Los Susurros del Barrio

By John Quintana and Cornelio Trujillo

Los Susurros del Barrio is a collection of short stories about growing up in South Valley Albuquerque. Through stories about his relatives and his own adventures John is about to describe the complexities of growing up gay in a Chicano barrio and the difficulties between the traditions and culture of the Chicano experience and the white world across the river. At the core of all his stories is family, culture and the land. The Rio Grande river and the acequia system the crisscross the South Valley loom heaving in the life and stories of la gente de Las Mercedes (original name of the south valley of Albuquerque).

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543990577

Book preview

© John Quintana 2019

Print ISBN: 978-1-54399-056-0

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54399-057-7

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Introduction

La Tradición

Life in A New Land

La Reina

An Evolving Truth

My Aunt Annie

Brother Ray

La Justicia

Chicana Emily Dickinson

A Man Guided by Character

La Tradición

Las Aguas de las Mercedes

Can of Chicken Soup

James Baldwin

The Scholarship

Señorita Tapia of Las Vegas, NM

Peace Corps

Coming out

A Shining Light

Three Tails

Sac-Nicte and Canek in Santa Fe

Las Aguas de Las Mercedes

Full Circle

A Winter’s Day

A Summer’s Day

Introduction

As a child sitting quietly squeezed between our couch and a wall, I experienced the whirl of life in a large family confined to a small space. I learned the secrets, history, and dreams of my family. Hidden in my corner I discovered a love for words and spent hundreds of hours with my nose in books. I was fascinated by words, so many words, and all with something distinct to tell me. A weekend trip to the library was a special day for me. I would have to catch a bus to downtown and transfer to the eastside central bus to reach my destination, my personal house of books. My visits to the library always included a stop at the unabridged dictionary mounted majestically on a pedestal in the center of the old Albuquerque Library. I sent hours perusing this magical book, thinking it contained all the words I would need in my life. Here in the quiet of the stately building, a safe haven for me, I had an epiphany: words have magic. If they are misused or overused, they lose their magic, and if I wanted to tap into that mystery, I had to use my words with care. Aware of this magic, when I first sat down to record my memories, I endeavored to pick my words carefully in hope that the readers might be able to find magic of their own.

I was inspired to write on one hot summer day when I had ventured from Santa Fe to Albuquerque. Heading back to Santa Fe I stopped at a rundown diner for a cold drink on the north end of Albuquerque. Sitting at the dilapidated counter watching the waitresses and customers, I was haunted by the hollow look in their eyes. Driving home the scene rewound in my mind, but the strangers at the diner were replaced by people I knew in my life. Bits and pieces of memories melded with the hollow-eyed strangers, creating stories seeded in my past. For months I disregarded the tales floating in my head. Not ready to commit anything to paper I begin recount my stories to friends and family. At the urging of my college friend Terry, I wrote my first one called A Winter’s Day loosely based on my mother’s life. I shared this story with friends and finally submitted for publication. To my surprise it was accepted and was included in an anthology of short stories by new writers. This encouraged me to write about what I knew best: my family. A second story was accepted by a second publication, lighting a fire in me to write about growing up in South Valley Albuquerque in the early 1950s.

I am driven to write in the first light of the morning sun as it rises over the Sangre de Cristos every day. The words I treasured in my youth now flow onto the page rooted in creative ethos. When I write I am transfixed by an inner force that connects me to my stories. They are lodged deep in my psyche, pouring recollections of an earlier time on the banks of the Rio Grande River, along the acequias, and at my aunt’s home in the North Valley. My first stories, though fiction, quickly gave way to reflections of real people and events woven into the plots written by life. These are the susurrus, or whispers, of my barrio.

I start each day at five AM at my computer, watching the sunrise. With the first rays of light, I pray to Rudolfo Anaya’s Lords and Ladies of the Light ¹ to transform my thoughts into words and transform the words into magic.

---

1 Anaya, Rudolfo. Jalamanta: A Message from the Desert, University of New Mexico Press, ٢٠٠٥.

La Tradición

Life in A New Land

Grandpa Speronelli’s Blacksmith Shop

The year was 1884 when my g reat-grandparents, Felice and Ferdis Cirila Speronelli, welcomed a new son, G iovanni Speronelli, aboard an overcrowded immigrant freighter traveling from Campagna, Italy, to the New World. My great-grandparents’ destination was the isolated mining town of Madrid, New Mexico, high in the Ortiz Mountains where great-grandfather Felice would ply his trade as a miner. The Speronellis were attracted to this high desert by accounts of exotic Indians and untamed lands for the taking spread by distant relatives who had made the brutal journey in the 1800s working on the transcontinental railroad finally settling in New Mexico. Those early Italian settlers established a thriving community in Albuquerque that grew to 200 families by the 1800s. My great-grandparents joined this community full of dreams of wealth, prosperity and a better life for themselves and their new son in the New World.

