Smorgasbord #26
Assimilation, Lizards, and Mint Juleps
Hello friends! This is Smorgasbord, a self-service buffet of ideas—the taco truck of newsletters. Can you believe Smorgasbord is six months old? I’m grateful for each and every one of you who let me get in your inbox every week.
Phoenix's afternoons are getting hot, but we are still enjoying gorgeous mid-60s—low 70s morning and evening temperatures. The sprinkler-on-trampoline days are near, but until then, my kids will continue to wear the Arizonian official uniform: hoodie, shorts, and sandals. Let’s get into it!
Assimilation
Diana and I watched Música, a coming-of-age love story that follows an aspiring creator with synesthesia who must come to terms with an uncertain future while navigating the pressures of love, family, and his Brazilian culture in Newark, New Jersey.
This is an autobiographical-ish movie about Rudy Mancuso’s life, who wrote, directed, and acted in it. I liked how The Ironbound, a prominently Brazilian neighborhood in NJ, was another actor in the story. It made me think about assimilation, culture, and roots.
Recently, my cousin had a layover in Sky Harbor, so Diana and I took the kids to the airport and had lunch with her. She asked us if we had a lot of Mexican friends, which we thought was an interesting question. We have a few Mexican friends, but we realized our community revolves around our parish. So, if you think about our friends being Catholic, our friendships are universal. I say this only half-joking.
Diana and I got to talking and realized how compartmentalized neighborhoods were back in the day: Italian, Irish, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc. It makes sense to have a home away from home where people speak your language, eat the same food, and have the same values. Diana and I realized we prioritize building a Catholic culture in our home rather than a Mexican culture. This is not to downplay our roots (Diana is a first-generation Mexican American) but rather a way to embrace the Mexican-Americanness of our family.
I’m pretty sure that from the outside looking in, we might be dubbed “not Mexican enough,” and I’m okay with that. I’m doing a terrible job teaching my kids how to speak Spanish, for example, but we still have time to correct that. The point is, I go back and forth thinking about whether or not assimilation is good or bad. Technically, we’re not adopting American culture wholesale, but we’re also not living in a neighborhood like The Ironbound.
We’re in this weird cultural limbo where a lot of Something-Americans are, yet we all make up this country. This feels like a struggle I’ll be dealing with in the near future. If you have any tips and tricks on how to live as a Something-American, put them in the comments. I’d be happy to hear about your own experience.
Spotty the lizard
On Monday morning, Emilio (6 yo) and Lucia (4 yo) came running into my office to tell me they had found a lizard and named it Spotty. We usually see lizards doing pushups on top of the fence between our home and the neighbors, so I thought this was the case and told them to leave Spotty alone.
I don’t know if Spotty was alive when Emilio and Lucia first saw it, but by the end of my work day, Spotty had passed. This made Emilio extremely sad; he wanted Spotty to be his pet lizard, and the idea of saying goodbye to it not 24 hours after they met was crushing. So we had a funeral for Spotty, obviously.
Emilio found a small tin box that came with a Happy Meal and placed Spotty in it. We picked a spot in the backyard between two planters, laid Spotty to rest, prayed a Hail Mary, said a few words, and everyone went to bed.
On Wednesday night, while in class, I get a text from Diana: “OH MY GOURD. EMILIO BROUGHT THE BOX WITH THE DEAD LIZARD IN THE HOUSE WITHOUT US KNOWING. HE HID IT UNDER HIS PILLOW.” Emilio even tried to sneak out of his room to fetch Spotty from the trash can, which is its new resting place, and subsequently, the dump.
As an adult, it’s easy for me to play down my son’s grief over losing his pet lizard. It’s clear he wants a pet, but that’s something Diana and I need to discuss and see what’s best for our family. In the meantime, navigating all of these series of events where our kids are trying to outmaneuver us is quite entertaining. There’s never a dull moment, for sure.
Read/Write
This piece on La Llorona by
in was terrific. If you want to read about some Mexican folk tales, this is the one.- is an excellent piece of flash fiction. And here’s a recipe for a drink that pairs well with this story.
In case you missed it, this week I wrote “White Belt,” a piece about my experience with BJJ at 40 years old. And several micro-fiction stories like The Ride, Illimani, and Paper. They live in Notes now, but they’ll eventually find their home in Puros Cuentos, my fiction publication.
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Sobremesa
Have you gotten in touch with your roots?
What was your first pet?
Do you practice any martial arts?
1. Yes but would like to dig deeper.
2. Free - a wild vicious cat who loved me
3. Nope
Thanks for the shout out!
3. No
2. A rock. I don't remember if I named it, but I've always been fascinated with rocks. 😁
1. I could write about 15 Substack posts on this. Hehe. (I've written a couple already.) Living in a city that's overwhelmingly rooted in Spanish & Mexican culture, I've always been tied to those roots -- however my Spanish conversation skills are 💩. The other heritages in my blood jump at me when I'm doing genealogical snooping.