The Father's Day Post

The extreme belated nature of this post is due to the fact that dads are hard. Dads are especially difficult for adult daughters. Dads also become a behemoth within most Latin cultures. So it took me a while to write an appropriate tribute to my behemoth Latin dad. (Seriously, this post started out as four pages single spaced before I managed to pare it down to something close to a coherent statement). 

As a young child, I definitely hung out more with my dad than with my mom. My parents took on those two very classic roles of "mom" as disciplinarian and "dad" as fun one. I was, without a doubt, a Daddy's Girl. This was both a good and a bad thing. My dad has always seen his role in my life as my protector. In recent years he hasn't quite known what to do with himself since I no longer live with my parents and can't really benefit from his attempts at protecting me. These "middle years" between middle school until the present has been like pulling teeth when trying to have a real conversation with him. I'm calling them "middle years" because I've felt a definite change more recently. Talking is getting easier as we move into this next stage. I think he's starting to believe he did a good job in rearing me.

All the things my father has taught me can be categorized as Defensive Evasion. I mean that in both the physical and psychological sense. The psychological defense mechanisms I've picked up from him have been somewhat unintentional on his part. Like him, I can be very good at hiding my emotions and am somewhat uncomfortable sharing them when I'm upset. This is a general trait from his side of the family, a quality that I can best describe as Victorian in nature and probably stems from the very era. As criollos (Puerrtoriqueños descended exclusively of Spaniards) his side of the family is white with the bitterness of fallen aristocrats (which, in many ways, they are). Bitterness aside, my father an I both tend to seek solitude when distraught; we burrow up in the fox holes of our minds.

Zorro is the Spanish word for "fox". Thus enters our masked hero, secretly Diego de la Vega, son of the wealthy Don Alejandro. Diego returns home to the small town of Los Angeles to find much has changed in the way of corruption and damsels in distress. He has been in Spain being educated by the greatest minds and swordsmen of Europe, and what better way to apply those skills than in righting the injustices of his beloved pueblo. Donning cape and cowl he tears a new one on The Man with his trusty steed Tornado. The authorities dub him El Zorro, and are outraged by the ways in which he constantly outsmarts them, slipping away to his alleged "fox hole." Laying the ground work that would reemerge as Batman in more contemporary fiction, (it was, in fact, the movie the Wayne Family went to see the night Martha and Thomas Wayne were murdered), Zorro has swashbuckled his way through film, radio, novels and comics. He even got his own telenovela (Spanish language soap opera).

Telemundo is way more amazing than you'll ever understand. Unless you actually watch Telemundo and do understand, in which case you're ready for I have feminist rant and death grudge against the network as a whole which will ruin your love of most Spanish language television.

A vacation to Disney World I took with my parents when I was eight is the first thing that comes to mind when I attempt to identify memories involving my dad. My mom passed out as soon as we returned to our hotel room. It was late; we had gone to see the fireworks show on Main Street at the Magic Kingdom. My dad and I weren't ready to go to bed, so we started channel surfing. By some great miracle or another, we came upon The Mark of Zorro (1940). At this point in time I hadn't seen this movie before. My dad, on the other hand, had been raised on it. As a Puertorriquen kid in the Bronx, I didn't grow up with many role models I could identify with. Sonia Soto Mayor has only recently became a Supreme Court Justice. All I had to look at were Maria and Luis on Sesame Street. Granted, when I was very young, Sesame Street was basically all I ever watched, so this was a pretty good deal of cultural affirmation, but once I started watching things other than PBS children's programming, I noticed there weren't a lot of kids or adults on TV who had names like Lopez or Cruz.

Understanding how empty the pool of role models was for me might help you imagine what it must have been like for my dad. Born in Mricau, Puerto Rico, he grew up in the 1950's and 60's at the 90th Street Housing Projects in Manhattan off of Amsterdam Avenue. Go five blocks farther Southwest, and you can literally be where West Side Story is set. (Fun fact: I was never actually allowed to watch West Side Story growing up. Sort of like how a lot of my Thai friends were never allowed to watch The King And I. Both are fairly racist and mostly cast with white actors in "brown face").

This is how my dad walked to school with his brother and Eric Estrada*.

The thing about Zorro, is that even though he was created by some white guy as an American Scarlet Pimpernell, even though the character was played by a white actor, even though the movie is in English, Zorro still feels like he's ours. By "ours" I mean all Latino kids. Zorro was one of the only Hispanic heroes kids of my dad's generation were ever allowed to have. While he is Mexican/Californian, in a sense the time period is so far removed, with a few climate and wardrobe changes he could have just as easily been Puerorriquen. Indeed, the story goes that my great-great grandfather was one of three brothers who migrated from Spain to the Americas in search of their fortunes; one to Puerto Rico, one to the Dominican Republic, and one to Mexico. I'm sure there are some Chicanos (folks whose ancestors settled the West when it was still Spain, then Mexico, becoming Americans as land was annexed) who share my last name. With how rare of a name it is, we're probably distant cousins.

