Heavens on Earth by Carmen Boullosa

Author:Carmen Boullosa
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781941920459
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Published: 2017-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

17The paragraph was illegible in the manuscript. I’ve taken it from Zurita’s Breve Sumaria y Relación, but I had to change it around quite a bit because it was practically incomprehensible. Estela’s note.

18These last two lines are Hernando’s (though they are identical to Zurita’s). The Spanish text of the original ends here. Estela’s note.

EKFLOROS KESTON DE ESTELINO

As teenagers during the first two years of the heavenly seventies, we dreamt of sexual equality; we believed in the Cuban dream; we scribbled slogans against racism, our unconditional adoration for Martin Luther King, and abhorrence of the KKK on our school notebooks; and we wore scandalous miniskirts and took the contraceptive pill. The Indians were present for us at that time because their arts and crafts became part of our world, dressing us and decorating our rooms. We wore Oaxacan blouses from various regions, fabulous clothing embroidered in Chiapas, and necklaces and other things that our grandmas (and our moms who were devotees of Chanel, if their pocketbooks allowed) would never have imagined would be worn by young ladies of our social class. Instead of high-heeled shoes, it was more chic to wear plastic-soled huaraches (which were almost as uncomfortable as those spiked heels), and we were even brazen enough to wear the bright taffeta of the Mazahuan Indians instead of silk blouses. But the “Indian issue” wasn’t a real concern, or at least not like the “Black issue” was—it was “Black is beautiful,” but not “Lo indio es lo bello.”

A lot of embroidered blouses, a lot of dreams of sexual liberation, much reading of One Hundred Years of Solitude (which was the bible of our generation and a supreme outrage for our fathers), much Angela Davis and much Susan Sontag, and even more of the Boom—the Donoso Era, the Puig Era, the Fuentes Era…But I’ll back up. I was fifteen when I read One Hundred Years of Solitude in my school for young ladies from good families run by the Ursuline nuns. This was when and where the unholy airs began to blow, before the outbreak of the storm that brought the Jesuits and the Cuban dream, and that led to the unveiling of more than one nun and the drawing of more than one student off to incredible adventures…My best friend ended up as a guerrilla fighter in two different countries and two different wars before death took her from us forever, not to mention the adventures of other friends and those who went to live in the Colonia Martín Carrera (whose name we heard for the first time around then), or who spent some time with the Tarahumara Indians…One Hundred Years of Solitude—the fabric of the dreams of my generation—was part of this breath of fresh air, of these winds. I remember that a month before we read One Hundred Years, they forced Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo on us. I didn’t dislike it, but I don’t think I completely understood the power of the text (I did recognize the power of the printed word, but I wasn’t captivated by the small-mindedness of the catchphrases).

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