Tag: Zelmira Rodriguez

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Goodbye Mamacita

If ever a woman was a force to be reckoned with it was Zelmira Rodriguez. Born in 1928, in the rural village of Hacienda del Tamarindo, she was the only girl in a family of five boys. She was tiny, with wild, black curly hair and flashing obsidian eyes. Her mother died in childbirth when she was seven years old. From then on, Zelmira and her brothers were raised by their Aunt Petra, another woman of force. 

Petra was the only sister of Zelmira’s father, Ignacio Rodriguez, an exceedingly stubborn, selfish man. When his wife, Zelmira’s mother, was dying the doctor told him, “I can save your wife or the baby. What do you want me to do?” 

“Save the boy,” Ignacio answered. Soon after he came home with a new wife, already pregnant. From that day forward, Ignacio was not allowed inside the house. Gerardo, Zelmira’s older brother, told his father, “You stepped all over our mother when she was alive. You will never step inside her home again.” It was a lesson Zelmira never forgot.

I don’t know if Petra raised Zelmira in her image, or if Zelmira was just born tough. I know that she rode horses and fed cattle, just like her brothers. I suspect that both Zelmira and Petra wore trousers, at a time when most girls were still in long skirts. She was a girl with grit. She worked hard and took risks. She probably didn’t go to school past the fifth grade but she was smart and well informed. She knew what she wanted in life and went after it, until it was hers. She was a woman who took charge of her destiny.

Zelmira loved to laugh. She loved being with family and friends. She had boundless energy and a stubborn persistence. She was determined all seven of her children would go to school and study hard. When Neto became more interested in surfing than in studying, she threw his surfboard in the trash and watched as the garbage man drove away with it.

When her oldest son needed money to go to college, Zelmira started selling fruits and vegetables out of their living room. She traveled by city bus to the big market every morning at 5:00 and came home in a taxi, with bags of food, ready to open her store.

When that money wasn’t enough, she added a small breakfast cafe on the back patio. When she realized she could make even more money by going to the U.S. to buy second-hand clothes to bring back to Mazatlán, she closed her store and moved to California, taking her youngest daughter with her. She left the two youngest boys at home with their father, with strict instructions that they needed to stay in school. She returned home four times a year, to make sure they did.

In the 1980’s, Zelmira traveled to Europe twice ~ once to Rome to see the Pope and then to Fatima, Portugal to visit the shrine of the Virgin Mary. She saw the Pope twice more, once in Los Angeles and again in Mexico City. 

Can you imagine such a life? For a little girl born in 1928 in Hacienda del Tamarindo? 

Zelmira’s life, was also full of heartbreak. Her beloved husband, Jesús, died in 1993. She lost two sons, as well as four of her brothers and, of course, her dear Aunt Petra. She outlived some of her nieces and nephews, and most of her friends. 

Zelmira, herself, died peacefully this week at home, at the age of 93. Padre Lalo came every Sunday, to give her the last sacraments. We all knew that Zelmira would die when she was ready.

She will be buried next week in the family cemetery in Hacienda del Tamarindo, in the town she loved, next to the people who made her who she was. 

Vaya con Dios, Mamacita. Go with God. We will never forget you. Your feisty spirit will live in us forever. 

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Zelmira Returns With A Broken Heart

In December, 1993, Neto and his brother, Cachi, took a train from Nogales to Mazatlan to see their father. Three days later Jesús was dead from a sudden heart attack. Neto and Cachi were despondent.

“When my father saw how messed-up and raggedy we were from drugs and alcohol, my father decided to take the ride to the other-world in our place.”

Neto has told me the story so many times over the years, I know he’s still haunted by the memory.

Zelmira was living in Los Angeles at the time. No longer working full time as a housekeeper in Echo Park, she was cleaning houses throughout her neighborhood in Inglewood when she got the news.

No one could believe that Jesús was gone. He was seventy-five years old, working full time as a security guard and fixing cars in his spare time. The family waited for Zelmira to return to Mazatlán before they held the funeral and buried Jesús in the Panteon Renacimiento Para Nacer a la Vida Eterna (The cemetery where people are reborn into eternal life.)

