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“Ya vienen,” my mom responds sternly from the kitchen. As if she always needs to remind him to be patient.
I love this ritual almost as much as I love my family. As much as I love my culture. And I do love it. It’s a deep-seated love that I still struggle to figure out. My family likes to joke that I’ve become too Americanized. “She’s an American now,” they tease. “She’s forgotten where she came from.”
I haven’t, but it’s been a hard balance. I don’t dare tell them that it’s a struggle most days, though. A struggle of being born into one culture and being raised in another. A push and a pull, a divide over which direction to go in. Over how to split myself up to make it work out for everybody. My job needs me to be American with the commodity of being able to translate. My family wants me to be Argentinian with a successful, American job.
I can’t tell them how tiring it’s become. I could never.
Meanwhile, I meet once a month with a Latina networking group run by loud and proud Yuli, a Cuban woman who loves her heritage so much, she embraces it bravely. I, in turn, always feel out of place. Too Hispanic for some, not Hispanic enough for others.
Maybe it was growing up in a country that just wanted me out. So, I hid myself instead of being proud. I hid myself so thatnobody could ask too many questions or pry too much. Instead of leaning into my culture, showing others who I was, I felt ashamed.
As older cousins, Leo and I took on a lot of the high emotions that came with the move and the immigration hardship. The others were too young to realize or understand it. They didn’t have to deal with the worry and the struggle. Instead, they had the luxury of being free of it and just getting to be kids.
Delfina and Agostina watched telenovelas well into middle school. Leo and I got into American music by watching MTV. We spoke Spanish when we needed to, but rarely conversationally outside of our families. And we never cared for mate, the drink that’s a staple in Argentinian culture.
And even though Leo was the oldest, I was the girl, and so much more was expected of me. Leo really got out. He went away to college then opted to move to a city over an hour away. I could never dream of doing that. The condo I bought, with my family’s approval, was loved more so because of its location than any other reason.
“Julieta, mi amor, cómo estás?”
The greeting pulls me out of a stupor. We’ve got a special guest at dinner tonight.
“Hola abuelo.” I give him my biggest smile.
Facundo Rossi is a soft-spoken man. Kind brown eyes, neatly brushed thin hair, and a genuine smile that always feels like a warm hug. He hugs me now when he sees me, giving me kisses on both cheeks.
My grandparents didn’t make the move with us, opting to stay in their home country with their friends and their lives. They traveled a lot for shows, but I know my grandmother loved the feeling of going back to Argentina once the competitions were done. Going back to her community, her neighborhood, her home.
They would visit occasionally, and we took some trips to see them, but we all built our respective lives where we were. My mother made new friends, a group of women from church, and found her and Ana jobs working in a factory to make home furnishings: curtains, pillows, upholstery. My father became a custodian and handyman in a large apartment building.
My parents built this incredible life for us out of nothing, and I can’t look at that and not want to be my best self. It’s a crippling need to be successful for them, my immigrant parents that sacrificed so much for us.
“Bueno, a comer,” my mother states, waiting for everybody else to sit down before she can get comfortable. My father and tío Luis are already digging in, filling up their plates while my mother encourages them to eat. The spread on the table is a gorgeous display of celebration. There is a tray of grilled steaks and sausages, those glistening, bright red tomatoes, the baguettes. There is a platter of my mother’s practically famous empanadas, and glasses of red wine—some with ice cubes floating in them. And there’s my loud, loving family surrounding the table.
“Y Diego cómo está?” tía Cecilia asks Agostina in reference to a guy she dated for all of five minutes.
“I thought it was Brett,” Delfina says, filling up her plate, recalling another guy she dated.
“First of all, I would never date somebody named Brett. I have some standards.”
Tía Ana just huffs in response to this. “When are you going to get serious, Agostina?”
“Déjala,” Cecilia chides. Let her be. Let her have her fun.
Tía Ana just stares at Cecilia, something probably meant to intimidate. Shit, it’s working on me. I make it a point to just keep my head down so I don’t have to deal with her wrath, but Cecilia just laughs it off.
“Qué ganas de joder tenes,” she says, in a teasing tone that clearly statesyou’re in the mood to be a pain in the ass.
Agostina just keeps filling up a plate, not bothering to respond to any of it.
Cecilia has been on our side since we were born, but she was really a help when we were boisterous, curious teenagers.
When I was in the fifth grade, we had sex ed. We learned about periods and body parts and were shown too many pictures of STIs. My mother was appalled.
My Catholic upbringing was one where sex was never discussed. Periods were barely discussed. I was, in turn, terrified of boys and dating, not knowing what to even do. There were no open conversations. Sex was shameful. Cecilia allowed us to come to her with questions, welcoming every out of the box topic, and answered them in earnest while hiding it from our parents to our request. Delfina and I would spend nights reveling in the shit Agostina would get into, the mess of boys she would get involved with. Instead of retreating because she didn’t have the answers, she went barreling headfirst into it anyway. Because she wanted it, because she wanted to. And Delfina … well, she romanticized everyone. And I just focused on my studies, too nervous around boys as it was, not even allowed to date until I was seventeen.
And tía Cecilia is no stranger to dating either. She’s brought plenty of her own dates to these dinners and holidays. She dated a painter once, a beautiful woman with long red curls and gorgeous porcelain skin. I was always fascinated by her, by how they both talked about art and life. How they both seemed so otherworldly. But when that ended, she decided she needed some stability and routine in her life—‘not the whimsy of an artist!’ she’d said. So, she dated a tax accountant, and Mitchell was fine. I liked him, he was nice enough. But he gifted her a planner for her birthday once. And let me tell you what Ceciliadoesn’t like: planning and somebody telling her she needs to plan. So, she kicked him to the curb, too. These days she says she’s dating herself. But I see a lot of Agostina in her. I think Cecilia does too, which is probably why she’s always going up to bat for her.
That, and her and Ana don’t always get along. Sisters, I guess.
