Woman Hollering Creek \., Study notes of Spanish

Download Woman Hollering Creek \. and more Study notes Spanish in PDF only on Docsity! 3164 / SA'\'DRA CISNEROS tor to expound Chicana feminism, especially as this movement combines culrur.rl issues with women's concerns. In raising controversy by having her house painted WI' hrightly, she openly questioned monocultural "historical districts" and "communit , covenants." Whose history? Cisneros asked; which community sets standard" (Through research she established that her decorating style was in accordance wit h her home's background and that the standards used to dispute her choice were arl,i trary.) A dissatisfaction with the politics of publishing has made her an advocate ,d small-press dissemination, Most of all, as in the story reprinted here, she is eage-r III show the rich dynamics of characters existing in the blend of Mexican and Ameriran cultures that begins with speaking two languages and extends to almost every aspl'!'1 of life. Spanish words, Mexican holidays, ethnic foods, and localized religious pnll tices punctuate her narratives; her characters have a facility with cultural play I h:11 reflects what for others would be an anthropologically enhanced understanding. The text is from Woman Hollering Creek (1991). Woman Hollering Creek The day Don Serafin gave Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez permission to t.il«: Clcohlas Enriqueta Del.eon Hernandez as his bride, across her fath« 1'\ threshold, over several miles of dirt road and several miles of paved, over Oil" border and beyond to a town en el otro lado-on the other side-already did he divine the morning his daughter would raise her hand over.her..qe.5., 1001, ..soutli,aiid dream of returning to the chores that never ended,~.i1!:...\:.QQ9-ro, / nothingbrothei~)al1done old. man's complaints. He had said, after all, in the hubbub of parting: I am your father, I will never abandon you. He had said that, hadn't he, whell-hehliggecr;mclth,," lether-go-:I3UCat the moment Cle6filas was busy looking for Chela, her 111;1id of honor, to fulfill their bouquet conspiracy. She would not remember hl'l father's parling words until later. 1 am your father, I will never abandon YII/I, Only now as a mother did she remember. Now, when she and Juan Pedritu / "" by the creek's edge. H~hen~lllal1a~dawQ.l11aI1Jov_~_e,ac~.o~her, SOli 1<' / times thatJQ,\T~,5Q_ur.s. But a parent s love lor a child, a child s lor Its parcnrv, is another thing entirely. This is what Cleofilas thought evenings when Juan Pedro did not COllI<' home, and she lay on her side of the bed listening to the hollow roar or IIIl' interstate, a distant dog harking, the pecan trees rustling like ladies in sl il'l petticoats-shh-shh-shh, shh-shh-shh-soothing her to sleep. CLn the town where she grew LIp, there isn't very much to do except aC('OIII \ ,lrany the aunts and godmothers to the house of OI"le or the other to play (';lr(k i Or walk to the cinema to see this week's film again, speckled and wit h ot u: hair quivering annoyingly on the screen. O~!QJ:h..~~ter..?f_towI11.(~ord('l II I \ \. .' milk shake that will appear in a day and a half as a pimple on her h;J('ksidl'. I / Or to the girlfriend's house to watch the latest telenovela' episode and I r\ III I copy the way the women comb their hair, wear their makeup. But what Cleofilas has been waiting for, has been whispering and sighlllV, and giggling for, has been anticipating since she was old enough 10 1"0111 1 SII;II) 1l1)1'I';l (Sn;llli"hi WOMAN HOLLERING CREEK / 3165 ;o,,_~~.,...-r••,,'1 against the window displays of gauze and butterflies and lace, iMpa~i.QJJX\Not the kind on the cover of the iAlanna!" magazines, mind you, where the lover is photographed with the bloody fork she used to si.lh-:i.l~~h~rgood name. But i pass'itiiilhitspuresfcrysfallfrieessence, The kind the books and songs and! telenovelas describe when one finds, finally, the great love of one's life, and does whatever one can, must do, at whatever the cost. Tu 0 Nadie. "You or No One." The title of the current favorite telenovela. The beautiful Lucia Mendez having to put up with all kinds of hardships of the heart, sepa'fatlon ana-betrayal, and loving, always loving no matter what, because that is the most important thing, and did you see Lucia Mendez on the Bayer aspirin commercials-wasn't she lovely? Does she dye her hair do you think? Cle6filas is going to go to the [armacia' and buy a hair rinse; her girlfriend Chela will apply it-it's not that difficult at all. Because you didn't watch last night's episode when Lucia confessed she loved him