Remembering Abuela and the Lives of our Ancestors
Posted on VidaAfroLatina.com on September 15, 2008

The greatest culture shock I’ve ever experienced happened when, while visiting my grandmother in Puerto Rico, I had to use a latrine.

It was the late 1950s. The setting was a God-forsaken barrio in Cayey, Puerto Rico, called El Polvorin. Lizards are plentiful in the tropics and my greatest fear was that one of those Geico-looking creatures would crawl up my ass while I sat on the wooden throne.

Both sets of grandparents lived in the same barrio. As a child I thought that, considering the living conditions in the island, I was the rich relative visiting from the public housing projects in New York City where we had a toilet and running hot water.

We had to take cold showers in a shower stall outside the house. That wasn’t so bad since it was hot all of the time on the island. But those cold showers would always cause serious shrinkage—and you know how conscious pre-pubescent boys are about their penis size. It would have been the ultimate embarrassment to be seen naked. After my showers, I would drape a small towel around my growing body and streak back to the house.

The second shock happened around dinnertime. My grandmother Rosa had a live chicken tied to a metal stake in the ground with a white string. What the hell was the chicken doing tied up while her other chickens were scurrying around free in the backyard? I could never have fathomed what happened next.

She came out the back door and grabbed the chicken by the neck. With lightning speed, she literally swung the chicken in the air. Then the fowl laid limp in her plantain stained hands. I wanted to say, “Abuela, what the hell did you just do?” When she saw my face, she laughed at my look of disbelief.

After she killed the poor chicken, she proceeded to dip it in a pot of boiling water and began plucking the feathers from the carcass. I was mortified but at the same time excited after experiencing my first execution. It was with fear, trepidation and curiosity that I witnessed my first murder of a chicken. This was not like stepping on a roach in the city—this was a warm-blooded animal that I saw killed with my own eyes. I had to make sense of the whole experience because I adored my grandmother and I knew she was not a cold-blooded killer.

This was the same lady who would put coconut chips and Carnation milk into an ice cube tray, freezing it overnight to make “limbels” for my own personal consumption. She made special desserts like “arroz con dulce” (Puerto Rican rice pudding) that only her loving hands could prepare. Any thoughts of becoming a vegetarian quickly dissipated after eating my first freshly killed fried chicken. I quickly became an accessory to the crime.

My grandmother, Rosa Vasquez, was nothing like the suburban, White women you would see on “Leave it to Beaver.” She always wore these long, modest, sack-like dresses made of cotton. The religious, catholic women of the times would sew their dresses to give the shoulders a puffy effect with enough room to put a simple belt around her waist. With her long strides she would walk with her umbrella to protect her from the burning sun and wore her granny pumps with the inch-high heels.

She was a tall stately woman with dark brown skin and a gap between her two front teeth. When she smiled, she would light up a room, and her laughter would gather momentum until she would start heaving. She would wear her gray, thinning hair in a bun and wire-rimmed glasses. Sometimes I would stare at her as she would converse with the neighbors, with her fists on her hips, always calling on someone named “ave maria purisima.” Her rhythmic cadence as she recited her nightly rosary was accompanied by a choir of chirping coquis (Puerto Rican tree frogs) in the background.

These moments were very captivating as a 10 year old. There was something other worldly that I could not explain at the time. It was as if she had a personal relationship with something I could not see, but I could feel its presence.

After prayers she would tuck me into bed and made sure that the “mosquitero” (mosquito net) protected me from the mosquitoes that would land on me like Lear jets and try to suck the life out of my tender skin. I always slept very peacefully. I would wake up to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee made with an old-fashioned, cloth coffee filter, which I called the sock. It looks like a dirty, old sock to me, but it emitted  aromas which have stayed with me until this day.

I remember when this weather-beaten man would come around the back door every morning, with rubber boots up to his hips, to pick up the leftover food from the night before that had been placed in tin cans so he could feed his pigs. El Polvorin had a built-in recycling program before it became popular in the U.S.

Next, you would hear this strange voice yelling “pan y juevos” (bread and eggs) every few seconds from a moving car to alert everyone he had breakfast food ready for purchase. You could hear the church bells from afar calling the faithful for their daily rituals. Women had their different colored veils to cover their heads as they entered church making the sign of the cross with holy water dripping from their hands. The neighborhood would come to life as people would begin their daily trek to el pueblo.

As a child during those bygone days, I experienced a taste of what daily life was like for the ancestors who migrated to urbanized towns after losing their lands in rural areas with the downturn of the sugar industry. Although I did not understand the context of their living conditions, I knew this was not representative of their spirit and drive because they carried themselves with the royal essence of kings and queens who suffered a temporary setback.

The Rodriguez/Vasquez clan suffered economic dislocation with grace and faith. My dad’s generation fought back with renewed vigor to uplift our circumstances by migrating to New York at 18 years of age. When I became 18 years old, I carried the torch by moving on to college and watching my family return to Puerto Rico to build a new life. My Dad is extremely proud of me because I carry the blood of kings and queens in me.


Christopher Rodriguez is an activist, trainer and writer of the book “Latino Manifesto: A Critique of the Race Debate in the U.S. Latino Community.” For more information, visit  www.Latinomanifesto.com. He can be reached at Latino.Manifesto@yahoo.com.