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Excerpt of First Chapter and reviews – scroll down a bit

The picturesque city of San Antonio, Texas with its rich Mexican-American culture provides the ideal backdrop for the award-winning linked stories in this intriguing novel for young people. Luz, a young Latina, will represent her city in the upcoming spelling bee. Her participation in the contest signifies a substantial milestone for her community’s sense of pride and achievement.

But her success also triggers a variety of other emotions: Luz’s younger sister, Justina, struggles to understand her mixed feelings toward her older sister’s accomplishment; Luz’s grandmother fears her granddaughter’s ambition while another generation of Latinas pins its hope on her; and the Anglo students and parents must come to terms with the increasing visibility of the Latino community.

Woven together with the vivid metaphor of making tortillas, stories such as “Kneading Attitude” and “Mixing Ingredients” explore deep and consequential themes in this charming and hopeful collection. “White Bread Competition” won 2nd place in the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize at the University of California, Irvine.

“… a fine story of family, love and tradition.” — BILLIE LETTS, author of “Where the Heart Is”

LIBRARY JOURNAL November, 1, 1997 Vol. 122 No. 18

A collection of interrelated stories makes up this first published effort of Hernández. While the major competition facing young Latina Luz is representing her school in an upcoming spelling bee, she faces several other contests that are actually far more important. Luz’s younger sister, Justina, struggles with her own ambivalence regarding Luz’s success, while Luz’s grandmother Aura confronts her fears about how Luz’s success will influence the future and perhaps further the loss of Mexican American traditions in their home, San Antonio, Texas. The most significant competitions, however, remain Luz’s. She must simultaneously fight the racist reactions and obstructionist tactics of Anglos and the burden of representing her community, or “la Raza.” Hernández’s technique for showing the internal dialog of Luz’s mother, Rosaura, and her grandmother Aura in “Mixing the Ingredients” is somewhat confusing, but overall the book is a worthy first effort. — Faye A Chadwell, Univ of Oregon, Eugene.

White Bread Competition
Chapter One

My sister’s big smile would be very heavy to carry home if she didn’t win today.
The auditorium at South San High School was jammed full with people waiting for the spelling bee to start. Students waved signs with the names of people competing – “Jiving with Sekou” or “Marisela Is #1.” Luz, my sister, was older than me by two years, and in the ninth grade. She sat on the stage among the other kids who were all on metal folding chairs set in a row. She didn’t have to wear braids. Her black hair, styled in a bob, fell just above her shoulders. Our tías were always touching her hair because it was so thick and always saying how beautiful it was. She didn’t look at anyone else on stage; she just sat there with a big smile on her face.
My three best friends, Sofia Cuellar, Diana Ortíz, Sally Jane Mendoza and I stood up and shouted, “Viva Luz!” several times. Sofia stuck a fist in the air. Diana jiggled in her seat with excitement.

Sally Jane tugged at my skirt. “Justina, watch out.” Mrs. Garza, the school monitor, hurried over to us and made us sit down, telling us we were acting like pachucas. Sally Jane made a face behind Mrs. Garza’s back.

Across the aisle from us, Kathy, Virginia and two of their girlfriends, all from the fancy Alamo Heights area, were laughing at us as the school monitor walked away. Each held a sign with one word that, all together, read, “All the way Debbie.” Debbie, Kathy’s older sister, with curly blonde hair and a silk blue blouse under a plaid jumper, was sitting on the stage next to Luz.

The four of us jumped up and yelled, “Viva Luz!” as the school principal walked onto the stage. We dropped to our seats before Mrs. Garza could stand up.

The words flashed on a screen above their heads, faster than a video game character, yet each contestant spat out the correct letters. I knew how important this was for Luz. She had a straight-A report card and each correct answer got her closer to the scholarship she wanted for college.

I gripped Sally Jane’s hand, my knuckles turning white. Luz had sworn me to secrecy. Our parents didn’t know she was in the finals. It would be too hard to have to tell them if she lost.

Ten of the fifteen kids had misspelled. Only five stood out in front now. Luz’s smile was still as bright as it had been an hour ago. My stomach burned like the inside of a volcano, as if I had eaten too many chiles. Spelling doesn’t come easy to me. Nothing much about school did. Luz was the star and our whole family was proud of her. She would go far, they kept saying.

Two more people sat. The three up front stood closer together. My heart banged in my chest. I thought for sure that the girls next to me could hear it. But I didn’t bother looking at them; my eyes were hooked with a telepathic beam on Luz. She had to win. She had to because she wanted to so very much. My sister would be miserable is she lost, more for all of us then even for herself.

The third person sat. Now it was only Debbie and Luz standing alone on each end of the stage. I held my breath when Luz had to spell Mississippi. On her next word, we clutched each other’s hands when she correctly spelled the word M-I-S-S-P-E-L-L-E-D. We looked at each other and shrugged. It appeared that Luz was getting all the hard words. Luz could do it. I just knew she could.

As my big sister, she had always done everything first and better. I was proud of her. She was the one who was making it easier for me. She would be the first to do it all. I had no doubts. When she spelled the next word right, I stuck my fist into the air. She was a winner, no matter what happened next, and she was my sister!

Then Debbie missed. We mouthed prayers to Our Lady of Guadalupe as Luz slowly spelled F-U-C-H-S-I-A. Our fingers ached as we seized each other’s hand, but we didn’t care.

My mouth was dry as the next word flashed on the screen. I sucked in my cheeks. I looked at Sofia, who was the smartest one of us, and she shrugged. She didn’t know the word. How would Luz?

Luz was silent for what felt like a thousand years. Then she smiled a face-cracking smile and spelled C-H-R-Y-S-A-N-T-H-E-M-U-M. We were on our feet. Everyone, brown, black, red, and yellow, and yelling and cheering. Luz had won!

(((((((((((((

Usually I ate lunch outside with the other girls who had bean taquitos just like mine. But this time my friends wanted to be included with the older students. No one noticed the pesky little sister in the way.

Mis amigas and I were on one side of the lunch room table. Sofia, tiny, five feet, flushed with excitement, her dark skin crimson, sat next to me. She brushed her long black hair off one shoulder. Taller by three inches and several pounds heavier, Diana, whose brown hair was held back by pink butterfly barrettes, sat next to her.

Sally Jane sat at the end. She had light brown hair and light skin and a mamá who made sure that everyone knew her grandparents had come from Spain. We didn’t care, except when Sally Jane would forget she was the same brown as we were. The three of us would ignore her for a little while and soon the white girls would remind Sally Jane that they never forgot she was mostly Mexicana.

My sister, her best friend, Arturo, and two other Chicanas from her class sat opposite us. I took bites from my tortilla, hidden underneath the wax paper.

Debbie and her girlfriends stopped at our table. Even her little sister Kathy trailed behind them. They waved hands wearing rings that were forbidden by school policy.

“Congratulations, Luz,” said Debbie. “But don’t think you’re going to represent San Antonio at the National. This was only the first round. Don’t get too comfortable.”

Arturo took a big bite from his sandwich and said, “Yeah – you should know, runner-up!”

“What’s that I smell?” She stretched out her arm. I saw the finger coming my way and felt scared. I didn’t know what she wanted from me.

With the tip of her finger, she lifted the wax paper off my taco. “You’re eating peanut butter on a tortilla! How gross!” Debbie cried for everyone to hear.

