Why the hyphen?

I am Salvadoran-American. I am neither entirely one nor the other, I've noticed this time and again living abroad. It's a dichotomy that I've lived with all my life and, in this post-Trump world, I'd like to celebrate it. 

My first language is Spanish. Until the age of five I spoke nothing but Spanish and when I began school I was placed in an ESL program for kindergarten and first grade. I really loved those first two years of school at PS 182 in Jamaica with Ms Rodriguez. Early on there was a boy that was picking on me and she told me, "if someone hits you, you hit them back twice, if someone kicks you, you kick them back twice, don't let anyone take advantage of you". Those words stuck with me and, though I'm a pacifist, I recognize her good intentions. She was also the one that recognized that I needed glasses because I was having trouble seeing the board during class. 

I also really liked that, even though we were learning English, the program didn't reject our Hispanic roots and we also learned Spanish vocabulary in class. At home, I would watch TV in Spanish, my favorites were Chespiritu and Carusel. I also watched Sábado Gigante with my folks on Saturdays and had to tolerate my mom's novelas.

At home, being Latino was and continues to be an intrinsic part of me. I couldn't live without pupusas, beans and rice are staples and I'm a domino fiend. Living abroad in Spain I finally got the opportunity to hone my Spanish and now I'm capable of not only speaking fluidly but also thinking in Spanish. 

It wasn't always peaches and crema, though. 

At some point during my teen years I had a bit of a crisis. I rejected my heritage and wanted nothing to do with it. My parents would speak to me in Spanish and I'd respond in English. I would trade homemade food for fast food almost on a daily basis; the cashier at Wendy's recognized me and even offered to make me homemade food one day. 

Growing up in a rough neighborhood, and to overprotective parents, meant that I spent a great deal of time at home watching TV. I watched hours and hours of TV. I've watched complete series, Empty Nest, Golden Girls, Seinfeld, Saved By The Bell, The X-Files, Hercules, Xena and the list goes on. As a result my accent is an amalgam of accents and doesn't truly reflect my hometown. 

In my late teens it all started to make sense, however. I met many more Latin-Americans like me, kids born to central- and south-American immigrants who also yearned to find a niche in the American patchwork. Kids who spoke Spanish with their parents and Spanglish with me. 

When I first came to Spain the first thing I did was look for a Salvadoran restaurant. Whenever I made breakfast it was almost always an American one, two eggs and toast, the eggs with ketchup and jalapeños, of course. I can make pupusas and Philly cheesesteaks from scratch. Sometimes I make fresh Salvadoran tortillas and beans to go with it. My favorite cheese is Salvadoran, queso duro, though I do miss American cheese and American heros, bocadillos pale in comparison. 

It was difficult adapting to life in Spain, adapting to their customs, but three and half years on I've come to love European life. This morning I ate at the bar out front, had toast with salt, olive oil and tomato spread. I'm a huge fan of the tapa and the caña, a tiny glass of beer, and can spend hours at a bar placidly having both. 

The thing is, here I'm more Latino than American because of the way I speak Spanish. I refuse to change the way I speak, refuse to adopt the vosotros, and see it simply as unnecessary, like if I were to live in the UK and all of sudden began speaking with an English accent. The consequences of my choice sometimes reflects in my treatment by spaniards, Americans are held in high esteem whereas Latin-Americans are regarded as an underclass. I often can see this paradox, many people don't know how to treat me or how they want to treat me and it's this conflict that I've had to live with my whole life. 

I'm American as flan. As Salvadoran as ketchup on my eggs. I use "vos" with my family and curse like a sailor after a few drinks, the ghetto boy from Queens, NY is never far behind. When I stub my toe I yell, "coño", but my preferred language, in many ways, will always be English. And I think that dichotomy's quite all right, it's as American as pizza and hamburgers. 

"Lo llevas en la sangre"

Yo bailo salsa. Me encanta. Tomó clases dos veces a la semana, salgo con los salseros a menudo, cuando coincidimos, y escucho salsa en casa porque me gusta. 

Anoche tomé una clase de salsa que era fuera de lo normal en una escuela de danza. Era un intercambio y como siempre, al hablar con una de los asistentes al evento, me comentan "a pues como eres latino tú lo llevas en la sangre, no?". Es decir, el hecho que sea latino automáticamente significa que puedo bailar salsa y otros bailes latinos. Incorrecto. 

Te cuento mi historia. A la edad de 13, por ahí, me di cuenta que las chicas les encanta chicos que pueden bailar. Yo no tenía ritmo, nada de nada, y era incapaz de seguir cualquier ritmo, aún con el merengue (que se supone que es el más fácil de los ritmos latinos). 

Mi mejor amigo, Jason, se empeñó para enseñarme cómo bailar porque Jason, aún a esa edad, ya era un crack con el tema. Empezó con tocar música y intentar encontrar el ritmo básico, algo que se me escapaba. Pasamos horas así, el tocando música y yo dando palmadas donde pensaba que caía el ritmo. 

