The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano

Author:Sonia Manzano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2012-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

The police started watching the church. They were easy to spot in their blue uniforms. But I don’t remember exactly when I realized undercover agents were watching our little iglesia as well. It was like when a mosquito starts buzzing around and you shake your head, not really sure what’s bothering you until it bites.

A man we had never seen before was hanging around one corner. Another stranger was smoking and staring off into space on another corner. I could see a third on the roof, who ducked back when he caught me looking.

Migdalia, Angel, and I were walking toward the church.

“Migdalia, who are those guys?” I whispered.

“Wilfredo says they are undercover cops.”

“Watching us? Why?”

Angel tried to be funny. “‘Cause we are the baddest Puerto Ricans ever.”

“Quiet, Angel,” scolded Migdalia. “They are afraid of us.”

Afraid! Of us obedient Puerto Ricans?

“What about that guy?” I whispered, pointing to a man in a sweatshirt, sitting in his car. “Is he one of them?”

“I think so,” said Migdalia.

“But he looks Puerto Rican.”

“So?”

I took one peek at the guy in the car — he was Puerto Rican! But when I entered the church, my eyes widened even more by what greeted me inside: Girl Young Lords! Yes. For the first time, there were girl Young Lords. I came up short when I compared myself to them with my uptight blouse and pants. They were wearing jeans, just like the boys, and they acted like they didn’t care how they looked, which only made them look more beautiful. All had natural hair, long or short or wavy or kinky, and I felt stupid with my little roll of bangs. I fussed around with them to make them look more natural.

But even as I ran my fingers through my hair, I could sense that they were on extra alert, checking all around during the service. The lights in their eyes were beacons scanning the congregation — looking, I guess, for friends or enemies. Their looks to one another were intense and full of signals I ached to be able to read but couldn’t. The room was a pressure cooker. Even as I was thinking about all these things — the girl Young Lords, their hair, my hair, that we were being watched — the pressure cooker burst when the Young Lord with the blinding smile and the kinky hair stood up and yelled, “There is something wrong here! This is not a community!”

That was it! The organ player tried to drown him out by playing as loudly as he could. Eighty parishioners stood up and sang louder than they had ever sung before. But they couldn’t drown him out any more than you could shut out the morning light, or any more than you could stop a breeze of new ideas from coming into a room with your splayed-out hand. Or any more than you could cover the sky with your hand.

Then, suddenly, like a herd of bulls, twenty-five policemen charged in! This time they weren’t in shock like they were when watching the burning garbage that summer.

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