The Madonnas of Echo Park Read Free

Vietnamese boys—would they dance with Mexican girls? Then a more terrifying thought arose: Who would
I
dance with? By the end of class, I had formed a pact with two Vietnamese boys I had never spoken to before, not to dance with any girl, even if we were asked. There were many other treaties of convenience made that day, as boys and girls who had segregated themselves by race and language throughout the year became unexpected allies in an effort to outsmart our teacher, who was white. Who, we wondered, would
she
dance with?
    *   *   *
    In the short weeks between the announcement and the party, every classmate had seen or at least stolen a peek of MTV. Was this because I did the charitable thing and invited friends over to my house to watch? Hell, no. Part of the fun of being a kid comes from having things other kids don’t have and lording it over them. On the playground, I recounted the videos’ story lines with such relish, anyone overhearing me would have thought these on-screen adventures were my own experiences, and in a way, I felt they were. What I hadn’t counted on was my classmates’ determination to see these videos for themselves, no matter the cost or inconvenience. Distant and more prosperous Vietnamese relatives, who lived in actual houses (not one-room box apartments) as far away as El Monte, had their remote controls hijacked. Mexican girls took the bus together to the Valley, racing through the Glendale Galleria to the electronics section of JCPenney. With each passing Monday, the MTV circle widened, and with it my reign as the “MTV King” diminished until the day of the party, when the two poorest boys in the class, twin brothers who alternated their clothes in an effort to project a larger wardrobe (the stains gave them away) were what remained of my empire.
    The bare turntable wobbled in slow circles like a drunk uncle at a
quinceañera
in search of a young girl’s ass to grope. Hands rustled in peeling vinyl backpacks, plastic supermarket bags, and cheap store-brand three-ring binders, a
shassh
of ripped-open Velcro fasteners as 45 records poked out from snug butterfly folders. While I had agreed not to dance, I didn’t want to fail an assignment, so I bought Michael Jackson’s
Thriller.
Its $9.99 price tag embarrassed me, the large record sitting on my desk like an arrogant boast; many of the other students had brought ninety-nine-cent, seven-inch singles from
Thriller,
each priced with a distinctive blue El Tocadisco sticker. El Tocadisco was a local discount
barateria
that sold Spanish music but reserved a small section at the front of the store for American pop stars. (It had occurred to no one to bring in a Menudo album, or any other kind of music. There was a tacit understanding among Mexican andVietnamese kids alike that MTV music meant
American
music, and American music meant English men with keyboards, white women with big hair, or Michael Jackson.)
Thriller
had been out for over a year, but kids here didn’t have a lot of disposable income, meaning pop culture filtered through in spurts. Our teacher grimaced as she collected copies of “Beat It” and “Billie Jean.” The boys nodded to each other in smug conspiracy—there would be no dancing today.
    When Ms. O’Neill asked Aurora where her record was, she pulled from a torn grocery store bag a rainbow-sequined vinyl record case. A velvet sash strung around a plastic rose clasped the top of the box, which flipped open to reveal an alphabetized selection of 45 singles. Ms. O’Neill unsheathed each record from its wax paper sleeve with delicate fingertips, the girls ooohhhing and aaahhhing over the case’s delicate satin lining and the number of singles the case contained. Ms. O’Neill counted over fifty, plenty for an afternoon dance party. She asked the class to give Aurora a round of applause for sharing with us something so important to her.