I looked into Kathy’s blue eyes as she said, “You’re in America now. Why don’t you eat American food?”

Arturo jumped to his feet. Several boys, who were sitting across the aisle, sprang to their feet.

The cafeteria monitor bounced out of his chair and headed in our direction.

Debbie took Kathy by the arm.

“C’mon, Kathy. You know, you can take them out of the field, but you can’t take the field out of them.” The four girls, their two classmates, and all the students eating lunch laughed. Everyone except us at our table.

I hung my head.

My sister hissed at me from across the table. “Keep your head up high, Justina.”

I did as she told me. “I’m sorry to ruin your happy day,” I said.

“Eat your taco with pride.”

I stared at her, trying to see if some monster from outer space had taken over her body. My bossy sister was telling me to eat this tortilla with pride? Just yesterday she made me walk with her down the hallway to throw away the plastic wrapper with “Tortillas made in San Antonio” written across the front that abuelita had used to bag the tacos. Now she was telling me to eat my food with pride just because some white girls made fun of me.

I was about to say something back to her when another burst of loud laughter came from the table across the aisle. I swallowed my anger at my sister, crumpled the paper with the taco inside it, and tossed the heap onto the pile of trash on the cafeteria tray.

((((((((((((((((((

On the way home from school, mis amigas were talking about what they were going to wear when they went to see Luz win. They had no doubts. She would be the first Chicana to win and they wanted to look fine.

The sidewalk heated the bottom of my shoes. I walked, watching my feet drag alongside the others. My satchel hung from my hand; the strap scraped the concrete. Sweat stung my eyes, but I didn’t wipe it away because I didn’t want anyone to think I was crying. I had disappointed my sister. Those girls had laughed at us because of what I didn’t have. I had taken my sister’s great moment and messed it up. She had avoided me after school and I didn’t blame her. I wished I could avoid me, too.

The others kept me inside their chatter, ignoring that I wasn’t saying much. A woman with a bag of groceries in her arms walked around as we turned a corner.

“Justina, where are you?” whined Sally Jane.

“You better catch up with us, or else you know what could happen.” Diana touched the pink barrette in her hair to make sure she hadn’t lost it.

I walked backwards to where they were and spun around. “Did you notice what was sticking out of the top of her bag?” They shook their heads. Sally Jane twisted her neck around the corner to see.

“Let’s go.” I walked past them and they followed, complaining. I walked through the double glass doors of the H.E.B.

Diana shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “Hijo, this grocery store is freezing.”

“Let’s go,” I said, and headed down the aisle.

“What for?” asked Sofia, pulling Diana by the arm to stay even with Sally Jane and me.

“I know,” said Sally Jane, swinging her knapsack around her legs.

I threw a dare over my shoulder. “So what?”

“So what — what?” Sofia twisted her head from me to Sally Jane, walking fast to keep up.

I stopped in front of the bread rack. The others crashed behind me.

Sally Jane smirked. “She gonna buy white bread so she can eat sandwiches for lunch.”

“What of it?” I glared at Sally Jane, making her take a step back.

Her smirk vanished and she shrugged. “Just making an observation.”

“Right. Go observe somewhere else. I don’t need your grief right now.”

Sally Jane raised her hands in surrender. “Fine with me.”

“Fine with me, too.” We stared for several moments before Sally Jane looked away. I turned and faced the bread rack.

I felt as if I had opened the book to the math quiz and all the problems with all the angels were there in front of me. “So many kinds.”

Sally Jane said in a voice that sound a lot like our teacher, “Oh yeah. We’ve tried this kind and this one, too. They were too cheap.” With her chin, she pointed at the row of bread above our heads. “That’s the kind we eat. It’s way too expensive for you.”

“Oh-oh.” Diana covered her mouth, waiting for the fireworks.

“You think you’re such hot stuff. You think no one is as good as you.” I moved toward her, my hands growing into fists.

Sofia stepped between us. “You know she’s stupid with that light-skin-better-than stuff. Don’t let her get to you.” With a jerk of her head, she urged me on.

Sally Jane pretended all innocence. “Ay, I was just telling you what kind we…”

Sofia wheeled on her and scowled. “This is what Justina wants to do. Shut up.”

Sally Jane stuck her hands out in front of her. “Fine with me. I was just trying to be helpful.”

Diana, standing behind her, said, “Well, don’t. We don’t need it. Justina knows what she‘s doing.”

“This is the one I’m gonna buy,” I said and picked the one Sally Jane had pointed to. Snubbing her as I walked by, I headed for the check-out with Diana and Sofia on my heels and Sally Jane trailing behind.

)))))))))))))))

My grandmother stood at the stove, stirring a pot of frijoles. She laid the spoon down and went back to the kitchen counter. She was making tortillas for my father’s supper when he returned home from delivering mail. The skin on her hands looked like a crushed brown paper bag, yet her hands were strong as she kneaded the masa. Her hair hung down her back in a braid streaked with gray. She wore a black, felt reservation hat with the beaded hatband. A brown cigarillo hung from her lips. She would smoke it after supper.

My mother sat in her white uniform, drinking coffee at the table, talking with her mother, ready to work all night at the hospital. I proudly placed the loaf of bread on the table. My mother stared at it. Her face, the color of warm molasses, wrinkled up in confusion as she asked, “What is this?” Her hair, soft and curly, swung freely around her neck. Her fingernails, spotted with different colors of paint, were the clues that she had been painting today.

“Butter Krust loaf of white bread.”

“I know what it is, but what is it?”

“Butter Krust…”

“Who bought it?”

“I did.” I clicked my heels together, and if they hadn’t been sneakers, I know they would have made noise.

“Honey, you spent your allowance on this bread?”

I nodded as I corrected, “White bread.”

Abuelita turned from the stove, took the cigar from her mouth, and stared at the loaf. She snorted. “I could have made a bigger one than that.” She twisted back to the stove and flipped the tortilla on the grill, putting the cigar in its familiar groove with the other hand. My mother leaned over so her face was even with mine. “Mijita, por que?”

“I want to take sandwiches for lunch.” My sureness was spilling from my heels at the look on my mother’s face.

The screen door slammed behind my sister as she ran in the kitchen yelling, “Hey, everyone, guess what happened?” She sneaker-squeaked to a stop in front of the table and spotted the loaf. “White bread. All right!” She looked at our mother. “Sandwiches for lunch?”

My mother shrugged. “You will have to ask your sister. She bought it.”

Luz faced me. “Oh.”

My mother watched the silent exchange.

“So, can I?” Luz asked again.

“Sure, because you won the spelling bee today,” I said.

My mother clapped her hands. “Mijita, how great it is! Let’s celebrate.”

I grinned and nodded eagerly, looking forward to having all the relatives over to the house. We were all so proud of Luz.

With both hands, I carried the loaf of bread to the far end of the counter so no one would squash it. I wanted perfect sandwiches for school tomorrow.

Off the kitchen counter, mi abuelita grabbed her black reservation hat and with a flick of her wrist, she tossed it on top of the bread. No one dared touch her flat-brimmed hat. My bread was safe. I smiled at my grandmother.

)))))))))))))

The next morning, we woke late. Mamá hurried us out the door, but I stalled to check my lunch bag. At the bottom of the bag sat the white bread sandwich, wrapped in wax paper. I gave my mother a squeeze around her waist and ran to join mis amigas.