We stayed up until 2am watching this black and white movie. It was the latest I had ever stayed up and was mesmerized for all of it. I definitely have a lot of the memories from that vacation that are marketed by Disney, of fun theme park adventures and what not, but this is one of the most powerful ones I have of time spent with my father. Watching movies is kind of our thing. It's how we spend time together. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, it's easier to let the screen do the talking than trying to engage in meaningful connection in the real world. Sometimes you just want things to be easy.

On the physical side of Defensive Evasion, my dad has purposefully attempted to instill a certain set of skills in me. Once I started taking public transportation by myself (also right around the time that I started wearing a real bra) he taught me how to fight. Rather, he taught me how to defend myself. In addition to teaching rudimentary lessons on how to make a proper fist and an understanding of how torsion in the body works, this consisted of three simple rules of fighting.

Rule # 4: Always wear awesome pants.

First rule of fighting: Always have your shoes tied. It sounds silly, but it's a completely real thing. More broadly, this can cover the general rule of sensible footwear. [Note: This is not to say a lady shouldn't wear heels if she doesn't want to, but assess the situation; if there's a chance you'll be walking a good ways or if a fight might break out somewhere, stick to flats. This may also just be a New Yorker mentality.]

Second rule of fighting: never fight when you're angry. Anger consumes all your senses, making you helpless. This is a great rule to live by, whether or not engaged in a physical conflict. By detaching from anger in a situation it becomes easier to see solutions to challenges on a logistical level. It also becomes easier to spot the root of conflict. I think this is why I'm so solution oriented.

Third rule of fighting: use your environment. There is no such thing as a dirty fight because the only time you should be fighting is if you are defending your life or the lives of those you love. This rule, combined with the fact that my dad is also an amateur inventor, has made me particularly adept to McGyvering my way through life.

One thing I never picked up from my dad, something I desperately wish I could bottle and keep, is his overpowering optimism. I'm a fairly optimistic person, but my dad's optimism defies my own understanding. He manages to approach any new endeavor as if he knows success will follow, as if he doesn't know what failure is. The thing about my dad is that he does know what failure looks, feels, and tastes like, but none of those failures have ever been able to diminish the the triumph of his hope and faith. He persists, tenaciously. His conviction cuts like a blade across your the shame of your indifference. Believe me, it leaves a mark.

* The part about Eric Estrada is true. Only instead of school it was theater classes in the church basement.

"Reflections" On A Near Death Experience- or, Why Mulan is the Last Movie I Want to See Before I Die

  

The thing about rice is that a single grain can tip the scale. In any given situation, the smallest of details can drastically impact an outcome. This is sometimes referred to as the Butterfly Effect. Sometimes you go right when you could have gone left. This could change the rest of your day, or even the rest of your life. If you decide to buy your groceries in the morning you might miss meeting your future wife because she buys her groceries in the afternoon. Hell, one little detail could change the the course of human history! Based on a typo, an army could attack when they were supposed to retreat, resulting in a victory and promotions of every officer. You might board a charter bus to New York for a bachelorette party that lasts the whole weekend. With the flap of a butterfly’s wings, that bus may never arrive.

 

This last Saturday, I was supposed to attend my friend's bachelorette party in New York City. She, two other friends, (one of whom had flown across the country for the weekend), and I all booked tickets on the same bus to get from Philly to New York. The bus pulled out on time at 2:00 pm from 30th street and JFK Boulevard in Philadelphia. Right around 3:30 pm the four of us were remarking how we were making really good time and would probably reach our destination earlier than expected. This was not the case.

Around 3:50 pm the front right-side tire blew out on the highway, half a mile south of Trenton. I heard the boom of the tire and people screaming as the bus veered right. I looked up just as we slammed through the guardrail and went careening down a steep ravine. Glass showered down with a roar from the entire right side of the bus. I then assumed the position you have read about on every airline barf bag, covering my head and putting it as close to between my legs as I could. Just as it felt as though the bus was going to tip over, we came to a stop, slamming into some trees that were too well rooted to be smashed through. You can read about it here.

Thankfully, of the 50 people on the bus, no one sustained major injuries. I only have a few superficial cuts. Only one person had to be carried off of the bus by paramedics. Two of my friends needed to have x-rays taken but neither of them broke any bones. One of them has a scratched cornea.

I won't mention which bus company it was, but if your first name is Usain and you've won a gold medal, you may want to consider suing for character defamation.

The thing about near death experiences is that they tend to put the rest of your life into perspective. You learn and rediscover a lot about yourself. I, for instance, reaffirmed that I tend to put the well being of others before myself. This was how I staved off the onset of shock before reaching the hospital; by making sure that other people were okay, my mind didn't have time to ponder why blood kept dripping into my eye or why my friend was wiping my face. Once I was by myself in an emergency room, (my friends taken in a separate ambulance), I started shaking and my heart rate sky rocketed. I'm pretty sure I broke at least one blood pressure machine (it was beeping like crazy and they asked me if I was wearing three long-sleeved shirts). I also learned that I'm either overly confident or a born survivor since at no point did I think I was going to die. I'm not saying I was ever certain I was going to live, my mind merely didn't process such large ideas in those moments. During the ordeal, I was only thinking ahead by about 5 seconds. My thoughts went something like, "I'm going to cover my head...I'm wet. I guess I need to swim... We're actually on land. I should stand." Even when I thought the water bottle that had poured on me was a river we had landed in (it wasn't) it didn't cross my mind how ludicrous it would have been to start swimming from a crashed bus. Overall, I learned that my instinct for self preservation is much stronger than my sense of fear or logic.

