IT WAS AUTUMN in suburban Richmond. Cheerful, acute voices overwhelmed the muted sounds of falling leaves.
“Córrele Guillermo,” yelled Elena to her toddler. “Te tengo aquí unas galletitas.”
Just next to her, a round, middle-aged face surfaced from behind a USA Today. With deepening, fresh wrinkles, he glanced and gruntled, “In this park we only speak English!”
The mother turned slightly. Taking a cookie from a Mickey Mouse tupperware, she calmly said, “I’m sorry sir. In this park you only speak English. We speak Spanish and English, and perhaps some French or Portuguese if we really try.”
The stranger had no language to reply. He again sank his face into his paper’s sports pages.
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LUIS A. MARENTES is an associate professor of Spanish at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has also been a visiting professor at MIT and Tehran University’s Faculty of World Studies. He is a contributor to The Huffington Post’s Latino Voices and Latino Rebels. You can read his personal blog at UMASS here and find many of his Twitter musings at @marentesluis.
As I mentioned on Facebook, I have spent much of today riveted by this piece. I love some of the backstory behind it, which I was lucky enough to have read over email. There’s a lot going on behind every word, every phrase.
I’ve been thinking about one of my upcoming pieces on being dual ethnic. I experienced some racism from a Hispanic group at a college that wouldn’t let me join. This was 22 years ago. I hope to explore the topic as I feel dual ethnics often have to break down barriers just as other minorities have to.
Thank you, Luis, for this magnificent piece.
Thank you, Nick, for encouraging me to try my hand at a new kind of writing for me. These are my words, but you are present in the advise, the dialogue and the inspiration since I first read your words in your series about David Sal Silva for Latino Rebels.
I made long-lasting connections through writing the tragedy of that story: you, Julio and Chris Silva. All very kind people and generous. You’re a natural at this sort of writing. I only did light editing to the piece.
It is so difficult to express in a few phrases the significance of a life. But I could feel it while reading this enjoyable short story . . . short? Yes! there a lot going on behind it. Superb.
Thank you, María. Not precisely a “microcuento”, but inspired to try this thanks to Enrique Anderson Imbert’s microcuentos that you taught me to appreciate.
Excellent. I knew you for other styles of writing, but now I see your talent is broader than I thought. Very nice, my friend.
Thank you, Rethabile. Trying to follow on your footsteps. Perhaps one day we can have a reading together in Paris or, even better, in Maseru!
This is gold, especially the tupperware.