Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) Read Free

red pimples. The gym suit had elastic around the bottom to prevent the sight of panties when we fell or sat. On those of us with skinny legs, the elastic wasn’t snug enough, so the bloomers hung limply to our knees, where they flapped when we ran.
    The uniform, being one piece, made it impossible to go to the bathroom in the three minutes between classes. Instead of wearing it all day, we could bring it to school and change before gym, but no one did, since boys periodically raided the locker room to see our underwear. With the gym suit on, proper hygiene during “the curse” was difficult, as we needed at least three hands, so most girls brought notes from their mothers. The problem was that if you didn’t wear the uniform on gym days, everyone knew you were menstruating.
    One girl bought two gym suits, chopped off the bottom of one, seamed around the selvage, and wore the top part under her blouse so that no one could tell if she had her period or not. I asked Mami to do that for me, but she said we didn’t have money to waste on such foolishness.
    Friday mornings we had Assembly. The first thing we did was to press our right hands to our breasts and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” We were encouraged to sing as loudly as we could, and within a couple of weeks I had learned the entire song by heart.

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    Ojo se. Can. Juice. ¿Y?
    Bye de don surly lie.
    Whassoprowow we hell
    Add debt why lie lass gleam in.
    Whosebrods tripe sand bye ¿Stars?
    True de perro los ¡Ay!
    Order am parts we wash,
    Wha soga lang tree streem in.
    Â 
    I had no idea what the song said or meant, and no one bothered to teach me. It was one of the things I was supposed to know, and like the daily recitation of the pledge of allegiance, it had to be done with enthusiasm, or teachers gave out demerits. The pledge was printed in ornate letters on a poster under the flag in every classroom. “The Star-Spangled Banner,” however, remained a mystery for years, its nonsense words the only song I could sing in English from beginning to end.

    On a chill October afternoon, Mami, Don Julio, and I went to the airport to pick up the rest of my sisters and brothers, who’d stayed in Puerto Rico with our father until Mami could afford their plane fare. Delsa, Norma, Hector, and Alicia were smaller than I remembered them, darker, more foreign. They huddled close to one another, holding hands. Their eyes darted from corner to corner of the enormous terminal, to the hundreds of people waving, hugging, kissing, to the luggage that banged into them. Bird-like, they lifted their heads, mouths open, toward the magnified, disembodied voices bleating orders from the ceilings. I wondered if I had looked that frightened and vulnerable only two months earlier.
    We’d moved to a new, larger apartment on Varet Street. Tata and Tío Chico had been cooking all morning, and as we entered the apartment, the fragrance of roasting achiote, garlic, and oregano,
the family milling around, laughing and talking, made it like Christmas.
    We had many relatives in Brooklyn. Paco, Tío Chico’s son, was short and muscular. His arms and face were always bruised, his eyes swollen and bloodshot, his nose bandaged, the result of his work as a wrestler. His professional name was El Santo. In the ring, he wore white tights and boots, a white leather belt, a white mask, a milky satin cape with a stand-up collar studded with rhinestones. He was one of the good guys, but although he usually won his fights, he always received a beating from the guys in black.
    Paco’s brother, Jalisco, worked in a factory. He was tall and lean like his father and groomed his mustache into a black, straight fuzz over his lips, like Jorge Negrete, the Mexican singer and movie star. Whenever Jalisco came over, I circled him like a febrile butterfly—offering drinks or food, or reminding him he’d promised to sing “ Cielito Lindo” after