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A Rio Runs Through It: A Family Remembrance
Topics: family history, mexico, grandmothers
Posted by marylou Wed Jun 25, 2008 21:22:18 PDT
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One day in 1960, some men from the Mexican government arrived in the isolated village of Suaqui to deliver some terrible news: In just a few years, Suaqui and two neighboring towns would be destroyed. To bring electricity to this region in the state of Sonora, it was necessary to build a dam along a nearby river, and the lake created by the dam would flood the green valley where hundreds of families had lived for generations.

The adobe homes, the town plaza where so many feast days and weddings had been celebrated, the fields where crops grew and cattle grazed -- all would be swallowed by the waters of the Rio Yaqui. Residents would be given a small sum for their property and were advised to relocate as soon as possible.

The townspeople, many of whom had lived their entire lives without venturing beyond Suaqui (pronounced SUAH-kee)  first thought the news was a hoax or a horrible joke. Then they began to feel "bitterness, sadness and desperation about their uncertain future," according to an online essay by Favián Lameda, a resident of nearby San Pedro de la Cueva who documented the demise of the three villages. "They could not imagine the tragedy it meant for the children to be forced to leave their home forever."

Among those receiving this news was my grandmother, Concepcion Ruiz de Molina, who was born and raised in Suaqui, as had been her mother and grandmother. It was there that she met and married another Suaqueño, Francisco Ruiz, and gave birth to 10 children.

I learned a lot about Suaqui when I was privileged to be among those helping to care for my grandmother, known in our family as Nana Chona, in the years before she died on May 8, 2008 at age 94.  Her most precious and vivid memories were of the old village, where everyone valued family, community and tradition. "It was a simple, very small world," said my mother, Maria Ruiz Fulton. "She was happy there."

As I stroked her brow one final time before the mortuary wheeled her body away, I couldn¹t help but wonder how her life, and the lives of my family, would have unfolded had Suaqui not been destroyed. Would my grandparents have ever left Suaqui? Would my mom have married an American man and led her relatives in immigrating to the United States? What would have become of me, in another place and time? Of course, it is impossible to say. But I do know this: When that dam was built, it changed much more than the path of the Rio Yaqui. It changed the course of our lives.

A simpler existence

When Nana Chona spoke of Suaqui, it was with great affection and wistfulness for a simpler, more predictable life. Suaqui and the neighboring villages of Batuc and Tepupa were established by Spanish missionaries in the 1600s. In this valley, people lived off the land, raising livestock and tending crops as the seasons turned: melons, squash and corn in the summertime, and carrots, potatoes and greens in the winter. There was no electricity or running water, and only one telephone in all of Suaqui. Kerosene lamps glowed in the evenings, and when water was needed, children were dispatched to the nearby river with empty buckets. "It was very picturesque," said my father, Bill Fulton, who visited Suaqui twice before the flood. "It was like going back in time a hundred years." 

Each Catholic feast day and saint day was a cause for celebration, particularly the annual Feb. 2 festivities honoring La Virgen de la Candelaria. Holy Week brought a procession re-enacting the 14 stations of the cross tracing Christ¹s path to crucifixion. Children competed to play the roles of angels or the Virgin Mary, dressed in costumes handed down through the years.

It is easy to idealize life in the countryside, where the river water was pure and the food was wholesome, but there was poverty and times were especially difficult for women. My nana gave birth to 10 children at home, the youngest born in 1954 when Nana was 46. There was no epidural, no ultrasound, no fetal heart monitoring. Just a midwife and many prayers.

In my nana¹s day, a woman¹s role was to raise a family and run the household. The only items she purchased at Suaqui¹s small grocery store were rice, coffee and sugar. Everything else was made by hand. Tortillas were cooked over an open fire, made from corn ground by my nana in the wintertime and wheat harvested from the fields in the summer. Clothes were washed in tubs. Breakfast had to be on the table at dawn before the men headed to the fields to work, and then there was the noontime meal to prepare, followed by dinner. The men and boys always ate before the girls. After everyone else finished eating, Nana Chona would serve herself.

'La Roca'

I heard these stories as a child, but they didn¹t interest me much. I found my nana a stern and distant woman preoccupied with the past and the intricacies of who was doing what in our large family. I was more inspired by my mother, whose courage and abilities were apparent from a young age.

