affectionate and called each other pet names. Because Daddy’s skin was brown, Gloria called him, “Negro.” While many knew my stepmother as “Pita,” Daddy called her his “Mamita.”

Seeing their love in action made me smile. Although Gloria didn’t speak English, her hugs and warmth said more than the words of my own mother.

And she could cook.

Gloria making her famous pasteles.

13 Comments

November 14, 2013 · 9:15 PM

Image

Mi Boricuan Familia

I just returned from an accelerating week’s vacation, which was also a surprise visit to my family in Florida. Other than planning everything with my younger brother, I didn’t want any beans spilled, so I gave no clues and left no hints. My ten-year-old grandson accompanied me; it was his first time on a plane. He was so excited that he never ran out of words the entire flight.

The trip and the family time together were awesome!

My first stop was at my older brother’s. The shock on his face and the familiar choice words that he uttered upon seeing me were priceless. His entire household welcomed me warmly. My three tall nephews are strapping young lads. We all talked at once and managed to hear every word. Soon, my sister-in-law and I enjoyed some overdue and much-needed girl talk alone (after kicking out all the boys).

Then we drove to my dad’s home, where I was greeted with more hugs, tears, and kisses. (Click on the link to a video and listen to my daddy’s exclamation phrases over and over: “¡Ay, mi madre!” as well as “¡Ay, Dios mio!”)

Before too long, savory food wafted from the kitchen, calling my name. I couldn’t wait to sample my stepmother’s Puerto Rican cuisine. She did not disappoint and prepared a delicioso feast of pollo frito (fried chicken), plátanos fritos (fried plantains), and arroz con gandules (rice and pigeon peas).

Mmm hmm, good! ¡Que rico la comida!

My sister later drove into town (also surprising our daddy – yes, it’s in our blood) and soon we were catching up with the latest news over family, food, and fashion. I got to exchange stories with her fine son, amazed by his sharp wit, then observed him and my grandson enjoying one another’s company with the latest video game. Finally, Daddy announced it was time to play dominoes, beating everyone in the game just as I had always remembered.

In the days that followed, we shopped, ate to our heart’s content, spent the day at the beach and the pool, and shared pictures on Facebook (a vast difference from having to pull out dusty album books like the old days). Lastly, we enjoyed taking Daddy to Mai Kai Polynesian Dinner and Show.

I wanted — and needed — to be present to help celebrate my daddy’s 80th birthday that Sunday, and I was grateful to be able to escape my hectic schedule to attend the grand event. If not, I would have been filled with regrets. Now I have wonderful additional memories to hold onto for a lifetime.

With every visit, conversation, and reminiscing, we simply picked up where we left off so long ago. It felt good to be “home” again and reunite with my boricuan familia.

And now you know where I have been this past week.