At out lockers I announced to my girlfriends that I was eating lunch in the cafeteria.

“But why? It’s fresher outside.” Sofia slammed her locker door.

“Fresh air and fresh boys.” Diana grinned, clicking her locker door shut. Today she wore blue turtle barrettes.

“I know why she wants to eat in the cafeteria.” Sally Jane’s ponytail danced.

Sofia and Diana watched; Sofia bit her lip, and Diana twirled her finger around her hair.

Sally Jane pointed at my lunch bag with her elbow. “She bought a sandwich in her lunch.”

“Really?” Sofia and Diana responded, their eyes growing as big as pesos.

“You do what you want. I’m eating in the cafeteria.” I spun away. I knew they would follow me. I knew they would stick by me, as we had always done for each other. At least, I was hoping really hard that they would so I wouldn’t be alone.

In the cafeteria, my sister, sitting with her friends a table row away, didn’t wave back to me, but then she never did when she was with her friends. I spotted Debbie and her girlfriends in line for hot food. I sat at the tabel, near where they usually sait, waiting for them to pass by.

A few minutes later, Sofia and Diana sat across from me. Sally Jane sat next to me. We smiled at each other. Sofia reported the latest romantic troubles of the beautiful women and men in the novelas on TV. She was the only one whose mother allowed her to watch the novelas, especially “Simplemente Maria.” She kept us all up-to-date on what they wore and who loved whom and especially who was “living in sin.”

Debbie, her girlfriends, and her sister Kathy wore stud earrings, hair ribbons, and faces masked with enough make-up to be against the school rules. They cornered the last table and walked down the aisle. I popped open my lunch bag and pulled out my sandwich. I flattened the brown paper bag with one hand and set my prize on top. I carefully unfolded the wax paper, spreading each piece flat against the table. The sandwich blossomed before me. It glowed white and was spongy like masa.

Debbie and the others were setting their trays down next to the boys from eight grade, when Kathy glanced over at our table and spotted my sandwich. She nudged Debbie.

I wrapped both hands around the sandwich. Loud laughing and hollering filled the room. Everyone at the table where my sister sat was poking each other and acting funny. My sister sat in the middle of all that noise, quiet and small.

Sally Jane stood up and stretched her neck to see what was happening.

I lifted the sandwich for my first big bite when the laughter jumped across the room.

I looked at Debbie and Kathy giggling, their shoulders butting each other in rhythm. I heard Sally Jane say, “Oh, oh.”

I turned back to my first white bread sandwich and opened my mouth. I felt like this was the last breath of air I would ever want to take.

The bean broth had soaked the bottom slice of bread and turned it brown. The pressure from my hands ripped the soggy bread. The frijoles were dropping out from the side of the bread and landing on top of the wax paper like brown freckles. My hands dripped with juice and sliding frijoles. Mi abuelita had made us bean sandwiches.

(((((((((((((((

When I arrived home, I opened the door and ran to my bedroom. My mother cried out, “Hola” from the living room, but I didn’t answer and shut my bedroom door very quietly. I didn’t want my mother coming in to ask me a bunch of questions that I didn’t have answers for.

I lay on my bed and watched the skies turn a bruised blue through the window. I didn’t change my clothes; I didn’t cry. I listened to all the noises that made up my family: the baby laughing as my sister fed him, my father and brother wrestling. My father spoke in a voice that tumbled into my room like thunder from the top of a mountain. My brother answered in a voice that reached for the same heights but only screeched in places.

I wondered why I was so different. Why couldn’t I want what everyone else in my family wanted, to be happy with the things that were here? Why did it matter what anyone else thought?

A long arm of light cut across my bed when my mother opened the door. “Justina, are you feeling well?”

I nodded, afraid for her to hear the pain in my voice.

“Mijita.”

“I just want to be alone,” I pushed the words out hard, too hard. My mama’s face was the same color as my dark room. Her brown eyes were soft with sympathy. Her black hair curved under and bounced off the collar of her white hospital uniform; her thin artist hands reached out to me.

She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my arm. “I’ve spoken to your sister.”

I jumped into my mohter’s waiting arms and cried. She rubbed my back and rocked the pain from my body.

“I just wanted to be something nice like them.” I sobbed between the words.

“Mijita, you have to be strong. You can’t let them get you down. We think you’re very special.”

“You’re my mother. You’re supposed to say that.”

My mother pushed me back from her, smiling. “Mijita, I can tell you what I believe. It’s up to you to decide how beautiful you are.”

“But, but….”

“Que?”

I couldn’t tell her that I was ashamed of my color. She would hate me forever. “But the teachers say….”

My mother’s voice gained an edge to it. “Are you going to let the ignorance of others tell you what’s real about your own life?”

“But they’re teachers. They know everything.”

“Let me tell you something, mijita….”

“you just don’t understand, Mom. It’s a lot different from when you were little. Lots different.”

I pushed away from the warmth of her arms, got off the bed, and changed into my nightgown. She watched me for a little while; the space between her eyebrows pinched tight from thinking hard. But there was nothing she could tell me that I didn’t know already.

(((((((((((

Two days later, during third period, the teacher announced, “Children, put your pencils and books away. Today, we have a special treat.”

The buzz of questions skated across the room as we packed our books.

“Today we have a guest speaker. She has volunteered to speak to us about something very important. It is about the food we eat.” Mrs. Letts waved her hand. “Say hello to Mrs. Rosaura Rios.”

I slipped down in my seat, trying hard to become invisible. Sally Jane and Sofia looked at me. I shrugged. I hadn’t known she was coming. Diana waved at my mother with a big smile on her face.

The whole class rang out, “Hello, Mrs. Rios.” Several boy, who sat in a bunch in the back, snorted. One called out, “Beaner.”

Mrs. Letts stepped to the front of the room and clapped her hands. “Silence.”

She stared her DArth Vadar stare — her face didn’t move a muscle, her eyes didn’t blink, her jaw thrust forward—until everyone quieted down.

“Mrs. Rios was gracious enough to come in to make this presentation. We owe her the courtesy of giving her our complete attntion and our most respectful behavior.” She waited a moment, the weight of her gaze silencing each student.

“Good. Mrs. Rios, the class is yours.” The blonde teacher stretched her hand out, palm up, offering my mother the room.

I was thankful that she had on a red-and-yellow-flowered dress instead of the janitor’s white uniform; it made her look pretty and her skin richer, darker like cinnamon. I felt a mixture of pride and total embarrassment.

“Today I want to tell you a story that began before there were any people from Europe living in this country. Thousands of years ago, there was a tribe of people called the Aztecs that lived in a place we now call Mexico.”

I saw Kathy, Debbie’s little sister, look at Virginia and roll her eyes. I moved so that I was hidden behind the person in front of me.

“There was much hunger. People and their children didn’t have enough to eat. There was much suffering in all the villages.

“One day, a woman was walking through the woods searching for something to feed her family. She discovered a trail of ants, coming out of their home and traveling up into the mountain.

“She hid to watch these ants because she knew they were very hard workers.” My mother crunched her shoulders forward as if she were hiding, and I covered my eyes with my hand.

“Soon she discovered that they were coming back carrying blue corn. She asked the ants to show her where the blue corn was hidden because her family was very hungry. But the ants would not tell her their secret. She went home very, very tired.” She leaned against the teacher’s desk and wiped her brow. I wanted the floor to open and swallow me whole.

