Bridging an Interrupted Story: A prayer and a poem for Maria Jesus

 I saw a photo of Maria Jesus once-- she was beautiful like her mother, my great-grandmother. A small girl, slender with long hair and sad eyes, she stood with her mother and sisters. They called her Cachuy. She died in 1931 but her story lived on for decades in my mother's tears.

​In 1931, part of my family left behind a thriving small business to move to Mexico City in the midst of the Great Depression and the virulent anti-Mexican atmosphere that spread throughout the United States in response to the economic crisis. As a child and even a teenager, I didn't understand why they had moved. When I entered college and learned about the massive deportations and repatriations of Mexican immigrants and their US-born children, I discovered that my family was part of a larger history.

​This week, I uncovered Cachuy's death certificate. I learned that she died at 10 in the morning on October 10, 1931 of typhoid fever in el Hospital General de la Ciudad de México. She was 14 years old. It was the first documentary evidence I had uncovered of her life, yet I had already begun the work of healing the interrupted story. In 2004, while visiting Mexico City, knowing that she was buried there, a thousand miles from home, I went to the great Catedral and had a mass offered in her name. Then I went to my hotel room in el Hotel Histórico Central, prayed and wrote a poem. Sometimes that's all we can do to heal-- pray, remember, and write. And it is a powerful combination.

​Today, I share that poem with you. Remembering Cachuy who died so far from home because of economic and political events that she had no say in.

This is so that people will remember

That you were born in Chihuahua
when the nation was at war with itself
That you were the youngest daughter of five
That you were the middle child of ten
That your eyes were green and your hair light brown
That you were the one who smiled
That your sisters told you that they loved you the most.

This is so that people will remember
That you spent your short life migrating
From Chihuahua to El Paso to la Ciudad de Mxico
​That your young life was shaped by Revolution
​and economic crisis
And the day to day wonders
Of your mother's tortillas and your baby brother's eyes.

This is so that people will remember
That your mother died when you were ten
That when your father left you
He crossed the border to drink himself to death
That your sisters cried each night alone
Missing your mother's touch... her soft gaze.

This is so that people will remember
That you were not alone
That a million others joined you
Pushed out of the land of opportunity
by violence and poverty and hope that
Somewhere else would be better
Some imagining a long lost home
​Others returning to a land they did not know.

This is so that people will remember
​That your last thoughts were of sitting at the kitchen table
​Listening to your mother hum softly as she cooked
That the pain in your stomach could not
drown out the memories
Of walking home from school laughing
That at the end you let go without fear

this is so that people will remember 
That somewhere in this massive city lay your bones
Laid to rest so many decades ago
In an unmarked grave in the sacred ground of Tenochtitlan
That for seventy years your sisters cried
To have left you so far from home.


​From ATejana in Tenochtitlan
Mexico City
​June 29, 2004