“I loved that old man,” Zelmira told people at the funeral. “I always thought he’d still be here when I came back home.” 

Zelmira was a widow at sixty-six years old. She had been married for forty-three years. She put on the black clothes of a Mexican widow and has never taken them off.

After the funeral, Neto stayed behind in Mazatlán for three months to take care of  his mother until she was ready to return to California.

“I wanted to make sure she was all right before I went back to the U.S. I didn’t want to leave her alone. The responsibility I had on my shoulders as a kid, earning money to help her provide for us, came back to me.”

Zelmra appreciated Neto in a different way after the funeral. “Your father always told me you would be the one to take care of me when I was old. I should have listened to him.”

“It’s ok, Mamí. I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. If I can redeem myself, even a little, by taking care of you now, that makes me happy.”

But an even bigger blow to Zelmira’s heart was still to come. On May 2, 2002, Cachi was killed instantly in a car accident, driving on the road from Hermosillo to Caborca in his Dodge Caravan. Cachi was her second youngest child. Charming and sweet, he often traveled from Tucson to California to visit her. Neto believes that Cachi was his mother’s favorite. “Mamí may have loved him the most and she was crushed.”

 Zelmira immediately came back to Mazatlan for the funeral services. She never went back to California again. “I’m going to let my visa expire,” she told everyone. “I can’t care for other people any more. My heart is too broken.” 

Zelmira’s mother died when she was seven years old. From that moment, she learned to take care of herself. But losing her husband and, nine years later, her son was too much. She wanted to come home to live in her own house, near her friends from long ago. She renewed her friendship with Padre Lalo, and went to daily Mass at the simple Church of the Sacred Heart, down the street.

She took charge once again of her house on Papagayo Street, sweeping the sidewalk and the street in front of her house early every morning so people knew she was awake. 

Now, at age 92, Zelmira is an old woman with hardly any teeth left in her mouth and blind in one eye. She has discarded her armor and become an easier, more compassionate person. She lives with Neto’s sister, in the mountains outside Guadalajara, most of the year. She weeps openly every time Cachi’s name is mentioned. Tears spring from her eyes so readily, people are warned never to talk about him.

There are times that Zelmira is visited by ghosts. She sees her Aunt Petra, who raised her, and her brothers who have died. Some days she talks to Cachi as if he is still in the room with her. Once in a while she thinks Neto is her husband, Jesús. When he walks through the door, she calls out, “Hola, Papí. You are home from work early today.”

But in many ways Zelmira is still a warrior woman  ~ tiny, weighing less than 100 pounds, with fierce black eyes and a head full of wild curly hair. Her voice, low and growly like an angry dog, still commands attention. She will always be the matriarch. The most important hen in the hen-house. The glue that holds the family together.

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Zelmira Moves to California and Sees the Pope

Traveling back and forth, from Mazatlán to California, Zelmira got an itch to move to the U.S. full-time. She still wanted to collect clothing to sell in Mazatlán, but she decided that her main home would be California. At least for a while. 

In 1981, Zelmira left her husband, Jesús, in charge of their two youngest sons with strict orders that they needed to finish high school. Zelmira’s daughter Alma, age twenty, was already married and having babies. Zelmira didn’t want Norma to get in the same trouble at age eighteen, so she got her a visa and dragged her along.

Zelmira moved to Los Angeles, a city she already knew. There was a well-worn trail from Mazatlán to California, established long ago by her brothers and other braceros looking for work. Her brothers, Gero, Chendo, and Ramon all worked as braceros, picking grapes in California in the 1950’s.

Three of Gero’s children, Delia, Mercedes and Jesús, moved to Calfornia in the 1970’s. and Zelmira often stayed with them when she went on her clothes-buying missions. She knew almost enough English to get by. 

