They Call Me Güero Read online

  his father’s stable. We gasp and cheer.

  That René, he has taken plastic pipe,

  electrician’s tape and bits of wood,

  and made six weapons, one for each.

  “These are bottle rocket rifles,” he says.

  He shows us how to shoot them, to slide in the rocket,

  wedge the fuse tight at the mouth of the pipe.

  We flick our fathers’ lighters with glee,

  quickly scattering to take deadly aim!

  I dodge the missile that Joseph lets fly:

  It explodes far away, flinging its sparks.

  Timoteo, however, is struck in the chest

  by Raúl’s perfect aim! WHOOSH! BAM!

  It’s war! We rush through the brush with whoops,

  a half dozen rockets shoved in back pockets.

  HISS! René’s deadly dart whizzes right by,

  singeing the back of my hair! OW!

  Soon the battle invades the grown-ups’ domain.

  All the men start grinning and egging us on,

  though our mothers shout angry rebukes:

  “¡Muchachos traviesos, se van a lastimar!”

  But it’s not us who get hurt that night.

  Clumsy me, I stumble as I lift my weapon:

  With a screaming whistle, the rocket hits

  the ground and hurtles toward Father García …

  OH, NO! It strikes his foot and shoots up his pant leg,

  exploding right above his knee. BOOM!

  Oh, the squeal that he lets loose! YOWL!

  The sound still echoes in my ears as I work my way

  through the long list of chores my angry mother

  has dreamed up for the rest of my summer.

  FIRST DAY OF SEVENTH GRADE

  Khakis, uniform shirt, belt—

  you’d think I’d hate

  going back to middle school,

  but I’m super excited!

  See, I hang with an unusual crowd.

  Bobby Handy, the half-white Chicano;

  Bobby Lee, whose parents are from Seoul;

  and Bobby Delgado, dominicano moreno.

  I think of us as el Güero y los Bobbys,

  like we’re some famous Tejano band.

  My sister Teresa calls us los Derds—Diverse

  Nerds. We like comics, gaming, and books.

  It seems like forever

  since I’ve seen my three friends,

  all busy with family this summer—

  least we had Snapchat and Skype!

  Dad drops me off, though I’d rather walk.

  Los Bobbys are already in the cafeteria

  grabbing breakfast. Fist bumps

  all around. We smile and insult each other.

  We compare schedules. Just a few

  shared classes, but we’ll meet

  in the library like always.

  The bell rings. We’re off!

  It’s like navigating down the

  Río Grande, avoiding the lockers,

  steering through the middle channel.

  I get to homeroom, and lucky me.

  Snake Barrera. The bully.

  Looks like he’s fifteen.

  My dad once fired his dad.

  Now he hates my guts.

  But my teachers are woke,

  especially for English and band,

  and a girl in social studies

  glances at me twice.

  When I catch her looking,

  she smirks and shakes her head.

  My stomach flops, and I’m shook—

  I think it’s going to be a great year.

  LOS BOBBYS, OR THE BOOKWORM SQUAD

  If we were a team

  of super heroes,

  this would be

  our origin story.

  It was last year.

  Sixth grade.

  Middle school’s

  kind of a shock,

  especially for nerdy

  little border kids.

  All the tall guys

  almost like grown-ups,

  all the girls, even taller,

  traveling in scary

  Amazon groups.

  I ended up

  in the library.

  Every day.

  Before school

  and during lunch.

  One day, Bobby Handy

  walked in. Finally

  someone I knew!

  We sat together,

  reading and sharing

  clever lines

  or plot points.

  After a few weeks,

  we noticed another

  couple of loners

  creeping around

  in the dusty corners

  of the non-fiction

  section. I approached,

  introduced myself.

  Bobby Handy almost

  passed out laughing

  when they said their names:

  Roberto Delgado

  and Robert Lee.

  “Three Bobbys,”

  I explained as they stared.

  “And one Güero,”

  Handy managed to add.

  Here’s the mentor part.

  All heroes need one.

  Mr. Soria, the librarian,

  all bushy hair and eyebrows,

  came over to shush us.

  But within a few minutes

  of weird questions,

  he figured out what

  major nerds we are.

  “Let’s talk about books,”

  he suggested. “Cool ones.

  I’ll show you the best.”

  He was freaky and funny

  and pretty persuasive.

  That was the birth of

  the Bookworm Squad.

  Now we come together

  twice a day

  to swap favorite titles

  and look for new greats.

  Lucky us! Mr. Soria knows

  all sorts of writers who look

  and talk like us: Dominicans,

  Koreans, Mexicans, Chicanos,

  Black and Native folks, too.

  It’s the perfect time for us,

  for diverse nerds and geeks,

  for all woke readers—

  heroes whose power

  is traveling through these pages

  to distant times and places

  to find our proud reflections.