more than anyone in her life. In her life! And she sings the song "You or No One" in the beginning and end of the show. Tu 0 Nadie. Some­ how one ought to live one's life like that, don't you think? You or no one. Because to suffer for love is good. The pain all sweet somehow. In the end. SegucfJ:l, She had liked the sound ofit. Far ;iway and.lovely.Not.like Mon­ clova. Coahuia." Ugly. Seguin, Tejas.A nice sterling ring to it. The tinkle of money. She would get towear.nutfits.like the women on.the tele, like Lucia Mendez. And have a IOlle1¥h911se, and wouldn't Chela be jealous. And yes, they will drive all the way to Laredo' get her wedding dress. That's what they say. Because Juan Pedro wants to get married right away, without a long engagement since he can't take off too much time from work. He has a very iI11P_Qr~~?si!:i9_~JnSeguinwith, with ~:. a beer company, I think. Or wasit tires? Yes, hehf!.s_J..u_he...ba.ck.Sothey will get married in the spring whe'n-he ~~n-faKeojl7vork,and then they~m'dri~e~ff in his new pickup­ did you see it?-to their new home in Seguin. Well, not exactly new, but they're going to repaint the house. You know newlyweds. New paint and new furniture. Why not? He can afford it. And later on add maybe a room or two for the children. May they be blessed with many. Well, you'll see. Cleofilas has always been so good with her sewing machine. A little rrrr, rrrr, rrrr of the machine and izas! Miracles. She's always been so clever, that girl. Poor thing. And without even a mama to advise her on things like her wedding night. Well, may God help her. What with a father with a head like a burro, and those six clumsy brothers. Well, what do you think! Yes, I'm going to the wedding. Of course! The dress I want to wear just needs to be altered a teensy bit to bring it up to date. See, I saw a new sl yle last night that! thought would suit me. Did you watch last night's episode or The Rich Also Cry?6 Well, did you notice the dress the mother was weill'illg? .~. (;r;q,hic, svnsntionalisric Mexican magazine I). Uirv in SOlllll\\',':.lt'lll 11·,;1', 011 rl«: 1\1"\11.111 I'llhli -,he-el sinn' /963. border~ L I'h.um.uv. drllg<>tol"t' (Sp;1I1ish). (). I"irsl gloll.d -'"-'!' 0p"I,. (prtlllill [IIHI IIlTllllllllf'. L Hl''">p('cli''('h' ,I [OWl} :111<1 "LIII' ill Ivh-vno, IIw iuMc-vic-o ill Iq'/lJ), npcllll'll tll ItIl'o',Ll, ( 1'111.1. lilt l.un-r honl, 'l'illV,' I~·\.I" "St '}',IIIII ,. I"jh' ill ( ; 11;11hlnp(' lillilt·d '-'Ltk'" .unlntlu-: (111111111'" ( 'I II 1111\. ,>cllil h t ('Id I.d 'I C'\,I', /' h,.nriC/ ;, ..~uj\~\ ,. I I I J-r 3166 / SANDRA CISNEROS La Gritona.? Such a funny name for such a lovely arroyo." But that's wh.u they called the creek that ran behind the house. Though no one could S<lV whether the woman had hollered from anger or pain. The natives only knew the arroyo one crossed on the way to San Antonio, and then once again Oil the way back, was called Woman Hollering, a name no one from these paris questioned, little less understood. Pues, alla de los indios) quien sabe9- w l lll knows, the townspeople shrugged, bccause it was of no concern to their lives how this trickle of water received its curious name. "What do you want to know for?" Trini the laundromat attendant asked ill the same gruff Spanish she always used whenever she gave Cleofilas chang« or yelled at her for something. First for putting too much soap in tIll' machines. Later, for sitting on a washer. And still later, after Juan Pedrito was born, for not understanding that in this country you cannot let your baby walk around with no diaper and his pee-pee hanging out, it wasn't nice, ~entiell­ des? Pues.' How could Cle6filas explain to a woman like this why the name Womall Hollering fascinated her. \Vell, there was no sense talking to Trini. IOn the other hand there were the neighbor ladies, one on either side of the ~"J Ihouse they rented near the arroyo. The woman ~ol~?ad on the left, the woman Dolores on the right.