Chingona by Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Author:Alma Zaragoza-Petty [Alma Zaragoza-Petty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Broadleaf Books
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Her reasoning made sense, but all I felt at the moment was rejection. Even the cholas didn’t want me. After a few more months, she let me walk out of the gang. There would be no “jump out” rites, no savage passage to earn my freedom.

But before I was allowed to walk out, I had a significant experience that resulted from being in a gang. I sometimes wonder whether that incident actually saved my life. It all started when my chola friends and I had broken into the teachers’ lounge at school. We spray-painted graffiti over the walls. I had been dubbed “La Happy” when I joined the set because of the closed-mouth, barely visible half-smile I showed when I was indeed happy. My nickname was sarcastic—an attempt to make me actually smile and laugh by pointing out how much I sucked at looking “happy.” I owned it, though. It really resonated, both the barely-there smile I carried for years and the humor about it. At that time, I liked my name so much I decided to tag it all over the teachers’ lounge. So while some of my newfound friends in the gang wrote their names as inconspicuously as possible, I used a black spray can and wrote “La Happy” across a wall.

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