After recovering from these sort of events, you start to judge the things in your life you thought you valued as compared to the things of actual worth. The fact that I forgot to drop off my dry cleaning the day before suddenly didn't matter as much as the fact that I couldn't remember if I'd said "I love you" the last time I spoke with my parents. A self assessment commenced. How well do I know myself? Do I say "I love you" often enough to those I do love? Do I do the things I love on a daily basis? That brings me to Mulan.

Among things I love are movies. At the top of that list sits Mulan (1998). If you’re unfamiliar with Mulan, then I’m really sorry for you. You’re missing out, not just on a musical gem and the context of this post, but on a cinema gold. What other animated, female-driven film includes cross-dressing and kung fu? It should also be pointed out that before this point, most of Disney's female lead characters were either princesses or animals. It's hard for me to identify with royalty and four-legged creatures. Though Mulan is a character of legend, she is firmly placed in as historical a context as Disney is willing to put on screen. More than that, she’s a warrior. With a queer, feminist round-house kick to the patriarchy, Mulan decidedly shook things up in the Disney canon and lodged itself deep in my eleven year-old psyche and my current world view. 

There are a couple of things that make Mulan my absolute favorite film of all time. First are the deep levels on which I connect with the main character and central conflict. At its core, Mulan is a father-daughter relationship story. It's about each trying to do right by the other and, despite their best efforts, coming up short every time. Not gunna' lie- this hits pretty close to home. While my relationship with my dad is now slightly better than the one between Mulan and Zhou, I am the daughter of a Latin dad, and in certain lighting machismo doesn't look much different than the ancient male manifestation of the Five Constant Virtues. When this movie came out, it was like watching an animated, Asian version of my dad.

Daughter, why don’t you know your place?! Can’t you see we have bigger fish to fry? Giant, Hun-shaped fish! The individual doesn’t matter! It is only through fulfillment of our roles in collective action that we can defend our homeland from the corrupt forces of the foreign West! Yes, am I still talking about Huns!

The personal conflict  in the film comes to a head with the uber emotional ballad Reflections. Using self-reflection and literal image reflection, Mulan tries to understand the contradiction between what she sees inside herself (what her full potential is) and how the world (more importantly her father) sees her. Faster than you can say “ugly duckling with daddy issues”, Mulan flips the bird to sense and follows her gut, deciding to steal her father’s armor and conscription notice to masquerade as his son in a military battalion.

Is it raining? Is she crying? Or are you just balling your eyes out? All three? Got it.

My second major love of this movie is the look of it. The opening credits start as a water color painting on rice paper, fermenting into the setting of the film, but that quality of bleeding color never really leaves the images. The way smoke and fabric move in this movie is also phenomenal. I could spend a whole paragraph just discussing the flags! I mentioned earlier that cross-dressing and kung fu are what make it awesome. I argue that cross-dressing and kung fu ALWAYS make movies better. When done correctly, of course. I have always loved the beauty of choreography, particularly in martial arts, something my dad and I have bonded over. In fact, movies are one of the main things my dad and I have consistently bonded over. It's easier to let stories and emotions happen in a performance, to watch people's relationships unfold and grow, and to envy a world where people can just pummel each other with fists if the situation deems it appropriate. It's certainly easier than doing the work of trying to have a conversation with the person next to you.

Well gee. That might have been a moment of clarity.

As for the cross-dressing, well isn't that just a very literal way to make your outside appearance reflect your inside one? It's vindecating to see Mulan do as well, even better, than the guys she's training with. I challenge you to find one eleven year-old girl who wouldn't be satisfied to beat all the boys in all the games in gym class. Even though her true gender is a secret, Mulan is still a "She" who succeeds physically and intellectually in a hyper-male dominant environment. I could  go on about ebbs and flows of feminism in Disney movies, (and I'm sure I will at some point), but even on a superficial level, it makes for some great dramatic irony and one very awkward bathing scene. Crazy hijinx!

More than anything, Mulan taught me that I, individually, value. My weirdness will pay off and others will benefit from it. My oddball time to shine is going to happen (or has happened) and it will feel like I've trained my whole life for that moment. It will at least feel like there was a very elaborate montage depicting my development to that moment. I may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I am someone’s shot of whiskey. It also taught me to value my instinct. Mulan thought of immediate needs and simple solutions instead of what society deemed appropriate. Ultimately this what saved her, her father, and all of China

So just do you, 'aight? You'll die satisfied knowing you did.