Despite a week of protests against racism conducted by local government agents and congressional revelations about torture conducted by federal government agents (what, no state government agents? slackers . . .), my early '90s nostalgia continues. This time in the mix, Tejano music star Selena and my favorite Spanish-language song by her, "Amor prohibido" ("Forbidden Love").
When I moved to San Antonio in August 1995, Selena had already been dead a few months, murdered by the former president of her fan club, a woman whose name I will not mention here. (She is simply not worthy of the publicity that she seems to crave, even 20 years later.) Yet in spite of having been murdered five months earlier, feelings still ran high and strong in South Texas.
While Selena was born in Lake Jackson, Texas (in Brazoria County over toward Houston), and grew up in Corpus Christi, San Antonians knew her and loved her well. San Antonio was, after all, sometimes referred to Mexico's northernmost city, at least in Texas, where more than 60 percent of the population is of Latino origin, chiefly Mexican American. It is a Mexican American population with a long history in the region, back to the early 1700s at least, when Spain began to colonize South Texas. Even after being declared independent from Mexico in 1836 and later becoming part of the U.S., Mexican influence remained strong and constant with successive waves of immigration throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, which resulted in the development of a homegrown, native-born Tex-Mex (or better, Tejano) culture. Tejano music is a fine example of that.
When I lived there from 1995 to 2004, I loved this aspect of San Antonio, more than all the Alamo and Republic of Texas meshugas--so white, so American in perspective. Fiesta San Antonio, cascarones, that Mexico seafood place on the Southside where I had to order in Spanish, aguas frescas, corn in a cup (hard to find in SA but usually brought out during festivals), code-switching, a passionate local literature scene, las Posadas, tamales at Christmastime, the close proximity of both the Texas Hill Country and Mexico, the slower pace, and a montón of other things--I miss them all. I spent a good nine years of my life there, and as winter in Pittsburgh stalks me once again, I often wonder why I left.
Oh, but I do remember why. I had my reasons, many of which seemed very good then and even now make a lot sense. I hated the Texas heat, all seven months of it, even if it was mostly a dry heat. The slower pace belied a lack of dynamism as well, a go-along-to-get-along attitude that chafed me professionally and intellectually. The strong sense of familia, which could be welcoming and comforting even to an outsider like me, also meant that a lot of gay people lived their lives in the closet.
A snide aside: Nevertheless, by the number of times I've been hit on by married white gay men in other parts of the country, I do wonder if a lot of gay folk have a "familia" issue to deal with. At least Latino gay men in San Antonio seemed happier and better able to live life on the hyphen.
Seriously, though, if I could have found a decent job in a decent library at a decent university in Houston, or maybe even Dallas (but steady on, let's not go to extremes), I think I would have stayed in Texas--or just would have cut to the chase and moved to Mexico, which I love deeply for some of the same reasons, as well as several hundred additional ones. But things turned out differently for me, and the crazy charm of Texas in the '80s and '90s seems to have resulted in just pure "t" crazy in the '00s and '10s. So let's keep the regrets to a minimum and move on.
Back to Selena: She was everywhere in 1995, before and after death. I remember seeing tributes to her in office cubicles in the city's personnel department; constant gossip and worry about her relationships with her father, her club president, and her husband; this huge (and somewhat unflattering) portrait unveiled and displayed at the public library; and her songs in heavy rotation on the airwaves. Yes, we were still listening to the radio back then.
In fact, if I recall correctly, at the time I drove across the Texas border on IH-10 near Beaumont, I picked up a station on the car radio playing either "Amor prohibido" or "Como la flor"--I can't remember which now. It may have been a tribute to Selena's sad, untimely death at 23, but for me, at the ripe old age of 33, it felt like a new beginning.
Sometimes I wish I had just stopped the car in Houston--far more dynamic, far more cultural and cutting-edge. Hot, sweaty, full of "oil field trash" and godawful traffic, and marred by a tragic lack of zoning and urban planning but also blessed with fantastic museums (the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Menil Collection being noteworthy on an international level), opera, ballet, the Galleria, huge Asian supermarkets, and the intersection of Montrose and Westheimer, epicenter for Houston's gay community. I think I would have been happier, more satisfied, and would probably never have left Texas.
And in so doing, I wouldn't have met Cairo; wouldn't have edited a journal; wouldn't have gone to Montreal to study French and learned about an entirely different culture; wouldn't have become president of a regional library organization; wouldn't have made some wonderful friends in Gettysburg; wouldn't have reconnected with friends in Washington; wouldn't have traveled to Scotland, France, Germany, and England (twice); and wouldn't have done a whole host of other stuff either.
I might not have ended up in another Pittsburgh winter either with a hectic job that feigns at being a career "opportunity." I might have more than just a couple of half-hearted friendships. I might not have gained eight pounds in the last year. But it's give and take most days. Win some, lose some, or come to a draw. But most of all, keep moving.
So perhaps this post isn't as shallow, frivolous, and nostalgic as I might pretend. Maybe in the last 20 years, years that have passed by faster than a Rip Van Winkle REM stage dream, I have learned and grown and laughed and loved and striven and succeeded more than I realize. Life feels slow in the here and now, like cold molasses most days, but oh, it does go by and it goes by fast. And whenever I can stop for a moment, catch my breath, and look where I've traveled from and not focus so much on where I'm running to, I realize that I love my life, more and more, truly, madly, and deeply.
I only wish Selena had had the same opportunities. Talented, personable, and by all accounts a lovely, kind person, she deserved better. We all do.
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