My mom was an outstanding student at Suaqui¹s school, which offered classes only through the sixth grade. There was shortage of instructors in the countryside, and after completing her schooling, my mom was offered a job as a teacher in the town of Poza Rica, more than 100 miles from Suaqui. My grandparents said she had to take the job paying 900 pesos a month; the family needed the money. And so at age 14, off she went, bravely, without any knowledge of how to be a teacher or what the world was like beyond Suaqui. Self-conscious because she was a child herself, my mom stuffed her bra with tissues to appear more womanly. I look at the pictures of her in those days, her lovely smile shining from among the faces of her students, many of whom came to school in bare feet, and I can¹t imagine how she did it.

After three years as a rural teacher, my mom moved to San Luis Rio Colorado, an Arizona border town where some Suaqueños had relocated, to accept another teaching position. It was there, at age 19, that she met Bill Fulton, the man who would become my father, a Spanish-speaking gabacho from Chicago who knew mariachi music as well as any Mexican and had a thing for Latin ladies.
My parents settled in Yuma, Ariz., about 25 miles from San Luis.

It was a difficult transition for my mom. She did not speak a word of English, had no family in Yuma and spent days alone at home while my dad was working. But her spirit and determination were strong, and through the years she learned English from watching television, then learned to drive, then decided she wanted to become a teacher again. She earned a college degree and became an elementary school teacher in 1977, overseeing a classroom full of the children of migrant workers, just as she had years before in Mexico.  Always enthusiastic about learning, she went on to earn a second bachelor¹s degree and a master¹s degree in education. Now, at age 67, she is finally thinking of retiring.

Though my mom took a non-traditional path when it came to her profession, she was very traditional when it came to family. She cooked and cleaned, and taught me those skills at a young age. She always served the men first, just like my nana. My mom was a devoted daughter and sister, and through the legal sponsorship of my parents, my grandparents and nine of their 10 children immigrated to America. She almost always said yes to frequent requests for money, advice or other help from her relatives. Nana Chona counted on my mom more than her other children, entrusting her with financial and legal responsibility for family affairs. My grandfather called my mom "la roca" -- the rock of the family.

Cooking for Nana

Through my mom, I learned to be responsible and to set ambitious goals for myself, as she had. I graduated from Yuma High School and Arizona State University, then accepted a journalism position in Arkansas, the first of many moves I made for jobs. I married, divorced and chose not to have children. I traveled the world for work and pleasure. I was fortunate to be able to take two years off to earn a master¹s degree from Harvard¹s Kennedy School of Government, taking my professional life in a new and fulfilling direction. My life brimmed with so many possibilities that seemed almost incredible given where my mom had been just a generation before me.

Over the years, I would see Nana Chona occasionally at family gatherings, and when she would ask how I was doing, I would try to explain to her about my various jobs ‹ editor, president of an Internet start-up, product manager of software development ‹ or my latest travels. But my life made no sense to her. What she really wanted to know why I worked so much, why I always wandered so far from home and when I would start a family. And of course, why I didn¹t visit more often. I felt she disapproved of me and my choices, and I kept my distance.

Things changed about five years ago, after Nana took a fall at the age of 89 and was not able to run her household for the first time in her life. Nana was living in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, still cooking and cleaning for two adult children who both had disabilities and remained at home. Now she couldn¹t care for them, and the family members who had drawn her to live in East L.A. years before had all pulled up stakes for Hesperia, Victorville and places beyond.

After moving back to Southern California in 1998, I had been thinking more about my family and how I might reconnect with Nana Chona, but I hadn¹t done anything about it. This was my opportunity.

After sizing up the situation, I figured one way to help was to cook. I asked my mom how to make my nana¹s favorite foods --  calabazas (squash), quelites (greens with garlic), caldo de pollo (chicken soup) and tortas de pescado con chile Colorado (fish cakes with red chile sauce) ‹ and I memorized the recipes. Almost every weekend, I would drive to East L.A., go to the grocery store and return to cook. Curious about Nana¹s ability to recall detail, I would sometimes ask if I should add an ingredient I knew was incorrect. "How many times do I have to tell you that oregano doesn¹t belong in caldo de pollo?" she would say, shaking her head.

When the food was ready, I made sure everyone else had a plate before I served my nana. She would not eat until she was satisfied that the others had their fill.
After she finished, I would encourage her to talk about life in Suaqui.

