Fusion

By Pat Conway

In the border area between the United States and Mexico, life is like a tossed salad. This salad is like avocados, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and whatever else the cook thinks might go well - maybe some squash or some grated cheese. Though people from everywhere call this home, the three predominant ethnic groups are anglos, Hispanics, and Native Americans. It is a place of fusion where people mix everything - food, language, marriage, religion, politics, and family life.

It's a place where you can get an American hamburger and a Mexican Tecate beer one time and green chile enchiladas and a Coke the next. Out here you can go to a festival of La Virgin de Guadalupe one weekend and a wine tasting with jazz musicians the next, and nobody thinks that's strange. Most of our ancestors came from Europe, bringing with them the languages and customs of Ireland, Spain, and England. Some of them are Spanish Catholics, some with a strain of Judaism hidden somewhere back there from the expulsions of the Inquisition. And the descendents of those Tigua Indians here who rebelled against the Spaniards up in New Mexico keep their ancient culture alive while going about the business of being Americans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450296878

Pat Conway

Pat Conway grew up speaking Spanish and English on a cotton farm south of El Paso, Texas. She retired in 1996 from thirty-two years of teaching high school English and Creative Writing. Pat is a Fellow of the West Texas Writing Project. She has had poems and stories published in "Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Border"s; "Treasured Poems of America, Fall 1997"; and in Mesilla Valley Writers’s publication "Crossroads." Her chapbook of poetry "Doorways", was published in 2007. She won second place in the 2010 national poetry writing contest sponsored by Eber & Wein Publishing. Here writings reflect the lives of people in the borderland between the United States and Mexico as seen through the eyes of the anglo experience in its interactions with the Mexican-American community. Pat lives in Good Samaritan retirement community in Las Cruces, NM where she facilitated a writing group for several years. She has one daughter, Katherine, and enjoys facilitating classes and writing.

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Copyright © 2011 Pat Conway

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-9686-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-9687-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 2/23/11

With great affection to my fellow writers in the fiction critique group of Mesilla valley Writers: Carol Groves, Judy Hilbert, David Hoekenga, Arnie Langston, Noreen Lehmann, Jack Matthews, Sim Middleston, Bob Sanchez, and Dorothy Webb.

Contents

Introduction

Uncle George and the Maple Leaf Rag

The Klan Rides

The ‘37 Chevy

Ghost

The Doll Collection

Going to Argentina

Mary Margaret

St. Jude and the Golem

A Funny Accent

Introduction

In the border area between the United States and Mexico, life is like a tossed salad. This salad is avocados, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and whatever else the cook thinks might go well - maybe some squash or some grated cheese. Though people from everywhere call this home, the three predominant ethnic groups are anglos, Hispanics, and Native Americans. It is a place of fusion where people mix everything - food, language, marriage, religion, politics, and family life.

It’s a place where you can get an American hamburger and a Mexican Tecate beer one time and green chile enchiladas and a Coke the next. Out here you can go to a festival of La Virgin de Guadalupe one weekend and a French wine tasting with jazz musicians the next, and nobody thinks that’s strange. Most of our ancestors came from Europe, bringing with them the languages and customs of Western and Eastern Europe. Some of them are Spanish Catholics, some with a strain of Judaism hidden somewhere back there from the expulsions of the Inquisition. And the descendents of those Tigua Indians here who rebelled against the Spaniards up in New Mexico keep their ancient culture alive while going about the business of being Americans.

I Am From

by Pat Conway

I am from the land

of ristras, fiestas, and siestas,

the land where christmas can also mean

red and green enchiladas with rice and beans.

I am from the land

of mi casa es su casa

where they really mean it because when

you sit at their kitchen table

you never leave unfed even if all

they can give you is a bean burrito.

I am from the land

of mañana because what’s the rush,

the work will be there tomorrow and

tonight we should laugh and remember

all the weddings and quinceañeras,

all the primos, tias and tios.

I am from the land

of el Dia de los Muertos when ghostly

ancestors visit, where skeletons grin

beside the pan dulces and the flowers

and especially the Dos Equis,

where death is a celebration of remembrance

and envy that they are gone while we

remain behind to dance and weep.

I am from the land

of shadowed lanes like cathedral aisles

beneath pecan trees ready for harvest,

where dry earth is made green by brown water

floating and gurgling down the acequia madre

out into fields where white cotton gleams

in the sun and vineyards glow with purple grapes.

I am from the land

of Moorish fountains and arches,

adobe walls dappled with shade from cottonwoods,

where the mountains change from blue to purple

to mauve and orange in the setting sun,

where the air smells like creosote when the rains come,

a land of slowness and heat,

where music is full of passion and sorrow.

I am from the land

where dark eyes and white smiles

evoke memories of other days and other lands,

where history sits in the plaza with the abuelas

while the children run up and down the steps

of the bandstand where mariachis play on Sundays,

and every 16th of September someone shouts

the call to fight for liberty.

Uncle George and the Maple Leaf Rag

Life on a farm in Texas when I was a boy was pretty far removed from city life. I remember one day when my brothers George and John and I were walking along a dirt road. We saw some tire tracks in the dust, but the funny thing was that there were no hoof tracks going along between them. We couldn’t figure out what they were, so we followed them into town. Sitting right at the end of those tracks was a Model T Ford! Naturally we knew what cars were, but it was the first time we’d ever seen one up close or seen the marks they left behind.

This was during the time of the revolution in Mexico, and I remember one time hiding beside the railroad tracks and watching Francisco Madero’s troops riding by on the train. They rode on flatcars with their horses. They wore ammunition belts across their chests and sombreros on their heads. Fierce and dark looking men, they were exciting and frightening at the same time.

Things were pretty primitive back then. We rode to school on a burro. I can still remember how uncomfortable it was. The burro was kind of short and bony, and of course we didn’t use a saddle or anything like that. The heirarchy of childhood is always based on age, so I got to sit in the front and hold the rope reins. Then George sat behind me and John behind him. I used to get so mad because George would always yell right in my ear, Make him go faster, Dan! Make him go faster! Anybody knows a burro is going to go only so fast. Anyway, we rode two miles to school on that burro till we all got out of elementary school.

When our parents died, Dad in 1916 and