Zelmira quickly adapted to life in California. She liked working and sending money home to her family. She and Norma lived with her niece, Delia, in Inglewood near the L.A. airport. Norma went to work right away, working in the same airplane parts factory that Delia did, and later working in a ceramics factory.

According to Neto, “California felt like Mazatlán to Mamí and the other immigrants. People spoke Spanish on streets lined with palm trees. Smells of chiles, cooking in oil, and meat roasted on backyard grills, greeted people as they came home from work. Her neighbors stopped at local tortillarias or frutarias before walking up their sidewalks and opening their doors.”

Zelmira quickly found work, as a full-time maid and nanny in a big home in Echo Park, where she had her own live-in apartment. She moved to Echo Park and left Norma in Inglewood under Delia’s supervision.

Zelmira continued to come back to Mazatlan three or four times a year to sell clothes and check on Jesús and the two boys left at home.  Somehow she managed to get visas for the two youngest sons but not for Ernesto.

“I was always the black sheep. I think that’s why I was left behind,” Neto told me. By this time he, too, had discovered California and was able to jump the border easily, even without legal papers.

In 1984, Zelmira called Ernesto to tell him she was going to Italy to see the Pope. Padre Alvarez, pastor of  the Catholic church in Inglewood, sponsored the trip and Zelmira was the first person to sign on. She was fifty-seven years. She came back with stories of everything she had seen and done. For a working woman from tiny Hacienda del Tamarindo to go to Rome and see the Pope was a huge adventure.

“Neto, that airplane was more than a block long,” she reported. She slowly shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “We walked all day. Some people got tired but not me. I could have walked all day and still walked home at night.”

Two years later, Zelmira signed on for another trip to Europe with Padre Alvarez. This time to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, in Portugal. She also traveled to Mexico City, to the Basilica of  Our Lady of Guadalupe, when Pope John Paul II appeared there in 1999.

When the Pope visited Los Angeles in 1987, Zelmira was there in Dodger’s Stadium, cheering along with 6000 people as the Pope rounded the bases in his Popemobile.  Zelmira was ecstatic as she told Neto, “You should have come, M’hijo. He spoke in Spanish and English. He told the priests and the bishops they should work to help illegal immigrants become citizens.” 

A picture of Pope John Paul II hangs in Zelmira’s house to this day, along with pictures of John F. Kennedy and Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Pope is a reminder of all she has done in her lifetime. She considers him one of her good friends.

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When Zelmira Ran The Store

Neto’s mother, Zelmira Esther Aguillar Rodriguez, grew up forty miles south of Mazatlan, in La Hacienda del Tamarindo, a small land-grant village new Rosario. She was the only girl in a family of all boys. 

Zelmira’s mother, Maria Aguillar, died in childbirth when Zelmira was seven years old. According to family legend, the doctor told her father, Ignacio Rodriguez, “I can save your wife or your son. I can’t save both. What should I do?”

“Save the boy,” Ignacio answered. Zelmira’s youngest brother, Antonio, lived but all six of the children were left without a mother. Ignacio remarried soon after his wife died, which infuriated his older sons. 

Soon after his wife died, Ignacio showed up with his new wife who was already pregnant. Gerardo, his oldest son, was fuming. He hated his father and refused to let him in the door.

“This house isn’t yours any more. It is our house and it belongs to our mother. You stepped on her when she was alive. You’ll never step on her again.” From that day forward, Ignacio was never allowed inside the house. 

Zelmira was raised by Ignacio’s sister, her Aunt Petra. She grew up to be fiercely independent. With blazing black eyes and a wild head of black curly hair, she was known as “the commander.” It was a role that suited Zelmira when she was young and later, when she married sweet Jesús Flores, who grew up the only boy in a family of three sisters.

Once they were married, Jesús allowed Zelmira be in charge. She was a shrewd businesswoman with high expectations for her children, most of which spiraled downward into disappointment.

Neto was twelve years old, working nights cleaning a downtown bakery, when Zelmira began selling groceries out of their house to earn extra money. It started when Neto’s boss, a good-hearted man named Memo, asked him,  “How would you like to take some bread home for your mother to sell? I can give it to you for half price.” 