My mother perked up and raised a finger into the air. “Her youngest children were twin boys who became very sad when they saw their mother crying. So they took off during the night and climbed up tot he moon and asked the moon to help their mother. La Luna sent her beams down to the earth. The waters roared and tumbled all night, but the mountain did not give up any of its treasures.

“Morning came and the twins asked the sun if he would help their mother. El Sol made angry clouds at the ants for being so selfish. There was a great storm with giant bolts of lightning. The sun sent one huge bolt of lightning, which split the mountain in two. All the blue corn inside spilled out, and the village people rushed to fill their baskets.”

Once again my mother slouched into her disappointed position. A couple of boys in the back of the room snickered. The teacher, standing behind my mother, shook her head at them.

“The sun was very disappointed in the ants and sent another bolt of lightning, which turned the ants red. They were so hot to touch; no one wanted anything to do with them. There was such a cry from all the ants. The lightning was the hottest the sun had ever made, so hot that it turned all the corn yellow. And that is how we know the corn today.”

Her hands moved in circles in front of her like propellers. “Everyone was very happy for a long time. Then some men from across the ocean came upon our land. They were pale and weak from their trip. When they saw the fields of yellow corn growing, they thought they had found the land of gold.” She arched her hands over her head.

“They had a little of the white bread they had brought from their home, but it was green with mold and was making everyone sick. They were all about to die, when the King of the tribe invited them to eat with him.”

AT this point, my mother stood taller, more proud. “At the King’s table, he had a kind of bread the men from across the ocean had never seen. It was flat, but stronger than their white bread. It could hold more food to keep them from hunger as they traveled. They asked the kind what was this food. He told them it was a tortilla.”

Here my mother lowered her voice with doom. “These men took our homes, broke up our villages, and even killed many of us, but they never could take away our language and our food.

“To this day, the food we eat is the same food that kept those men from across the ocean alive. It is the same food that the priest would offer up to the Gods in the heavens, the same food that was served to the Aztec kings of many years ago.”

My mother stood up straight, her hands slowly coming to rest, one cupped in the other at her waist. “The food of the Chicanos is not just everyday food. It’s food that has come down many generations. Our food is our history.”

No one made a sound when my mother finished. My teacher thanked her and then asked if anyone had questions. The boys that had giggled at her before asked, “The twin sons? Did they know any karate?”

My mother smiled. “Probably. But they didn’t need it because they could climb up to the stars to talk with the moon and the sun, so who would bother them?”

His friend punched him on his arm. The Chicano students sat taller in their seats.

My stomach flipped as if I were on a roller coaster when Kathy raised her hand. She smiled as she stood. “Isn’t it true that kind of food is really only for poor people?”

My mother smiled and I thought, oh, oh. I knew that smile well. “Do you and your parents ever eat out?”

Kathy threw a look at Virigina then answered, “Of course.”

The smile never changed, and I knew the machete was coming fast. “Where was the last place you are out?”

Without hesitation, Kathy answered, “La Hacienda.”

The smile disappeared. She stood with her head arched out. “People pay lots of money to eat our poor simple food that kings ate.” She winked to Diana, who smiled brightly in return.

Kathy opened her mouth, but the teacher quieted her with a pointed finger. A boy in back stood up and asked, “What kind of weapons did they have in those days? Any Uzis?” The teacher sat him down with another finger-pointing gesture and ended the question period. She shook my mother’s hand and had the whole class say “thank you” aloud.

I felt so much relief when my mother didn’t talk to me in the classroom before she left.

After class at our lockers, Sofia and Diana were taking their lunches out of their lockers. Sally Jane looked around me. I heard Kathy’s group coming up behind me.

“That story was so quaint,” Kathy said. “It actually brought tears to my eyes.” The rest of the girls in her group giggled.

Another girl cut into the laughter. “Didn’t she talk funny? Her accent was so cute.” She pushed her thick glasses up her nose.

I balled my hands in fists with a look filled of threat and menace. Sally Jane edged beside me, fists in the air. Swinging her waist-length black hair over her shoulder, Sofia, all five feet of her, dropped her books and spit out, “You chupa. We were here before you.” Diana hoisted me back by the arm, halting our forward motion as a teacher strolled by, smiling at us all.

As the teacher rounded the corner, Kathy shoved Sally Jane as she walked by.

Sally Jane bounced off the locker and the three of us stepped in front of Sally Jane to keep her from tackling Kathy.

Virginia stepped out of the gang of girls as the group moved on.

“I thought the story was, you know, really great.” She hugged her books to her chest.

Diana sneered. “Who cares?”

Kathy looked back. “Ginny, catch up.” She reeled Virginia back into the group with a smile that had sharp teeth in it. “What did you say to them? Something really good?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Viriginia looked back and blinked both eyes.

Sally Jane muttered curses.

Sofia shook her head. “Now you’re gonna have to go to confession.”

Diana nodded. “For having bad thoughts.”

“Nah.” Sally Jane smiled. “These are really good thoughts.”

We all laughed.

“Let’s go eat in there.” I moved ahead of them toward the cafeteria.

Diana looked at me as if I had frijoles stuck in my hair. “Justina, are you bonkers?” She and Sofia got on either side of me.

Sally Jane asked, “You looking for trouble? Because I’m ready.”

Sofia and Diana nodded at Sally Jane’s invitation.

“Nah. No trouble.”

“Then what?” Sally Jane asked as she followed me toward the cafeteria.

“My mom. It took a lot of guts today. If she can do that, I can go in there.”

Sally Jane grinned. “Let’s do it.”

Sofia nodded. “We have as much right to be in there as they do.”

Diana didn’t say anything; she just opened the door for us.

))))))))))))))))))

Kathy and Virginia purposely sat across the aisle from us. We had ignored them throughout the lunch period.

We had finished and were pushing the chairs back under the table when Kathy, sitting second from the end, sang out, “Did you enjoy your sandwich?”

Sally Jane said, “Leave Justina alone.” Her ponytail jigged in a dance.

Kathy scoffed. “Can’t she talk for herself?”

Sally Jane advanced another step toward their table. “If she did, you’d be sorry.”

Kathy touched the arm of the boy sitting next toher. “Oh, I’m so scared,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Maybe you all should just stick to where you belong.”

Sally Jane stepped up to the table, picked up a milk container, leaned over the guy, and poured it down the front of Kathy’s peach silk blouse.

Kathy sat with her mouth opened wide and her arms outstretched as her eyes tracked the descent of the milk falling through the air. Her shoulders turned inward with the shock of the cold milk as it splashed down the front of her new blouse. The two boys sitting on either side of her twisted away to avoid the splashing milk.

Screeching, Kathy shoved her tray forward, bumping it into Virginia’s tray across the table. The bowl on Virginia’s tray slid across the slick surface and toppled over the edge, splashing soup onto her lap. Virginia bounced to her feet, hollering, “It’s hot!” She sobbed loudly as girls on both side of her dabbed napkins against her legs and picked the noodles off.

Pulling her blouse away from her body, Kathy stared at Sally Jane, eyes sending torturous messages. “My mother will make sure you are never permitted back into school.”

The two boys at the end of the table rose and stood like sentries in the aisle, towering over Sally Jane. Sofia and Diana skirted around Sally Jane and took their place on each side of her. Their eyes glared machete messages at the two boys.