Le pedí a una prima, Margarita, la esposa de mi primo Mario, que me enseñara como bailar también. Ella me enseñó merengue, bachata y un poco de salsa y mostró mucha paciencia, que en esa época pisaba, no bailaba. 

Pasaron años y tuve muchas y muchos profes; Blanca que me enseñó en los bailes del instituto, tambien hubo una chica brasileña de un campamento en Rochester. Conocí más a la vergüenza que la gloria y conté con la paciencia de mis parejas. 

Luego, a los veinte y pico, mi amigo Leo, uno de mis mejores amigos, empezó a tomar clases de salsa en línea. El me contaba, "vente a las clases, te gustarían, aprendes mucho y hay muchas pibas!". No le hice caso. Todos nuestros amigos en común fueron a las clases, todos se volvieron en cracks o al menos podían bailar bastante bien. Al ser cabezón, no les hice caso. Pasaron años. 

Un día, después de haber intentado de aprender de forma auto-didáctica por muchos años, decidí tomar clases. Al fin me entregué a la locura de los demás, es que lo de seguir a los demás lo llevo fatal. 

He tomado clases con Piel Canela, con Lorenz y sigo tomando clases aquí en Madrid, en la Tabacalera y en la Traba. Sigo mejorando, poquito a poco, gracias a los profes que ofrecen su conocimiento y las parejas que me toleran. Y sigo mejorando, pero sin tener esa base no podría entender el baile como lo entiendo ahora. 

Así que por ser latino o por escuchar la música en mi entorno no me han ayudado llegar a este punto. Y tampoco es porque lo "llevo en la sangre". 

My salsa teacher is English, and?

A couple weekends ago I went to a house party. At the house party I was chatting with some Latin Americans and mentioned that Ian, who was having a bit of difficulty with cumbia, I think, was my salsa teacher. Their reaction? An incredulous, "Hiiiiiimmmmm?!", which was followed by giggles. 

Why did it surprise them? Was it because he was having difficulties with another Latin dance? Perhaps because he doesn't "move his hips enough"? Or was it the obvious reason, because he's not Latin American? 

It's not the first time I've come across this, not the first time I've heard criticisms of him. Let me say this first, Ian volunteers his time, he's not paid to teach, doesn't make a dime off it and doesn't teach for a living. He's a computer programmer. He began teaching because in our collective, which is self-run by the collective through assemblies that we hold, the then teacher left and no one stepped up to teach. He did. A big fucking E for Effort. 

Secondly, who are we to judge? Who says that salsa needs to be taught by a Latin person? Sure, there are nuances, there are cultural elements that perhaps a Latin person may provide but the reality is we live in an increasingly globalized society. Borders are lines in the sand that can be traversed with the click of a mouse. And it's dance, that art form that regardless of where you come from, where you live, if you can dance you can dance. One of my closest friends back home, Leo, is one of the most phenomenal salsa dancers I've ever seen and he's Filipino. And learned by taking classes. 

I understand where the possessive nature of the argument comes from, however. As a New Yorker I sometimes think that "pure" Hip Hop should have a New York sound. I give preference to NYC MC's. Southern rappers, rappers from just about any other locality, need to be vetted first. Why? There's this idea that your origins will influence who you are and how you do things. There's also another axiom: it's not where you're from, it's where you're at. 

I get where the argument comes from, the sentiment, but the fact of the matter is this: if someone does something better than you and can teach you that shouldn't that be more valued than where they're from? 

Inspired by William Carlos Williams

Tortilla de Patatas

I made a tortilla de patatas and left it out on the counter to share with my roommates, they took a piece larger than I imagined

Would you rather...

Bulls, prior to their bloody, violent death, are treated like kings. Knowing that you'd meet such a torturous death, yet live an otherwise idyllic life, would you choose it?

I got on this topic during the beginning of one of my classes when we discuss just about anything. This time we got on the topic of Barcelona's historic come-from-behind win over PSG which prompted my other student, Lore, to remark that "those millions of euros wasted on football could be used otherwise". I said that Rome had gladiators to calm the mobs, nowadays it's football and bullfighting. Jesus asked me if I liked bullfighting (corridas in Spanish) to which I replied that I've been to one but that I didn't like it. He seemed unnerved and put off by my response, anxious to explain why it's a good thing. 

One of the points he made was that bulls are treated like royalty their entire lives before meeting their fate in the ring. He said, "I'll probably live 80 years fucked, at least they see some glory". It made me wonder, would I trade this life for that? If I could live the perfect life knowing what awaits me, would I? 

Of course the poor bulls have no clue where they'll end up, they have no choice in the matter, but it is an intriguing debate. 

The other point he made was that if it wasn't for bullfighting there wouldn't be another purpose for growing bulls, something I can neither corroborate nor deny. What I do know is this, I've been to a corrida because I wanted to see firsthand what it was about. I saw 6 bulls perish that night, watched spectators revel in the bloodshed and never once did I flinch. Do I see the point in it? No. 

Would I trade my life for that? Call me stubborn but I do see the value in all the suffering we endure and wouldn't want to see my life diluted by a lack of it, I always say life is just peaks and valleys. It is tempting, though...