  THEY CALL ME GUERO

  In my family, I have the lightest skin.

  My big sister Teresa is toasty brown

  and little Arturo’s the color of honey.

  But I’m pasty white, covered in freckles.

  Everyone’s got a nickname for me—

  Tío Danny calls me El Pecas, while

  Grandpa Manuel tussles my copper hair

  and shouts, “Way to go, Red!”

  Most folks? They call me Güero.

  In fact they use that word so much

  that when I was a little squirt,

  I thought it was my name!

  My family loves my paleness,

  even Teresa, who says she’s jealous.

  I look like my grandmother,

  lots of Spanish and Irish blood.

  But at school, it’s a different story,

  as if my complexion’s on purpose.

  The haters say I think I’m all that,

  call me “el Canelo chafo” and laugh.

  Their taunts make me wish I could box

  like Saúl Álvarez, the real Canelo—

  my hands ache to curl into fists

  and pound my problems away.

  But I swallow my pride, keep calm.

  When Dad picks me up, he can tell.

  “What’s wrong, Güero? Looks like

  you’re ready to punch someone.”

  As he drives, I explain, jaw tight.

  My dad puts his hand on mine.

  It’s deep brown like mesquite bark

  or clay from Mexican soil.

 
I wish my skin were like that

  not all pink and freckled,

  turning lobster red in the border sun

  to match my rusty hair.

  “M’ijo, pale folks catch all the breaks

  here and in Mexico, too. Not your fault.

  Not fair. Just the way it’s been for years.

  Doors will open for you that won’t for me.”

  My eyes fill with tears. “But I didn’t ask

  anyone to open them for me!”

  Dad squeezes my hand. “No, but now

  you’ve got to hold them open for us all.”

  MS. WONG & THE RABBIT

  This year, my English teacher

  opens up a whole new world to me.

  I can tell right away that Ms. Wong

  will be different. For example—

  she has a white rabbit in her room: Nun.

  White, with floppy ears. A “lop,” she says.

  (Bobby Lee says “Nun” means “snow” and

  “Eye” in Korean—the bunny’s eyes are red.)

  The first week of school, Ms. Wong talks about

  the Moon Rabbit. In both Korea and Mexico,

  people have long believed the marks on the moon

  are the shape of a rabbit, placed there by the gods.

  We read Aztec and Maya myths with her,

  then Chinese and Korean legends, too.

  My mind is totally blown. But Ms. Wong

  is just getting started. She plays us a song:

  “Bandal,” which means “Half Moon,”

  a slow, pretty tune from her childhood.

  Gliding down the Milky Way, across the dark sky.

  A little white boat carries a bunny and a tree.

  The lyrics of songs, she tells us, are just poems

  set to music. I’d never thought of it that way.

  Then we read a poem by Miguel León-Portillo

  about the moon rabbit. He wrote it in Nahuatl,

  the language of the Aztecs, and the paper

  has both Spanish and English translations.

  I could contemplate the night birds

  and the rabbit in the moon at last.

  We discuss it in pairs, and Bobby Lee is so excited.

  All these lit languages? In English class? Whoa!

  Later, Ms. Wong says something I can’t forget:

  “Poetry is the clearest lens for viewing the world.”

  That night, I start googling the lyrics of my

  favorite songs, laid out in stanzas and refrains.

  She’s right. It’s poetry, all metaphor and rhyme,

  floating on music like the moon in the sky.

  From then on, Ms. Wong becomes a hero to me

  as she pairs up poems from past and present,

  pulling back the lid and showing us the secrets,

  like how Frost’s snow-filled woods symbolize death

  or why Soto drops an orange, glowing like fire,

  into the hands of a love-struck boy my age.

  And I’m hooked. I begin to read everything

  she gives me, amazing yet familiar voices,

  they show me truths I recognize at once,

  though I didn’t know the words before.

  My mind and heart swell with all the things

  I need to say, and one day it just happens:

  I put pen to paper, and my soul

  comes rushing out in line after line.

  Trickster

  Mr. Gil, our social studies teacher,

  announces a “thematic unit” one day.

  He and Ms. Wong are teaming up

  to teach us about…masks.

  People make masks around the world,

  but we focus on Mexico and Korea.

  We learn about ancient rituals,

  plays, dances—and how newer traditions

  blended with the old ways

  and made different masks.

  We read and write and reflect.

  To me, the best thing is that masks

  can either hide or reveal your identity.

  You can pretend to be something else—

  a god, a monster, a princess, a priest—

  or you can show your true self,

  your animal soul,

  your skeleton.

  For our final project, Ms. Wong

  invites to class her friend, a Mexican artist

  named Celeste de Maíz, expert mask-maker.

  She shows us her work: crazy, awesome

  faces carved from mesquite,

  painted in wild colors.

  Then she shows us how to make our own

  from papier-mâché. I think long and hard.