Sofia, barely reaching the mid-section of the boy in front of her, held her fist in the air, swinging her black hair over her shoulder. Diana aimed a fist at the other boy. Having grown-up with five older brothers, she had no doubts about taking him down.

Boys and girls from surrounding tables were on their feet, hollering and yelling. Kathy whipped up her dish of vanilla pudding and sung her arm back to throw it as the cafeteria monitor grabbed Sally Jane by the arm and pulled her out of range.

While everyone cheered for Sally Jane as the monitor dragged her out of the cafeteria, I stepped across the aisle. Swinging my arm, I hooked Kathy’s hand that still held the dish of vanilla pudding and jerked it. The bowl crashed on the floor.

Sofia cheered, “Andale!” Diana grinned.

“Las Amigas” walked out of the cafeteria with our heads high.

WATERHOUSE GRANT WINNER

The Lawrence Thomas Waterhouse grant is given once a year, between September and September to women in need of support for their writing, education or other creative project. Applications received year around. Named for Lawrence Waterhouse, the publisher’s father. Small application fee required.

The Spirit of Woman In the Moon,

A New Age Literary News MagazineVolume 4, Issue 1, 1997

Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez, graduate student, writer, San Francisco, 1995

Awarded grant for support of graduate work on Mater’s degree matriculation at University of San Francisco

Has had short story “White Bread Competition” published in New Texas 95. Has in progress novel, Lover’s Trust. Is circulating Aftermath, a novel of incest. She writes for a Latina audience.

San Antonio Express-News Books

Sunday, December 7, 1997, G section, page 4

Books Teach History, Culture By Judyth Rigler, Book Editor

Kid’s stuff?

A San Antonio winner is Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández’s White Bread Competition (Piñata Books/Arte Público Press, $9.95). 2nd edition

Set in the Alamo City, Hernández’s linked stories form a novel for ages 11 and up about Luz, Justina and the members of their middle-class family who struggle to blend tradition with the allure of the unfamiliar.

Luz is a champion speller whose successes at the school, city and state spelling bees have been rewarded with a trip to the national spelling bee. Younger sister Justina is filled with pride as she watches Luz effortlessly spell words such as C-H-R-Y-S-A-N-T-H-E-M-U-M, but she feels jealous, too, of Luz’s apparently effortless ability to fit in.

There are lots of local references – H-E-B, Alamo Heights, South San High School, Butter Krust bread – that would make this good reading for South Texas Children.

S.A. shines

San Antonio is very much a part of the story’s background. Here is a chapter introduction that captures the feel of our hometown:

“The darkness in San Antonio drops like a blanket over the city after the colorful symphony has crossed the Texas sky. It is a sky so big, you would think that everyone underneath it could live in harmony.”

But they don’t, and that is a theme of the stories. While the members of the Latino community struggle to achieve the successes that their Anglo counterparts enjoy, the Anglos struggle with accepting Latinos rather than simply tolerating their existence. Yet Hernández’s stories are neither angry nor bitter, proving that big issues seem somehow free of complications when presented through a child’s viewpoint.

THE LAREDO MORNING TIMES, October 29, 1999

HERNANDEZ: SUPPORT IMPORTANT IN WRITING

By Kelly Hildebrandt

Having a support system while working toward goals and surrounding oneself with fellow dreamers are important factors for success, said author Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández.

“You need people like that in your life,” Hernández said to the audience of about 25 students from Texas A&M International University.

Hernández is the author of White Bread Competition, a series of short stories detailing life for Latin Americans.

She spoke to students about life, college, dreams and racism during her Thursday afternoon speech.

The essays from White Bread Competition were originally published under Anne Helen Jupiter and won a series of awards, Hernández told the audience.

Now that they have been published under her true name in novel form, Hernández said she hasn’t won an award since.

Now, she said she’s having trouble publishing her next novel, Loving You to Death.

The reason, she was told, was because the publishing company didn’t feel they could publish a Latina author who is not well known.

So, Hernández told students that she would revert back to her Americanized pen name.

To get recognition in the field of literature, Hernández said Latinos need to support each other.

“Right now, we’re pretty invisible,” Hernández said. “The only way (to get recognition) is if we support each other.”

The first time Hernández read a book by a Latino author was when she was in her late 30s.

Hernández also urged students to follow their goals and find their own voice.

After sending out hundreds of letters to publications, Hernández said she has enough rejection letters to wallpaper her entire apartment.

From, all the criticisms, Hernández said she has learned to keep the advice that makes her writing stronger and throw the rest out.

Hernández, who grew up in San Antonio, moved to Vermont, where she raised two kids.

“I learned a lot about how to live with snow,” she said. “You can keep it.”

At 34, she entered college and found herself supporting herself for the first time in her life.

“In college, it opened doors for me,” Hernández said. “It got me excited about learning.”

It is there, for the first time that Hernández said she was told as a Latina woman that she was intelligent.

Hernández earned a degree and started writing. Later, she once again moved cross-country, this time to San Francisco.

Her goal: to earn a master’s degree in creative writing.

During her master’s program studies, Hernández wrote her essays for White Bread Competition.

Growing up in the 1950s, Hernández said her parents tried to assimilate the family as much as possible.

“They made me stop speaking Spanish at four,” Hernández said, adding later that she was taught not to rock the boat.

Today, after all her success, Hernández said she still runs into her family’s traditional values.

Although she’s a published writer with a master’s degree, Hernández said her mother’s reaction is still, “But you’re not married?”

She has a very strong message for women, said Norma Cantu, English professor at TAMIU.

Cantu said Laredoans are very fortunate to live along the border and to speak two languages.

“It speaks our reality,” Cantu said about Hernández’s novel.

(Staff writer Kelly Hildebrandt can be emailed at kelly@lmtonline.com)

DAILY REPUBLIC 9-13-99
BOOK IS GREAT FOR ADOLESCENT READERS

By Patty Amador
A series of 10 stories told from various perspectives make up the beautifully written, absorbing book for adolescent readers, “White Bread Competition.”
In the novel, Luz Rios, a ninth-grade Latina student in San Antonio, Texas, wins the regional spelling bee. That honor heightens the tensions between the Anglo and Latino communities.

Luz feels pressure from all sides – family, relatives, friends, and the mother of a white student who accuses her of cheating by receiving the spelling words ahead of time.

Justina, Luz’s younger sister, narrates the first chapter in which Luz wins the title over the Anglo girls. But Justina’s pride for her sister is shadowed by her shame at being different from Anglo students.

Wishing to escape ridicule, she purchases a loaf of white bread to take the place of the tortillas she usually brings for lunch at school. She is in for a surprise at lunchtime when she opens her bag to discover her grandmother has stuffed beans between two pieces of white bread.

This experience seems to be a metaphor for the theme of the book: to be proud of your own heritage and not to buckle to pressure to be like others.

Writer Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández captures the embarrassing moment: “The frijoles were dropping out from the side of the bread and landing on top of the wax paper like brown freckles.”

Throughout the book, Hernández, a graduate of University of San Francisco with a master’s in writing, intertwines Spanish with English. It adds richness and flavor to the story, but it done so deftly, the meaning is still clear for non-Spanish speakers.