Zelmira liked the idea right away. Nothing was better then a piece of bread from the bakery to go with her morning coffee. Pretty soon she was happily selling delicious, day-old bread to her neighbors along with tomatoes, avocados, bananas and fresh mangoes from the neighborhood market.

Soon there was no stopping her. Zelmira greeted Neto at 5:00 a.m each morning, as he walked in the door after work. She was in a hurry, on her way to the big Pino Suaréz market downtown. The market opened early to accommodate retailers and restaurants. She rode the bus to the Pino Suarez market and came home in a taxi loaded with pineapples, apples and guavas, celery and carrots, onions and garlic and chiles, rice, potatoes, beans, milk, cheese, and eggs. Dozens and dozens of eggs.

Zelmira continued to buy day-old bread from Memo and enlarged the store in what was once the family’s living room. She started taking orders from her neighbors, adding meat and poultry delivery to them for an extra charge. 

Soon she was also cooking, making tortas, molletes and juices to sell for breakfast. The house became a neighborhood grocery store and small restaurant. Zelmira was the store-keeper and the cook. Jesús didn’t like what Zelmira was doing but she was a woman with a mission and she was the boss.

Not content with running the store, in 1975 Zelmira started crossing the border into the United States to buy boxes of clothes to sell out of her house. Four times a year Zelmira transported two huge boxes home on the bus. Neto remembers that “some of the boxes were as big as a baby’s crib.” Boxes full of footwear and clothing. Zelmira sold half the clothes and saved the other half for Neto and his six brothers and sisters to wear. 

Zelmira’s biggest trip to the U.S. was always the trip before Christmas. She obtained a valid visa and bribed officials when she needed to, in order to meet the demand for American-made goods. 

“I put something for your little girl in the pocket of the red coat on top,” she would tell the guard at the border. He checked the pocket of the red coat, pulled out a $20 bill, and let her pass.

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Cooper

Cooper was Neto’s mother’s dog. He came from a long line of stray dogs she adopted, all of them named Gary Cooper. Although Zelmira liked her dogs, she loved the real Gary Cooper the best.

The Cooper before this one shared the same Golden Retriever face and body. The previous Cooper, a guard dog who lived on top of the roof, was awarded special treats not shared by most rooftop dogs ~ a tent for shelter from the sun and the rain, and bowls of water and food refilled every day. But for the previous Cooper, that was not enough. One night, he jumped off the roof, ran down the street at full gallup and was never seen again.

When the new Cooper showed up, Zelmira welcomed him in. She told him he didn’t need to live on the roof. She let him stay on the patio and occasionally come in the house. One day, however, Neto arrived at our house leading Cooper on a rope.

“Where did this dog come from?” I asked.

“He’s my mother’s dog but she got in a fight with him. I rescued him just in time.”

“What do you mean they got in a fight?”

“Well you know how my mother can’t stand things to be out of order and this dog made a mess of things. He took one of her shoes and ripped it with his teeth.”

“And then?”

“My mother started yelling at him and hitting him with the broom. I decided to give them both a break and bring him here.”

Neto always wanted a dog he could go surfing with. He’d seen dogs on surfboards in the ocean, smiling and looking like they enjoyed the ride. He’d seen dogs playing in the water, chasing waves and running back and forth to the shore. That afternoon he took Cooper to the beach. But the dog was not an ocean dog. He cowered and shook. He whimpered and cried. He simply didn’t want to go near the water. 

Not to be deterred, the next day Neto took Cooper in a small boat across the bay to Stone Island, a surfing village filled with hammocks and small restaurants. Neto figured that Cooper wouldn’t jump out of the boat into the water. Maybe a change of scenery was what the dog needed to learn to love the waves as much as he did.

Neto tied Cooper to a tree while he went surfing. He watched from a distance and Cooper seemed calm. Maybe even happy.