All my grandparents died prior to my birth. My knowledge of my ancestors came from stories I heard as a child. I savored these tales from a secret hiding place wedged between the wall and a couch that converted to a bed at night. From this perch I would quietly listen to whispers from the past that framed my family’s lives in Albuquerque’s South Valley. Undetected by parents or siblings, I would feast on the anecdotes my Mother and her brother Louie told. I would fantasize about my unknown grandparents and their brood of eight children—Juana, Lila, Louie, Anthony, Felix, Annie, Joe, and Rose—who lived, worked and played on the two-acre North Valley Speronelli homestead.

Louie, a natural storyteller, spent hours reminiscing about growing up in Albuquerque as it transitioned from a collection of small communities into the state’s major city. Uncle Louie was a man broken by bottle and a failed marriage living instead immersed in his memories of his prosperous youth. He brought my grandparents, Giovanni and Margarita, alive with stories, recollections, and historical events that shaped his life. What I know about my grandparents were shaped by Uncle Louie’s accounts, but these narratives imprinted the living embodiment of people I never met into my genetic makeup. The bits and pieces of information I got were a series of disjointed vignettes. Somehow, I organized them in my young mind into a series of living chronicles of life in the Speronelli clan.

Grandfather Giovanni was not of the Old World and not of the New World. His early life was rarely a subject of Uncle Louie’s stories limiting my knowledge of my family’s history. I do know Great-grandpa Felice was a miner. He and his wife lived in Madrid , a newly emerging coal mining town nestled in the Ortiz Mountains plagued by primitive mining practices to their astonishment. Giovanni lived with his parents in company housing, and he spent his early days roaming the hills and abandoned gold mines searching for lost treasures. Strip mining for gold was long abandoned leaving thirty-foot pits of exposed coal deposits. Early miners made do with what they had, brought their own tools at times, and reverted to digging by hand when all else failed. By 1892 the yield from a narrow valley known as Coal Gulch was large enough to warrant the construction of a 6.5-mile standard gauge railroad spur connecting the area to the main line of the Santa Fe Railroad. Coal Gulch later became the town site of Madrid. Louie recanted yarns about Giovanni and his parents being at the unveiling of a seven-story anthracite breaker that would revolutionize the miners’ lives. By this time the population of Madrid had grown to 2500 people.

However, isolated from their people in Madrid, Felice Speronelli, who by now had Americanized his name to Felix, sought refuge for his family in Albuquerque’s budding Italian community. Whenever possible, my great-grandpa would load his family on a wagon and journey to the big city to mingle with their compatriots, speaking their native language, eating their native food, and listening to opera. It was a time to catch up on news from the Old World and plant their roots in the New World. These early visits to Albuquerque convinced Grandpa Giovanni he should forsake the dusty coal mining village of Madrid to create his own place in this new land in the big city of Albuquerque.

Grandpa did forge a life of his own in the rugged high desert of New Mexico. Though the mines had brought my great-grandparents to Madrid, Grandpa wanted nothing to do with mining or village life. He was an entrepreneur by nature, destined to make his own mark in Albuquerque. He became a wily businessman, stubborn and honest. He was respected by the Italian community and accepted by the Hispanic community. He moved freely between both worlds seeking love and fortune in a land of infinite possibilities.

Uncle Louie recounted stories about Grandpa Giovanni’s ambition as a teenager with relish. He and Mamá marveled at how their beloved father scraped his way into a respectable trade and became a prominent member of Los Duranes community. I can still hear my uncle tell my Mamá: "¿Recuerdas a papá pidiendo al herrero local que lo aprendiera al oficio? A hombre de un hombre." Grandpa Giovanni had talked his way into an apprenticeship as a blacksmith. And it served him well. He learned a viable skill that commanded admiration. He learned his trade so well that, at nineteen years old, he established his own successful blacksmith shop on the corner of First Street and Lomas Boulevard in Albuquerque.

Young, with big dreams and drive, Giovanni made his mark on Albuquerque. The cornerstone of his world would be the perfect wife with whom Giovanni Speronelli, a man of two worlds, would create a third. The early years entailed hard work and sacrifice. Long hours at the anvil working with heavy equipment built his muscle and character. Friends and neighbors told stories that contributed to his reputation of being the strongest man in the community of Los Duranes. Jerry G. Perry a well-respected justice of the peace, recounted how Giovanni single-handedly lifted a full-grown mule who was blocking traffic on Rio Grande Boulevard, but what brought fame to Grandpa Giovanni was the day a Model T truck rolled on a young woman. Adrenaline coursing through his body enabled Giovanni to lift the truck off her and save her life. The people of Los Duranes solidified around my grandfather bestowing on him the title of Patrón, which he wore proudly for his remaining days.

A strong, ambitious, determined young man who knew what he wanted from life, Giovanni set his sight on the most desirable doncella in the San Felipe de Neri Parish. Margarita Contreras, the daughter of the venerable Don Ambrose Contreras, was the dream of the young men of standing in Los Duranes and Los Griegos. Her jet-black hair offset her light complexion enhancing her enchanting green eyes, un Castillano blooming in the desert. Señorita Margarita’s quinceañera was the top story of the social page of the Albuquerque Journal; she was the most sought-after young women in Old Town Albuquerque.