She also reveals her strength for similes and metaphors, just as she does in the title of the fourth chapter, “Kneading Attitude.” In this chapter, Luz’s mother, Rosaura, and artist, has her first show at a local gallery. A prejudiced Anglo woman (the same one who believes Luz was cheating) criticizes her painting, remarking to her, “Characteristic of art from our neighbors south of the border. When did your family immigrate to America?”

A proud and spirited woman, Rosaura takes the opportunity to share some history, telling the woman, “My family became Americans when Texas was annexed just after my great-great-grandmother’s birthday. We had already been living on this land for several decades before the white people, your people, stole this country from us.”

Passages like this add depth to the story, but the weakness of the book is that the same treatment isn’t allowed Anglos, who often appear superficial and unsympathetic.

El Mundo Latino Spring 1998
Coming To Terms With Success

The picturesque city of San Antonio, Texas with its rich Mexican American Culture provides the ideal backdrop for the linked stories in White Bread Competition by Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez

Luz, a young Latina, will represent her state in the upcoming national spelling bee. Her participation in the contest signifies a substantial milestone for her community’s sense of pride and achievement. But her success also triggers a variety of other emotions:

Younger sister, Justina, struggles to understand her mixed feelings towards her older sister’s accomplishment; Luz’s grandmother fears her granddaughters ambition while another generation of Latinas pins its hopes on her; and the Anglo students and parents must come to terms with the increasing visibility of the Latino community.

Woven together with the vivid metaphor of making tortillas, stories such as “Kneading Attitude” and “Mixing Ingredients” explore deep and consequential themes in this charming and hopeful collection.

Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez’s stories have been published in various journals, including Rock Falls Review, Rain Dog Review and Atom Mind. White Bread Competition is her first published full length book. The author currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University.

Arte Publico Press is the largest and most established publisher of contemporary and recovered literature by U.S. Hispanic authors. Together with its imprint for children, PiZata Books, and its Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage project, Arte Pdblico Press provides the most widely recognized showcase for Hispanic literary arts and creativity.

Hungry Mind Review Spring 1998

Mixed Company Review by Lawrence Sutin

“Juvenile fiction” is a genre with a terrible name and a vital task. That task is to produce stories that will fascinate young readers – say, from eight to eighteen – who are often restive about submitting to the attention demands of a written narrative. If that were not difficult enough, juvenile fiction must further – if it is to circulate widely – pass muster with school boards, librarians, and parents, all of whom clasp disparate passionate agendas to their bosoms, united solely by the common refrain that books of that genre must be a “good influence” upon the children.

As race is one of the most tangled issues of our time, it is tempting to demand of juvenile fiction – utterly irrationally – that it solve the problem by providing perfect models for the young to follow. After all, we don’t want our children growing up to be racists. The fiction they read should help them to see through such lies.

Of course, we make no such corresponding demands upon “adult fiction,” which is entitled not only to portray the ills of racism, but to admit confusion as to its consequences for our lives. What do we do with the societal hate that has accumulated like nuclear waste – indisposable? How do we sustain a sense of dignity in a world of sliced, wrapped existences labeled “privileged” and “victimized”? Who are we, beyond such powerful yet limited concepts as race?

The best juvenile fiction has to ask the difficult questions of adult fiction, while offering some degree of help to younger readers who are just starting to learn to ask – and to answer – for themselves. It is a difficult balancing act, and a recent volume – White Bread Competition, by Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez – succeeds in quite different ways in pulling it off. The differences are, in themselves, instructive.

White Bread Competition is a series of ten stories that can be read on their own but also form a continuous and compelling narrative. Hernandez draws upon a number of voices to lend perspective to the central story of Luz RRos, a ninth-grade Latina student in San Antonio who will represent Texas in a national spelling bee. These voices include Luz’s younger sister, Justina, and her mother and her grandmother, Rosaura and Aura. The latter two are the strongest characters in a plot that deals frankly, and at times bitterly, with the tensions between the Latino and Anglo communities – tensions that are heightened by Luz’s victory.

It is fair to say that the Anglo characters in the stories are the least complex and the least sympathetic. Indeed, the one story in the book that falls decisively flat is “Harriet vs. Lyna Lou,” in which a white woman raised in poverty in a Latino neighborhood displays the stereotypic racist patina which a change of name (from trashy “Lyna Lou” to upright “Harriet”) and a marriage to a wealthy doctor can bestow. Mention of her early sexual abuse at the hands of a white stepfather seems more gratuitous than illuminating as to her cruelly hypocritical character. Her liberal brother Brody – who confronts her prejudices in a phone conversation that structures this story – is equally stiff in his goodness.

But the focus of White Bread Competition is on the Latino characters, and these come fully alive. A rich use of Spanish in the text gives texture to family conversations and comes clear in context for English-speaking readers. A depth of cross-generational understanding illuminates the challenges facing Latinos and, in particular, Latina women. Rosaura, Luz’s mother, is an artist. By helping her daughter face the challenge of the spelling contest, Rosaura is led to realize how important her own creative ambitions are. But this proves difficult to explain to her own mother, Aura, who has – out of love and out of lack of choice – rooted herself in her family:

“No Mama, children are gifts, on loan to us to take care of for a while. They have their own lives to live and as their parents, it’s our job to raise them to leave us.” Rosaura plants both feet on the floor, centering her thinking.

“Then you forget about them?” Aura reaches for a hanger.

“Of course not. Children are worthwhile, but what I’m talking about is something no one else can take credit for except myself. Something of my own. Something like the spelling bee.”

One clear message of White Bread Competition is that to find something of one’s own, one must evade demeaning outside standards. These are exemplified by the “white bread” Justina feels pressured by her Anglo classmates to eat as opposed the tortillas of her own culture, which is – a bitter irony – native to the land on which both Anglos and Latinos now live. White Bread Competition is about finding a happiness rooted in one’s people, and not in the elusive promises of the American dream of color-free equality.

Booklist
Volume 94 No. 9/10
1/1/98 and 1/15/98

Hernández, Jo Ann Yolanda. White Bread Competition. 1997. 180p.
Arte Público, paper, $9.95 (1-55885-210-7).

Gr. 7-12. When freshman Luz Ríos wins the school spelling bee, three generations of Hispanic women explore mixed emotions about what the event means to their family, friends, and San Antonio community. Later, pervasive undercurrents of racial discrimination rise to the surface as Luz is accused of cheating, and her chance of advancing to the state competition is jeopardized. Rather than following a linear plot, the chapters work as loosely connected short stories, the best of which focus on the older family members.

Through every character’s struggle, Hernández remains faithful to her depiction of strong females surviving adversity in a prejudicial society. Ironically though, she does exactly what her theme denounces: to show how Hispanics have been stereotyped and discriminated against, she presents nearly every Anglo as a one-dimensional bigot. The novel is at its best when the author focuses on the Hispanic women, whose integrity will inspire young readers and teach them worthwhile lessons about courage. – Roger Leslie

 

The Throwaway Piece

“The Throw Away Piece” won first place for Best Novel at the 2003 Chicano/ Latino Literary Prize at the University of California in Irvine. This book  also won first place in the 2007 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People Award. “The Throw Away Piece” was a finalist for Foreword Magazine and was picked for The New York Public Library’s 2007 Books for the Teen Age list, considered the ultimate guide to teen reads. Check me out on Amazon.

