Sandra Cisneros
Mamacita is the big mama of the man across the street, third-floor front. Rachel says her name ought to be Mamasota, but I think that´s mean. The man saved his money to bring her here. He saved and saved because she was alone with the baby boy in that country. He worked two jobs. He came home late and he left early. Every day. Then one day Mamacita and the baby boy arrived in a yellow taxi. The taxi door opened like a waiter’s arm. Out stepped a tiny pinky shoe, a foot soft as rabbit’s ear, then the thick ankle, a flutter of hips, fuchsia roses and green perfume. The man had to pull her, the taxicab driver had to push. Push, pull. Push, pull. Poof! All at once she bloomed. Huge, enormous, beautiful to look at from the salmon-pink feather on the tip of her hat down to the little rosebuds of her toes. I couldn’t take my eyes off her tiny shoes. Up, up, up the stairs she went with the baby boy in a blue blanket, the man carrying her suitcases, her lavender hatboxes, a dozen boxes of satin high heels. Then we didn’t see her. Somebody said because she´s too fat, somebody because of the three flights of stairs, but I believe she doesn’t come out because she is afraid to speak English, and maybe this is so since she only knows eight words. She knows to say: He is not here for when the landlord comes, No speak English if anybody else comes, and Holy smokes. I don’t know where she learned this, but I heard her say it one time and it surprised me. My father says when he came to this country he ate hamandeggs for three months. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hamandeggs. That was the only word he knew. He doesn’t eat hamandeggs anymore. Whatever her reasons, whether she is fat, or can’t climb the stairs, or is afraid of English, she won’t come down. She sits all day by the window and plays the Spanish radio show and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull. Home. Home. Home is a house in a photograph, a pink house, pink as hollyhocks with lots of startled light. The man paints the walls of the apartment pink, but it’s not the same, you know. She still sighs for her pink house, and then I think she cries. I would. Sometimes the man gets disgusted. He starts screaming and you can hear it all the way down the street. Ay, she says, she is sad. Oh, he says. Not again. ¿Cuándo, cuándo, cuándo? she asks. ¡Ay caray! We are home. This is home. Here I am and here I stay. Speak English. Speak English. Christ! ¡Ay! Mamacita, who does not belong, every once in a while lets out a cry, hysterical, high, as if he had torn the only skinny thread that kept her alive, the only road out of that country. And then to break her heart forever, the baby boy, who has begun to talk, starts to sing the Pepsi commercial he heard on T.V. No speak English, she says to the child who is singing in the language that sounds like tin. No speak English, no speak English, and bubbles into tears. No, no, no, as if she can’t believe her ears.
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In this poem I see the relevance it carries to how the world is like today. It relates to how there are so many people in the world who may have moved from Spanish-speaking countries and are now in countries where the primary language is English and they feel lost. For some their language is what ties them to the culture they are connected to, and the culture they left behind. They can feel that them learning English completely disregards who they were before. It may even feel like an abandonment of who they are. Someone’s culture and language are a major part in who a person is and changing that can be a major shock to their system. This thought is expressed when Mamacita’s baby boy begins to speak English. She can see that he’s losing the culture he was born with and is beginning to be heavily influenced by the English-centric tendencies of the United States. Which breaks Mamacita’s heart and I’m sure she feels left out by the mannerisms her family has adopted. Also, currently in life, there are still people who want everyone to be just like them and put the American culture first. Another thing I love about this poem is the use of dialogue. With words like, “Ay Caray!”, “Cuando, Cuando, Cuando” and “No speak english” help demonstrate the possible desperation in Mamacita’s voice and let the reader know the emotions running though Mamacita’s head.
Sassy Succulents 