The Contreras family lived a life of privilege, priding themselves on their relationship to General Pedro Gomez Duran y Chavez and seldom failing to mention he was an Oñate Expedition Conquistador and the commanding general of all the royal troops in New Mexico—which was eventually verified by DNA results.

They owned a large estate that stretched from Los Duranes to Los Griegos. Their rambling hacienda covered an entire city block. At harvest time, the multilevel rooftops of the buildings glistened with drying fruits, corn, vegetables, and carne seca. Bright red ristras and braided garlic strains adorned the outside walls of the grand home. Grandpa Giovanni knew this was the life he was meant to live. Yet many prominent Hispanic fathers led their willing sons to Don Ambrosio’s door in hope of uniting their families. To achieve his dream, the brash young Italian had to prove his worth to the venerable Don Ambrosio.

As an immigrant of common ancestry, Giovanni embarked on a Quixotic quest to win the heart of Margarita and the respect of Don Ambrose. Giovanni sported quality men’s fashions tailored by the Tiekert’s brothers: an ensemble of a vest, tie, pinstriped coat and pants, and highly polished shoes reflective of what the distinguished men of Old Town Albuquerque were wearing. Nobly attired, Giovanni boldly entered the rambling Los Duranes estate of Don Ambrosio and Doña Juanita. With humility and respect, he elegantly made his case for the hand of their beautiful daughter. Giovanni’s charm won the approval of the protective parents, but it was his radiant green eyes that stole the heart of the young Hispanic princess. When Giovanni looked into the eyes of Señorita Margarita, his sincerity and love shown through, and he sealed their lifelong fate.

My grandmother Margarita was a cultured woman. She played the piano and collected Native American arts and crafts. After my grandparents married, Grandmother Margarita made their home a museum of the finest Navajo rugs, pueblo pottery, and native crafts. She surrounded her family with beauty and elegance that fit my grandpa’s yearning for respectability. And true to their standing in the community, theirs was the wedding of the decade merging two cultures into a single family.

Financially set, the new couple built their home next to the large Contreras estate and began a family that would include seven children. The Speronellis furnished their home from the finest shops of Albuquerque, complete with a piano for the front room. My Grandpa Giovanni, a visionary, insisted on being the first person in his neighborhood to acquire the newest creations of the 1900s. They had the first phone in the neighborhood, and they were one of the first families to own a car in New Mexico. Grandpa Giovanni worked six days a week, leaving Sunday for family and pleasure. One Sunday a month, the Speronellis hosted a fiesta inviting their in-laws, the neighboring landowners, and their Italian cousins from the city. The crowd was boisterous, thanks to Grandpa’s homemade wine. Every year he and his cousin, Ricardo, purchased a trainload of grapes from California to make the finest wine found in Los Duranes. The blended gatherings of the Italian and Hispanic communities brought harmony to their hacienda and fostered unity in the community.

My grandfather’s favorite holiday was New Year’s Day. The Speronelli clan celebrated it differently than most of the people of Albuquerque. There were no resolutions or New Year’s Eve parties. New Year’s Day, my grandfather Giovanni woke the family early. Louie said, Grandpa believed you had to do a little of all you wanted to accomplish in the upcoming year on New Year’s Day. The day would begin with a little work in the fields, then Grandpa put in a few hours at the blacksmith shop. He returned home for a few games of bocce ball with his cousins, then he took a ride to the Sandia Mountains for fishing, hiking, and picnicking. The day ended with a community celebration at the Speronelli home, complete with toasts for prosperity, good health, and happiness for relatives, domestic and foreign, and la gente de Duranes y Griegos.

I cannot tell Grandpa Giovanni’s story without mentioning his mulish traits. Louie divulged that Grandpa was an impatient man not given to observing what he thought were irrelevant laws. The Speronelli home sat on the busy thoroughfare of Rio Grande Boulevard. When Grandpa took the car out for a drive, the passengers held on to their seats. Grandpa quickly tired of traffic and invented his own rules. If the traffic on the boulevard was heavy, Grandpa would count three cars and barrel into the oncoming traffic, causing more than one accident. The local sheriff thought Grandpa was accident prone. The fact was that Grandpa was stubborn.

Set in his ways, Grandpa exploded when he read the stock market crash headlines on October 29, 1929, in the Albuquerque Journal. Rumors of massive bank failures ripped through Albuquerque inciting panic behavior. When grandpa got wind of the financial collapse, he closed his blacksmith shop, rushed home, and got his shotgun. Grandpa Giovanni made a beeline to his bank where he held the bank president at gunpoint until he got all his money. This spree was short lived. The police soon caught up with Giovanni, relieving him of his shotgun and cash. Grandpa spent the next four weeks in the city jail.

In jail, true to his charm, Grandpa appointed himself head chef. The prisoners never ate so well. When the word got out about the