 

 “The Throwaway Piece” is a book about a girl in foster care. This is a book that kids can identify with (a girl that feels no one wants her) and use as a positive role model. Please take the time and check out, “The Throw Away Piece” and let Jewel speak for herself. Once you meet her you’ll fall in love with her as everyone else has. She gets under your skin, and you never forget her. People beg me to write a sequel because they want to know how life turns out for Jewel when she grows up. Give us a chance. That is all I am asking for.

 

Your assistance in getting the word out about my book would be most appreciated. You can make the difference of a worthy book being noticed and used for the right audience. Please share this message with other teachers, school districts, librarians, and other email list you are on.

 

I am available for interview, and I would love to speak with teen groups (in person or via speaker-phone) or book clubs. I live in San Antonio, TX.

 

Note from Author: Jewel doesn’t look like the book cover. Also the last line of the book was changed. If you want to know the “real” last line of the book, email me: BronzeWord1@yahoo.com or 210.274.0691

 

Check with BronzeWord. We provide this book for fundraising purposes. You can buy this book in bulk from BronzeWord for 60% and sell them for 100% and make 40% profit for your school or organization. Contact us for more information: BronzeWord1@yahoo.com. This book is a great gift for a teen or donate to a library.

 

 

Award-winning Writer Pens New Novel for Young Adults

 

In Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez’ latest novel, The Throwaway Piece, teenaged Jewel is shuttled from one foster home to another. But Jewel wasn’t always a “State Kid.” Her mother Angela’s constant search for happiness through a steady stream of unsavory boyfriends leads to the state’s intervention in Jewel’s life.

Listening to her new foster mother’s list of “nos”—no drugs, no lying, no stealing, no skipping school, no boys in or out of the house, no being late—Jewel realizes that her mother said “yes” a lot. Probably too much. She remembers saving Angela’s life when one of many boyfriends beat her, trying to hide another boyfriend’s attempts to rape her when she was fourteen, and being sent to a foster home just to please the latest boyfriend. But still, Jewel keeps close ties with her mother knowing that she will need to pick up the pieces when the latest jerk leaves.

Bit by bit Jewel’s life begins to change for the better after her latest move to a new foster home and school. Although most people can’t see past her tough “State Kid” façade—spray-painted hair, heavy make-up, and unlaced shoes—her English teacher realizes there’s more to her than meets the eye. He convinces Jewel to tutor a fellow student who needs help with math, and gradually she learns how to make friends. In the process, she touches the lives of many people around her, including her social worker, teachers who believe in her, her new-found, tentative friends, and even their parents.  But when she’s forced to choose between her life-long job—taking care of her mother—and doing what’s right for herself, old habits and loyalties are hard to break. Jewel is sure that this time, she can save her mom. But will she be able to save herself?

Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández is the author of White Bread Competition (Piñata Books, 1997), which received recognition as the second place winner of the University of California Irvine’s Chicano / Latino Literary Prize in 1996.  Her work has been published in various journals. She currently resides in San Antonio, TX.    

 

Title: The Throwaway Piece

Author: Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández

Publication Date: May 31, 2006     Pages: 192     Price: $9.95

Imprint: Piñata Books

Trim: 5.5” x 8.5”     Format:  Trade Paperback

ISBN 10: 1-55885-353-7     ISBN 13: 978-1-55885-353-9

 

Chapter 1

Mother and Child

March 4, 1994

 

Rule # 1  What’s important is never you.

I didn’t start out as a State Kid. Name’s Jewel. When I was four, my mom and I lived in an apartment complex with an inner courtyard, where the smells of everyone’s supper mingled: boiled cabbage, roasted jalapeños, and spaghetti sauce.

 

My mom and I squeezed into three rooms and a kitchenette with smoke-stained paint, smudged fingerprints around the doorknobs, and bars on the windows. Neighbors became privy to each other’s lives through apartment walls. People turned up their televisions to drown out kids who screamed for mercy or maybe love. Families made do with what they had and dreamed their hope-driven dreams of what could be.

“Mommy, where you going?”

        “Out.”

        “Why?”

        “Because.”

        “Cause why?”

        “Because you’re such a little question box.”

            I stand next to the dresser, my hands locked on the edge, barely able to see over the top. In my jean overalls and a yellow shirt, I watch my mother in the mirror lining her green eyes with make-up. “So you be pretty.”

            “Jewel, I’ve told you to stop speaking like the other kids on the block. We want our new daddy to be proud of us. You have to speak proper English.” Mom smiles into the mirror and blows me a kiss.

             I catch the kiss and pat my cheek, enjoying the game she plays with me. If I can keep Mom playing, maybe she won’t leave me alone.

             “You’re the most beautiful daughter a mother could have.” Mom’s waist-length black hair shimmers as she bends forward to color in her lips. She smacks at her pale reflection and sucks in her cheeks.

             I don’t smile. The worry feeling leeches into my body as the stomps of the Dragon get loud. I saw him in a book, and now he haunts the nights when Mommy is gone.

              When my mom is stronger, I’ll be able to tell her about the Dragon. She’ll chase it away. For now, I have to be a brave daughter for my mom. “I wanna go.”

Mom tilts her head and winks at me. “No. This is grown-up playtime. Maybe tomorrow we can do something. Would you like to go to the park?”

             I nod then crawl on top of Mom’s double bed. The one place the Dragon can’t come. Mom crosses the room and picks a dress from the closet.

           “What about this one, honey bunch?” She holds the outfit up by the hanger. A scarlet sequined dress, short-sleeved, split up the side, sparkles in the light.

 I smile. I like the color red. “You gonna bring me home a daddy?” This is Mom’s favorite game.

             Mom pulls the dress over her head, still talking. She pops her head out of the top. “Tonight’s the night, kid. The love potion is going to work. I’ve this strong feeling tonight is going to be magic.”

             I kneel and bounce on the bed, clapping my hands. “I like magic shows.”

             Mom struggles with the clasps on the back of her dress. “Yeah, your kind of magic’s fun, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”

             I hate the word “bills.” It makes the sound of my mother’s voice sad and sometimes mean. “What would we be like with a daddy? Would he pay the bills?” I flop forward and lie on my stomach, my feet in the air. I spy the face of the Dragon in the mirror, but the image is gone before my mother looks up.

             She checks her watch, which has her name, Angela, spelled in diamond chips across the band. From the closet, she pulls out silver strap heels, sits down next to me, and strokes my cheek. “One day we’re going to meet a magic prince. He’s going to take us away, out of this tenement to live in a fabulous house.”

             I ask more to keep the dream going and my mother from leaving. “Will I have toys? And dolls?” I roll over, hang my head off the bed, and upside down, watch my mother strap the heels to her ankles.

             “Yes, you’ll have your own room, filled with toys, dolls, everything your heart desires. I’ll have a room to do my art work. I won’t have to work at the drugstore because he will be very successful. People will respect him. Every time they meet me, they’ll treat me well because I’m his wife. Other fine ladies will invite me to their homes to play bridge.”

             “What’s bridge, Mommy?” I knot my forehead. Is this new to the game?

             “It’s a game your new daddy will teach me. He’ll like to teach me a lot of things so he can be really proud of me. I’ll learn fast.” My mother stands to check herself in the mirror and runs her hands over her flat stomach and her trim hips.

             I feel the Dragon’s hot breath on my legs. “Are you leaving me?” I search for magic words to keep my mother near.

