MC Quixote

Ham and Eggs as Homage Part 28

I have these trails of books behind me and in front of me. I look for the crossroads created when books refer to other books and writers refer to other writers. This is where the dreams and the dreamers meet up. Writers do it all the time, kind of like tagging a person on Facebook.

I've heard people use the term "paying homage", which is a tribute, or a "thank you" for helping someone create something. A nod that says, "You've helped inspire this." It's an artist's way of citing her/his sources, a reference for others to see the trail of influences that make a work of art happen.

I had a crossroads moment recently when I was reading Jose Antonio Villarreal's book, Pocho. Theresa Martinez, my mentor up at the University of Utah, recommended it. It was on a reading list she jotted down for me on a napkin at the U.s cafeteria. Funny, the way Theresa perked up when I started asking her about books and writers.

Back to Pocho, it's a story about being a first-generation Mexican-American in the 1930's. I think the term Pocho comes from Villarreal's book. It's used as a slang term for first first-generation Mexican Americans in the story, but it means a lot more than that today. Pocho was published in 1959 and the introduction says it's the first fictional story about Mexican Americans written by a Mexican American.

1959 seems late considering Spanish and Mexicans have been here in the Western United States way before Anglos. And for Latinos, in our culture; stories, books, and writers are fundamental, probably all cultures have stories from the beginning. Maybe culture starts with stories.

I'm sure there have been stories by Mexican Americans since they've been here and hopefully, they're still out there, having been passed to a page at some point in time, preserved, books are story time-capsules. Note to self: "Research first Mexican-American writers in the U.S."

In the story Pocho, Juan Rubio immigrants to California after fighting in the Mexican Revolution because he's lost faith in the revolution after his leader Pancho Villa died. He migrated to California, marries a Mexican woman, and has a boy named Richard (the "Pocho" in the story). I can relate to the way Villarreal describes the initial conflicts that come with being a first-generation Mexican-American in the 1930's.

"As the months went by, Richard was quieter, sadder, and, at times, even morose. He was aware that the family was undergoing a strange metamorphosis. The heretofore gradual assimilation of this new culture was becoming more pronounced. Along with the new prosperity, the Rubio family was taking on the moors of the middle class, and he did not like it. It saddened him to see the Mexican tradition begin to disappear. And because human nature is such, he, too, succumbed, and unconsciously became an active leader in the change."

Wow, a pretty accurate description of the conflicts that come with prosperity and identity here in the U.S.

Another interesting thing for me is what happens after the passage, Richard's dad retells the story of his first few months in this new country with a different language, different food, and different customs. He says,

"You know, when I was in Los Angeles for the first time, before your mother found me, all I could say in English was ham an'ecks, and I ate all my meals in a restaurant. Every morning, when the woman came for my order, I would say ham an' ecks, at noon ham an' ecks, at night ham an'ecks."

Ok, it doesn't seem very interesting standing alone. But I remembered that in The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, there's almost exactly the same wording about how her dad ate ham and eggs when he first came to the U.S. Is it merely coincidence? Plagiarism? Time to pull out my copy of The House on Mango St. OK, here's the Cisneros passage:

"My father says when he came to this country, he ate hamandeggs for three months. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hamandeggs. That was the only word he knew. He doesn't eat hamandeggs anymore."

Hmmm, on the surface, maybe it's nothing more than ham and eggs was a common food that people ate when they first came to the U.S. back in the day. Ham and eggs aren't that expensive, they're common in most restaurants, and there's not much room for surprises.

Then it came to me, maybe ham and eggs means something else, like it'ssymbolic, or a pun, a word that sounds similar to another word, I can'tremember the term, but now I can't get it out of my head. Maybe ham and eggs ishomage. Hmm, homage sounds kind of French, like an omelet, and cheese in Frenchis fromage, so I'll start eating ham and cheese omelets breakfast, lunch, anddinner; my ham and cheese omelet /homage.