  Should I pretend or reveal? What’s inside me?

  Mr. Gil looks up my birth date. He tells me

  that in the Aztec and Maya calendar

  the day is 11 Dog. Any canine, he says,

  might be my animal soul.

  Right away, I know. The Feathered Coyote.

  Aztec Trickster. God of music and mischief,

  wisdom and story-telling. All decked out

  with orange and gold feathers

  to echo my own copper hair.

  The mask is straight fire!

  And los Bobbys have made some, too:

  Handy’s is a bright blue skull

  lined with silver flowers.

  Lee makes an old Korean monk

  with rainbow streaks down his nose.

  But Delgado blows us all away—

  a carnival mask with a duckbill

  and feathery horns! Savage!

  That weekend, we can’t resist.

  These masks can’t just go on our walls.

  We walk out to the desert at the city’s edge

  wearing shorts and sneakers.

  Then we strap on our masks

  and run through the chaparral

  chasing lizards and spiders,

  playing out our secret selves

  to earth and sky.

  BIRTHDAY MEDLEY

  My brother turns seven today.

  Come listen to the joyful sounds!

  Dale, dale, dale—

  No pierdas el tino,

  porque si lo pierdes…

  Boom! The piñata explodes!

  The pingos flock for the candy like crows!

  Bolsitas for those who move too slow!

  Estas son las mañanitas

  que cantaba el rey David—

  Happy birthday to you,

  Happy birthday to you,

  Happy birthday, Arturito…

  Make a wish,

  then blow!

  ¡Mordida!

  ¡Mordida!

  ¡Mordida!

  Don’t wipe the icing from your chin

  till I snap a photo—come on, grin!

  Give me a hug, carnalito!

  Open my present primerito!

  SUNDAYS

  Get up early, go to mass,

  get back home and cut the grass.

  Take a shower, time to eat,

  sit with dad to watch TV.

  Read a book to stretch my brain,

  then try to beat that video game.

  Dinner’s next, the family talks,

  more TV, an evening walk.

  Practice accordion in the garage,

  dreaming of fans and loud applause.

  Status updates, post some memes,

  text my bros till moonlight gleams.

  Brush my teeth and say my prayers,

  close my eyes (please no nightmares).

  Sundays end without a warning—

  just like that, it’s Monday morning!

  RECORDS

  Every week I walk down the street

  to visit my Bisabuela Luisa.

  She’s almost eighty, frail and slow,

  but in her heart she’s lively and fun—

  and she loves music!

  She serves me agua de melón,

  which she makes special

/>   just for me: she knows

  it’s my favorite thing to drink.

  We look through her records together

  as she tells me about the singers

  the songwriters

  the orchestras

  of that old

  golden

  age.

  Like ancient heroes,

  their names echo in our hearts:

  Tomás Méndez Sosa

  José Alfredo Jiménez

  Chavela Vargas

  Jorge Negrete

  Pedro Infante

  Lucha Reyes

  Los Panchos.

  With steady hands,

  my great-grandmother slides

  an album from its sleeve,

  sets it on the turntable,

  lowers the needle.

  From the hiss and crackle

  emerge these old-timey

  but beautiful sounds.

  I watch her lean back in her chair

  closing her eyes,

  transported to the past.

  VARIEDAD MUSICAL

  Though we each have different tastes,

  music has a special place

  in my family members’ lives

  so that we thrive, not just survive.

  Grandpa Manuel prefers conjunto bands.

  Tío Mike cranks the Tejano strand.

  My great-uncle Juan finds rock ‘n’ roll keen.

  Tía Vero thinks she’s a disco queen.

  My brother streams songs

  from his favorite cartoons.

  My sister likes reggae

  and K-pop and blues.

  Uncle Danny’s into rap—

  snare cracks, high-hat attacks,

  smooth flow from a hip-hop soul,

  phat synths and a low bass roll.

  Dad and Joe like country tunes:

  Guitars twang and voices croon

  about dogs and trucks and fishing boats

  or love among the creosote.

  Mamá escucha rock en español

  to balance her passion for classical.

  I also mix both old and new—

  boleros, rancheras, dub-step grooves.

  En las fiestas hay variedad musical—

  we respect one another and jam to it all!

  LA MANO PACHONA

  Just last week, between classes,

  me and los Bobbys ducked into the restroom.

  I needed to go so bad, but froze

  at the entrance to the stall,

  craning my neck, peering into the toilet.

  “What the heck, Güero?” asked Bobby Delgado,

  and my face went red with embarrassment.

  “Fam, I’m just checking, okay?

  Some guys forget to flush!”

  The other Bobbys laughed.

  That wasn’t really the truth. I was still afraid

  of a supernatural threat. Eight years ago,

  my abuela Mimi told us a tale

  that left a lasting mark.