When it was time to go home, Neto came ashore, picked up his surfboard and untied Cooper’s leash. The dog took off! Neto is fast but Cooper was faster. He ran down the path into the jungle of palm trees. There was no stopping him. Neto was furious and then dejected. He had lost his mother’s dog. More importantly, he lost his chance of ever having a surfing dog.

But there is a happy ending to this story. Three month’s later to the very day, Neto was back at Stone Island with three of our guests ~ two boys from Finland and a girl from Australia. They were sitting at Rudy’s Restaurant, eating ceviche and drinking beer, when Rudy asked, “Where have you been? Your dog comes here almost every night, looking for you.”

“Are you sure he’s my dog?”

“Yah, I’m sure.”

“Do you feed him? Maybe he’s just some dog looking for food.”

“Neto ~ I know he is your dog. There he is now.”

As if hearing his name, Cooper came limping up the beach. He was skinny and beat up from being in a lot of fights but there was no doubt he was Gary Cooper.

The Finland boys helped carry Cooper to the ferry and take him home. We cleaned him up and gave him food and water. We stroked his back and told him we were happy he was home.

Cooper went back to live with Zelmira, no longer a frisky puppy. Instead, he was a tame old dog. He didn’t try to eat her sandals and she wouldn’t have hit him if he did. Zelmira loved Cooper and I think he loved her. They stayed together for a year before she decided to let him go to a cousin’s ranch, to live out his life chasing rabbits and avoiding waves . 

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Mamacita is Back

This week’s blog post is by Ernesto

My mother arrived back on our doorstep last weekend. For the past six months she’s lived with my sister, Norma, in San Ignacio Cerro Gordo, where winters are cold in the hills outside of Guadalajara. It was time for Mamí to come back to Mazatlán to spend time in the sunshine with me and my brothers.

My mother is 92 years old. That’s a long life for a Mexican woman but my mother has always been a person in charge of her own destiny. She was born in La Hacienda del Tamarindo, the only girl in a family with five brothers. She was a warrior woman  ~ tiny, weighing less than 100 pounds, with fierce black eyes and a head full of wild curly hair. Her voice, low and growly like a pissed-off dog, commands attention.

One time, I took Mamí on a seven-hour bus ride to Guadalajara. It was a terrible trip. The bus was cold, the toilet wouldn’t flush and the smell was horrible. People complained but the driver said there was nothing he could do about it, so he just kept driving. My mother got the idea that the woman in the seat in front of her was the person who stopped up the toilet. Of course Mamí didn’t have any proof but she didn’t care. She harassed the poor woman all the way to Guadalajara. 

“You know you are the one who did it. We all know it. You gave us a terrible smelly ride and it’s all your fault.” 

Mamí wouldn’t stop until the end of the ride, when I walked up from where I was sitting two rows back, took her by the arm, and quietly led her off the bus.

Another time, not long ago, I looked out the window and saw Padre Lalo walking my mother home. The priest liked to stop at our house after Mass for coffee and sweet bread but I could see by the look on his face, this wasn’t a social call. I went outside to meet him.

“Neto, I’m afraid you need to keep your mother home from now on.”

“Why, Padre Lalo? You know she loves going to Mass.”

“I know, Neto. I’m happy to bring communion to Zelmira here at home but she causes too much trouble when she comes to church.

“What does she do?”

“She watches people going to communion and judges them. Today she stood up in her pew, pointed at Rosita Morales, who was getting ready to take communion, wagged her finger and shouted,  ‘You shouldn’t be taking communion, you (bad word). We all know where you were last night and who you were with.’ 

“Rosita left Mass in tears. Neto, your mother is a good woman. But so is Rosita. I can’t have scenes like this in my church. You have to keep her home.”

Now that Mamí is back with us, I notice a big change. She’s still stubborn but she doesn’t talk much and she doesn’t cause trouble. Because she’s lost most of her teeth, we bring her cereal and soup to eat. She’s quiet and mellow, content to sit in her chair and sleep a lot. I know this makes her easier to deal with, but I miss the feisty mother that I used to know.