~j" I The neighbor lady Soledad liked to call herself a widow, though how she Icame to be one was a mystery. Her husband had either died, or run away with an ice-house? floozie, or simply gone out for cigarettes one afternoon and never came back. It was hard to say which since Soledad, as a rule. didn't mention him. In the other house lived la senora' Dolores, kind and very sweet, but her ouse smelled too much of incense and candles from the altars that burned ontinuously in memory of two sons who had died in the last war and one usband who had died shortly after from grief. The neighbor lady Dolores ivided her time between the memory of these men and her garden, famous or its sunflowers-so tall they had to be supported with broom handles and Id boards; red red cockscombs, fringed and bleeding a thick menstrual color; nd, especially, roses whose sad scent reminded Cle6filas of the dead. Each ,unday la senora Dolores clipped the most beautiful of these flowers and ~rranged them on three modest headstones at the Seguin cemetery. \ The neighbor ladies, Soledad, Dolores. they might've known once the q.ame of the arroyo before it turned English but they did not know now. They '1rer.e. too busy remembering the men who had left through either choice or cfrcumstance and would never come back. Pain or rage, Cleofilas wondered when she drove over the bridge the firsl time as a newlywed and Juan Pedro had pointed it out. La Gritona, he had said, and she had laughed. Such a funny name for a creek so pretty and filII of happily ever after. The first time she had been so surprised she didn't cry out or try to del'clld herself. She had always said she would strike back if a man, any 111<111. we-re­ to strike her. 7. The Shouu-r, Yeller. Hollcrcr (Spanish). I. Do y011 understand? VVdl (Spanish). ~. :.I,r~>I;lllll lSP'lI;is,h I. 2. 1;1\'('rll. j ( f I.) WOMAN HOLLERING CREEK / 3167,t! i/ ~.-.,,,. ('But when thf moment came, and he slapped her once, and then again, and :Igain; untillhe lip split and bled an orchid of blood, she didn't fight back, she didn't bre)ik into tears, she ~n't ru~.<l_~<lyas she imagined she might when she saw such things inthe telenoveTas. . j;"In ~o~nhome-herparents had never raised a hand to each other orto' I heir children. Although she admitted she may have been brought up a little leniently as an only daughter-Ia consentuia," the princess-there were some Ihings she would never tolerate. Ever. Instead. when it happened the first time, when they were barely man and /~ wife, she had been so stunned, it left her speechless, motionless. numb. She had done nothing but reach up to the heat on her mouth and stare at the blood on her hand as if even then she didn't understand. She could think of nothing to say, said nothing. Just stroked the dark curls of the man who wept and would weep like a child, his tears of repentance and shame, this time and each. The men at the ice house. From what she can tell, from the times during her first year when still a newlywed she is invited and accompanies her hus­ hand, sits mute beside their conversation, waits and sips a beer until it grows warm, twists a paper napkin into a knot, then another into a fan, one into a rose, nods her head, smiles, yawns, politely grins. laughs at the appropriate moments, leans against her husband's sleeve, tugs at his elbow, and finally becomes good at predicting where the talk will lead, from this Cleofilas con­ ('Iud~seach is nightly trying to find the truth lying at the bottom of the bot­ lie like a gold doubloon on the sea floor. They want to tell each other what they want to tell themselves. But what is bumping like a helium balloon at the ceiling of the brain never finds its way out. It bubbles and rises, it gurgles in the throat, it rolls across the surface of I he tongue, and erupts from the lips-a belch. C------.... g If they are l.u.cky.. , .t.h.e..re a.r.e....t.ears a.. t tho.e.. e.n.. d o.f..t.. h..e. I.o...n... n.... I.·.gh.t. At any giVen) 111 omF!!!J_.!b~jhts. JXY!EUipeAk. :rhey._Qx.~dggsJha.si_ngt~~ir own tails befo re lying do~':l to sleep, trying to find a way: a route, an out, and-finally-ge somepe<ice. In the morning sometimes before he opens his eyes. Or after they have fin­ ishcd loving. Or at times when he is simply across from her at the table put­ I illg pieces of food into his mouth and chewing. Cleohlas thinks, This.Is.the 11Wl1 I have waited mv whole life for. Notth~the isn't a g~~d man. She has to remind herself why she loves him when she changes the baby's Pampers, or when she mops the bathroom floor, or tries to make the curtains for the doorways without doors, or whiten the linen. Or wonder a little when he kicks the refrigerator and says he hates this <hittv house and is going out where he won't be bothered with the baby's howl ing and her suspicious questions, and her requests t9Px thisandthis and I his lx-causc if she had any brains in her head she'd realize he's been up b('l'ore the rooster earning his living to pay for the food in her belly and the 1001' OVl'1' lur IWild i1lld would have to wake up again early the next day so why ,·,111'1 VOII jllsl ICilve me- ill pCilCC. WOIl101Il. I It- is IHII vcrv 1;I11. IIlI. ;llld Ill' dOl'Sll'l look likl' I Ill' 11]('11 Oil Illl' lell·lIlIl·e/m. II