Until her last months, Nana Chona had an excellent long-term memory and was able to recite poems she had memorized as a girl (her favorite was La Flor), discuss important dates in world history and inquire about the health of relatives she had not seen in decades.  Her stories that bored me as a child now seemed rich with treasure about her past, and mine. And so, through the months and years, cooking and eating and talking, we established the relationship that we never had before.

I would try to tell her about my life, including my job that focuses on creating new magazines, newspapers, Web sites and other publications for The Bakersfield Californian. I brought her a copy of MÁS magazine, and although she never did learn English, she loved the pictures and I think she understood the idea. Still, she worried because I was on the road so much, always on my way to someplace else, whether it was driving to Bakersfield or flying to the other side of the world. My nana called me la golondrina -- the sparrow, the wandering bird.

One day, as I was describing an upcoming trip, she said, "I have finally figured this out. You¹re telling people you have to work, but I know the truth. You have a boyfriend, a tall Tejano with a moustache and dark hair. You¹re not really working -- you¹re going to see him." Traveling for work made no sense to her, but love was another matter. Although I had told her many times about the wonderful man in my life, she was unconvinced and I finally gave in. "You¹ve discovered my secret," I said, "but please don¹t tell anyone." From that day forward, whenever I would mention an upcoming trip, she would just smile and nod.

She complained about the aches and pains of growing old, but her greatest sadness was in missing her family. Nana Chona lived to see five generations of her family, but among her dozens of grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins, few made time to see her.

Most weeks, I was the only visitor to the house. Nana looked so sad when I would tell her that I had to leave. Before going, I would package up a week¹s worth of individual meals in Tupperware containers that would be easy for my aunt and uncle to reheat. I would hold her hand and tell her I loved her. She would always say, "Que dios te bendiga" --  may God bless you, and make the sign of the cross. As any Latino kid will tell you, there is no more powerful blessing than one from your nana. You know God is listening.

Nana¹s health continued to deteriorate, and in January, she was hospitalized and connected to an array of devices: IVs, a feeding tube, a catheter, and finally, a respirator. My aunts, unable to accept life without her, insisted on every life-sustaining measure available until nothing more could be done.
I couldn¹t help but think about how different her last days would have been in Suaqui, surrounded by family and neighbors. Instead, she died slowly and painfully in the hospital, and on May 15, we buried her alongside my grandfather in a cemetery in Montebello, more than 1,000 miles from Suaqui.

 

Strength of El Rio

My nana always used to say, "Recordar es vivir." To remember is to live. When I remember her, I think of her strength, her loyalty and her beauty. I also marvel at how much changed in Nana¹s lifetime, especially for women. I never forget that I was, and am, privileged to have so many choices not available to my nana or my mother. I had the right to choose my education, my profession, whom to marry (and divorce), where to live, whether to have children, to control my finances, to own property, to speak my mind, to serve others out of choice versus obligation. I¹ll always be grateful for the sacrifices my nana and my mother made, in ways that I know and ways that I will never know.

But perhaps their most important gift to me is one neither of them fully recognized: resilience. Because they survived the flood, so could I. Because they left their homeland behind, so could I. Because they had faith, so do I. 

When the flood waters arrived in Suaqui, they began as a trickle and grew into a river that filled the dirt streets, seeping into the adobe homes and rising to cover the rooftops. The damming of the rivers created Lake Novillo, now a popular destination for bass fishing. One of the most poignant photographs I have ever seen is of a man sitting in a small boat floating on Lake Novillo, above where Suaqui once was. He is staring at the bell tower of a Catholic church, made of stone and slow to yield to the waters that had risen three years earlier. In that tower I recognize the spirit of my nana, and my mother, and myself.

The rivers of our lives have taken us to unknown and unexpected places, but through it all, we remain strong. Resilient. Still standing.

Mary Lou Fulton is Vice President of Audience Development at The Bakersfield Californian and a co-founder of MÁS magazine.

 

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Comment From: deyoung

My beautiful, talented cousin, words cannot begin to express how grateful I am to you, as tears begin to weld, for this article that depicts our history, our amazing family so well. Thank you. This is the first time my damn as broke since Nana's departure. I've held so much in. I miss her so much, and haven't dealt with it well at all. You have captured her so well and brought some immortalization through this printed form. I love you! Eternally grateful for all you've done and continue to do, tu prima, con amour simpre, Donna Comment From: marylou

Donna, thanks for your sweet note! I'm glad you liked the article :)