Young Turks

Alma’s grandmother, Dolores, migrated to California, following her San Diego- born husband. Her daughter, Alma’s mom, Tita, joined them in California a year later at the age of three after having stayed with an aunt in Tijuana. Dolores supported her family by occasionally doing some housework for the wealthier people in southern California and working at a Mexican restaurant, where she became well known for her empanadas and flour tortillas. Her husband had died early on, when their little Tita was only six, during a scuffle in the rundown barrio, where a number of other Mexican families lived. It was a Spanish Harlem with its gangs of prideful Mexican-American sons and their worried-sick mothers. A shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe stood in miniature on almost every lawn and on the wall of the ethnic food market in the neighborhood.

Tita grew up in this rough neighborhood only to fall in love with a boy from a local gang, who got her pregnant at 17 with Alma. The boy ended up leaving to Iowa during Tita’s second trimester to work at a meat packing plant in order to bring in more money once Tita made him realize gangbanging wasn’t going to be a lucrative lifestyle. He never returned for Alma’s birth and eventually Tita married a more stable man, the manager at the grocery store down the street from her mother’s house.

Dolores was happy Estefan and Tita. When Estefan, or Steven, moved in there was an endless supply of produce and various packages of rice, beans, and the freshest cuts of meat. Needless to say, Dolores was delighted with her new son-in-law and Alma’s new stepfather.

Things changed once Tita became pregnant again, which resulted in the birth of a little boy, Steven Jr., or just Junior for short. At the age of 25, Steven took over the family store in California with the help of his brothers. He managed the store for nearly a year before deciding to hand it over to his younger brothers in order to move onto a new, developing branch of the family business. Estefan’s father in south Texas wanted to meet his new grandson, the future heir to his grocery business. Not being Steve’s biological child, Alma was left in California with Dolores. She received visits form her mother once a year, or two at the most.

With the ache of rheumatoid arthritis creeping into her bones, Dolores was left to raise a moody little girl without any help. Through the American schooling, extra-curricular activities, and various phases of childhood and adolescence, Dolores was there for Alma. A barrier had always existed between Alma and her grandmother, but they love one another unconditionally. Things had gone smoothly up until Alma entered her sophomore year of high school.

In junior high, Alma had begun dressing differently. There was more black clothing in her closet and a growing stack of CD’s beside her boom box, a Christmas gift from her mother and Steven. In eighth grade, Alma convinced Dolores to let her dye red streaks in her hair. Dolores sat back, unable to comprehend these changes Alma was going through, which she never had to deal with in Tita. The girl’s mother was gone and the disciplining was left up to an aging grandmother.

During her sophomore year of high school, Alma fell in with a group of punks, kids who spent their free time listening to loud music, playing instruments, and drinking behind their parents’ backs. In this group she met Brian. They had gone to junior high together but just then met a couple of years into their high school years. The attraction was not instant. At the time they met they both had insignificant relationships with other people. When they had really begun to hit it off was the summer before their senior year of high school. On various occasions, they met up with their friends to go out drinking on the beach, or in a friend’s garage. Every time, the two ended up talking to one another.

Brian had fallen for Alma one night when they were at the beach and the salty, humid air had caused Alma’s curly hair to frizz up, giving her a spunky, carefree look. He always joked that he fell in love with her hair first and Alma second. The two would lie together, clothed or unclothed, hands running over one another, and noses smashed against one another’s skin. Brian’s hands would unfailingly end up happily tangled in Alma’s thick, brown, curly mane that always smelled like Dolores’ baking. In fact, Brian had also fallen in love with Dolores’ empanadas, ojarascas, and buñuelos. You name it, he loved it. However, he had only ever tasted these baked goods when Alma would steal some from the kitchen to give to Brian whenever he’d snuck into her bedroom, or whenever she snuck out to meet him.

One night, just a week before the beginning of the school year, Dolores caught the young couple having sex in the bushes that lined the back wall of her tiny house. Brian was immediately banished and Alma was strictly warned to be careful or else she’d end up a single teenage mother like her own mom. This didn’t stop the couple from seeing each other everyday for the next six months.

The sneaking around had come to a temporary halt when Dolores caught onto the couple’s misdoings and had iron window guards put on every window of the house. Alma and Brian had become frustrated for a time until Alma had brazenly decided to simply walk out the front door whether or not Dolores saw her. Alma figured her love for Brian was too strong for her old grandmother to stifle.

Another night, when Alma was getting ready to meet Brian, Dolores stopped her before the she could leave the room. Dolores began to lecture Alma, telling her that she was disgracing herself at such a young age for some “huerco” that didn’t respect her body and only wanted sex. Following that, Alma was locked in her room while Dolores went to make a call to Texas. On the phone, she begged Tita to return and talk some sense into her unruly teenage daughter. Nothing could be done all the way from Texas, and Tita apologized but she was busy heading the newly opened second grocery store in San Antonio. Defeated and with all her resources exhausted, Dolores gave up, able to only argue briefly with Alma before she left to roam around with Brian every night.

Six months into their relationship, his parents, who were approached by Dolores, approached Brian. Apparently, his mom and dad were also upset to find out how much time the couple spent together and were genuinely concerned with all the sneaking around and the sex. On both sides, the couple was defeated. Brian’s parents advised that they stay apart for some time for the sake of their young lives. They didn’t want to see two kids ruin their lives for blind love. The two teenagers refused to listen, continuing to see one another at school every day and coming home late. Exasperated Dolores threatened to place Alma in a different school out of her love and concern for her granddaughter. Frightened by the thought of leaving Brian, Alma recounted this to Brian. The two began to hash out a plan to stay together.

Brian’s parents were shocked when they found out that the couple began renting an apartment. Dolores cried for days, begging Alma not to do this to herself. Brian collected several items from his house for their new home: guitar, pillows, blankets, and a few towels he snuck out of his mom’s clean laundry. Alma took her clothes, the pillow Dolores made her when she was only four, and her mattress, which was snuck out of the house while Dolores was at work. During the move, Brian decided to steal a couple of lawn chairs from a random house they drove by, They slowly began to furnish their new life together, where they would never again be separated or told what to do.