I believe in my mom’s home cooking. The magical atmosphere the aroma of her cooking creates reminds me of my childhood and upbringing. I was born into a migrating family. For 15 years of my life I would gather my favorites, my much needed pillow and blanket and pack them all in my small knapsack and throw it in the back of our panadero van for a 48hr trip to the plains of North Dakota and Minnesota. At 6am, we were norte bound with a caravan of vans. My father and his siblings have been migrating to the same tenant for over 50 years. Without a formal education, he only knew the life of a migrant in order to support a family of six. He grew up a migrant and has lived as a migrant; I grew up a migrant and am now living for him.
I often wonder what his motivation was to keep this lifestyle; I like to think food played a role some way or the other because it did in my motivation to not rebel. And although I blame him for robbing my summers away, I do not regret being a migrant. My migrant experience has taught me the values of life. It taught me that hard work is rewarded. It taught me the art of team work. It taught me the importance of familial values. Above all, it taught me my mother’s love.
I hated waking up at 5am to work under the blistering hot sun for 8hrs, but today, I look back and think, “Those were the good old days”. I enjoyed being a migrant because during grade school, I would leave school early and enter late, and because I would get free stuff, or so how I saw it. But the most important reason why I liked being a migrant was the smell of my mother’s cooking por la madrugada, before the crack of dawn. Before the sun even winked, my mother was bustlin’ and hustlin’ in the kitchen, toda solita, preparing tacos for the family, tacos filled with love and optimism for the much needed strength of the day. Her taco techniques varied from making huevo with cheese, huevo with papa, huevo with chorizo, huevo with beans, and chorizo with beans. Bien delicioso! Needless to say, my mother’s abilities at stocking up on the essentials were up to par. For a 7 year old, tacos made with mother's love, meant the world.
The aroma of the tacos would rapidly catch my attention and force me to wake up and kept me pushing forward. First, after a long morning of playing war with the weeds and wrestling my shoes away from the mud, the thought of my mom’s tacos would find its way into my heart reminding me that lunch was around the corner. Then, the opportunities to get off my feet, eat my mom’s tacos, and relax in the shade while talking with la familia would make me realize, “I wouldn’t want to be any where else.” We’d exchange stories about the battles we fought in the morning, about my uncle’s American Idol talents, and about the weekend adventures. Once lunch time would end, the battle against mosquitoes and grasshoppers would begin for the afternoon. And finally, after a day of slapping the mosquitoes and emptying my boots of grasshoppers, it was time to head home and prepare for the next work day. My mom would prepare the tasteles for the following morning while I helped tidying up the trailer. Even the simple aroma of the tasteles would remind me of the next day’s work, of the tacos to come, and of the unfinished discussions and giggles we had yet to experience.
I believe in my mom’s tacos. I believe they are comfort food. Her tacos remind me of my migrant way of living, and of her requited love for me. After my parents divorce on my 15th birthday, my mother made it her objective to get me and my sisters out of the life of a migrant. Although she struggled to put food on the table for four girls, she never failed to fill the house with her tortillas’ aroma. She worked three jobs for two years trying to get her feet on the ground. After a tireless workday she would arrive home to attend to her changas. I never saw her slump into a mode of depression she was a strong woman. She forged on showing me her determination to provide a life filled with choices for her daughters. She became my best friend, attended all of my concerts, drove long distances to watch my older sister graduate from basic training and AIT, drove countless of miles to see my twin sister march with the Aggie Band, she restored my faith in life and having the freedom of choice. Above all, she has been the wind beneath my wings, watching me walk across the stage as I became the first in the family to graduate from college. And in all those years, my mother always had her tortillas, frijoles, papas, and huevos welcoming me home or accompanying me when I would traverse the state of Texas returning to Aggieland.
So when someone asks me, what do I believe? I believe in my mom’s love and her tacos. I can smell her love, determination, and the strong-willed woman she is. Without her determination to provide me with the right nutrients, the fields might have won the battles. Without her determination to give me back my freedom of choice, I might just still be a migrant. And without her love, I would not know how much love I would have left in my heart. Living a three days drive away from my hometown, my culture, and my mother is hard, but I try to replicate her cooking to fill my apartment up with her aroma of love, especially the tortillas. She is the reason for my successes and my continued growth this I believe.
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