Tú Te Vas Sandra Del Rio Madrigal (bio) When the US invaded México,nuestra gente became foreigners to their own tierra. Theirrivers, arches, canyons, lakes, and frosted hillswere stripped of the soil that kept the greenery growing,all while their voices withered away to the soundof a white man’s destiny. And when I broughtmy daughters to a place I had heardto give a different kind of hopethan the ones we could find at church, Ionly thought of the fields nuestra gente walkthrough to get to a state we all know could be home. ________ Mariana never listened to the Rolling Stones. She didn’t listen to Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, nor Hall and Oates. Billy Joel, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, the Smiths . . . No—other musicians played through her parents’ car radio and home stereos when the day came through to make her family work. Mariana, then, had those other musicians to listen to when she needed a place to stay. When she needed to nestle into spaces the eighth-notes made when they rose and sank for each other, and where they slanted to take her home. Those notes gently nudge narratives into one another, lifting the last one into a dance. Mariana’s music was alive and unbounded. Her musicians didn’t think about music genres’ borders. They demolished limitations while forging their wreckage into a modest labor: moving stories forward. [End Page 191] She had Juan Gabriel when she broke up with Micah. “Yo No Nací para Amar” still hurts. Still heals. Juanga knew how to make the young girl cry. Mariana mourned losing love with Selena, too, through “No Me Queda Mas.” No other artist could relay such pain like Selena and Juan Gabriel. Their voices came not from the throat, but from their entire beings. Breakup songs were cliché, sure, but as Mariana would argue, us dreamers are dramatic at best. She listened to Shakira’s sweet yearning when she fell in love with Cece (“Día de Enero” was their song!) and Vicente Fernandez’s soul-splitting ballads when she had realized Frank would never be the one to tether her to a better world. “Por Tu Maldito Amor” was so theatrical, even the violins sang in anguish. There was Rocio Durcal for when she lost her abuelita. Who would have thought Abuelita Clara would later pass the anthem for grieving her husband, “Amor Eterno,” to Mariana for her own grief? Who knew dark loneliness could sound so beautiful? There was Luis Miguel, also, for when it was safe to dream. Soothing melodies provide the best backdrops for romanticizing futures. Vivacious melodies provide the best backdrops for feeling rich in struggling times. Luis Miguel provided it all for Mariana. Now that Arizona had abandoned her, she can’t find the right CD to nod her head to, nor the best playlist on her phone to get her through the day. It’s hard to say whether Arizona was ever there for Mariana, but at least the state felt like it would accept her at some point. As a child, she never imagined the many ways her life would have been uprooted. Disillusion began when Mariana couldn’t get her driver’s license. Then she wondered if she could figure out a way to get a worker’s permit to save money for college. When tuition rates for the schools in her community became too difficult to look at, Mariana knew her future depended on her ability to leave everything behind. Her immigration status would make her tuition equivalent to that of an out-of-state student. Slowly, Arizona stopped looking like the place she had learned to call home. She ran her hands across the vinyl records she’d be leaving behind for her soon-to-be-born sobrino. He’d listen to her music while she was in Mexico. He would grow up knowing the turntable’s needle running across a record’s grooves. He’d know how the needle strengthened the depth of beats. She thought about taking a few, but one look at her sister’s panza made guilt rise at the...
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May 15, 2024
Michael Ryan + 2
Open Access