             “It’s time, sweetheart.” My mother swings me onto her hip. She steps out into the hallway and walks on a once blue, now gray, strip of carpet. It runs the length of the hallway with worn out spots in front of each doorway.

             The hallway light bulb has been out since last week, and like my mother says the paycheck isn’t due for several more days. Light from my mother’s bedroom fades into the grey by the time we reach my room. My ears fill with the snorts from the Dragon. I bury my face in my mother’s neck.

             She gives me an extra tight squeeze when she feels me tremble. “Silly girl. Mommy won’t let the boogeyman get you. I promise. I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

             My mother squeezes me too tight, and I feel my breath caught in my body. This hug is more for her than for me, so I wrap my chubby arms around my mother’s neck. “I love you, Mommy.”

             She flips on the light of my bedroom. A small white bed comes into view. She sets me on the bed, helps me undress and slips my pajamas over my head. “When you get older, you’ll be able to help me more by doing this yourself.”

           I grab and pull my pajama top down hard to get rid of the wrinkles and check if my mother notices.

             She reaches over the bed, and I fill my nose with her perfume. She snatches a three-foot-long purple feather off the nightstand. I stand on the bed, and she waves the plume over me. “Evil spirits away with you. Only angels and good fairies visit my daughter tonight,” she chants.

             I jump from the bed and open the closet door; my mother shakes the feather at every corner. I shut the door and rush to lift the skirt of my bed. With the purple feather, my mother sweeps the floor beneath the bed and chants. I giggle as I stand at the door to the hallway. She wiggles the feather around the doorway then tickles me all over my body.

             I run around her, and she chases me onto the bed. I bounce on my bed, and she replaces the feather into the jar next to the lamp.

             My mother fluffs the pillow and slips the covers over my doll and me. I grip the ribboned edges of the blanket.

             “Dream good dreams tonight, baby.” She kisses me on the cheek.

             I touch my cheek and feel the sticky lipstick. “I don’t wanna be alone.”

             She stops at the door; her shoulders stiffen into corners. “If you need anything, you just go next door. Mrs. Flores will let you in, but she’ll charge me if you go over.”

             I stretch my arms out to my mommy. “I’m sad when you’re gone.”

             She stands at the doorway, sparkling in the light. “I know, honey. I’m sorry.” She turns around. “Mommy has to go. You want Mommy to find a new daddy, don’t you?” The whine in her voice is as loud as mine.

             I wipe my nose with the back of my hand.

             My mom sighs, goes to the bathroom, and comes back clutching toilet paper. “Wipe your nose. I count on my big girl to help me out. I can count on you, can’t I? You understand why I have to go. I’m doing this for you as much as myself.”

             I bury my face in the tissue and blow. She takes the knotted wad from me and drops it into the basket next to my bed.

             “I’m so very proud of you.” My mom tucks the sheet around my shoulders. “The best daughter in the whole wide world. I love you, sweetie.” She kisses my forehead. “You have to be the best daughter in the whole wide world to help your mommy. Okay?”

             I watch my mother walk to the door then flick off the bedroom light.

             “Look, I’ve left the light on in my bedroom. You’ll be able to see if you want.” She disappears down the hallway, the sounds of her footsteps disappearing with her.

             I reach over to the lamp but stop. I sniff and smell the scorch of Dragon flames. Quick, I hug my knees and smile at the light coming from my mother’s bedroom.

         Light is where mommy is.

 I listen to the sounds of leaving. The rustle of her coat. The tap of her shoes. The door shuts behind my mother. The lock clicks loud. The best daughter in the whole wide world lies with her eyes bolted wide open and listens to the noises, picking apart the house-talking sounds from the Dragon sounds. The kiss on my forehead grows cold as the room fills with shadows that stalk and haunt.

Jewel Speak

Wasted Brains

 

Mom’s quite smart about

doing dumb really well.

 

Once she’s talking to one of

her many possible husbands, when

he asks how does she know so much?

 

Mom tucked her smarts so far

back inside her head, I think, she

forgot how smart she really is.

 

Mom believes most men act like they’re

some chest-pounding,

vine-swinging hero,

but they’re really fragile inside.

It’s up to women to take care of

them, at the same time, letting them

think they’re doing all the decision-making.

         

Seems to me this

waste of a good brain

shows no respect for

either person.

 

The Throw Away Piece

 

Adult Fiction                                                                 Word Count: 57,700

SETTING: San Antonio, TX in a local high school

 

CHARACTERS:

JEWEL: sixteen-year-old girl whose mother dumps her into foster care because her mother’s latest boyfriend threatens to leave. To cope with her mother’s abandonment, Jewel develops her own private language, a type of ungrammatical English she calls Jewel Speak. She dresses in high top sneakers with no shoelaces and in a mishmash of colors and styles. She spray-paints her hair to match what she wears.

 

ANGELA: Jewel’s mother is unable to protect herself or her daughter because she believes only a man can keep her safe. The men she chooses dominate her and treat Jewel as their private possession.

               

GRACE CLARKE: the social worker who is assigned Jewel’s case. She is emotionally distant and on the verge of losing her husband because of her fear of intimacy.

 

RAUL ORTEGA: the cop who picks up Jewel for shoplifting. He wants only the best for his son, Julian, who attends school with Jewel and feels that being a strict authoritarian parent will insure his son’s success.

 

TOM GARNER: the high school homeroom teacher assigns Jewel to tutor another student. Tom hopes this will raise her self-esteem, and she’ll hook up with a nicer bunch of kids.

 

RONNIE MENDOZA: the student Jewel has to tutor. They become good friends. Jewel believes that Ronnie may be falling in love with her until her fantasy is bashed when she meets his girlfriend.

 

JULIAN ORTEGA: Raul’s son and Ronnie’s best friend. He becomes Jewel’s friend.

 

GLEN THOMPSON: Grace’s husband.

 

 

OPENING:

Jewel speaks to the readers about life with her mother filled with magic feathers that ward away evil and sticky-lipstick goodnight kisses. Yet the little girl is left alone at night while her mother goes out to find the man that will make dreams come true.

 

 

 

TONE:

A rebellious foster child defies and confronts the indifferent systems and affects the lives of those involved with her. Because the help Jewel offers is an automatic response, she isn’t aware of the impact she has on others. When her mother commits suicide, Jewel believes she has failed at the one task she had to do: earn her mother’s love. Jewel, believing that she has no impact on this world or anyone in it, takes an overdose of pills.

 

Each chapter ends with a ‘Jewel Speak’ section. In this section, Jewel’s thoughts and observations on the behavior of adults, society, and how to live are spelled out.

 

 

SITUATION:

Raised in a make-believe world where dragons represent her mother’s latest boyfriend and a big purple feather chases away evil, Jewel learns to defend herself at an early age. Recognizing her mother’s inability to make the right decisions, Jewel becomes her mother’s guardian angel. When Jewel fights against the abuse, her mother’s latest boyfriend gets Jewel thrown out by offering the mother marriage. Jewel enters the Foster Care System. Jewel protests, changes her speech pattern to what she refers to as ‘Jewel Speak’, and insists she will not correct her grammar until her mother returns for her.

 

Though her life has been flipped upside down by an immature mother, Jewel is strong. She responds to her environment by bringing the people around her in touch with their own feelings. She is the catalyst that brings two teachers together, teaches her social worker to stop fearing intimacy thereby preventing a divorce, and shows a hard-nosed cop that everything isn’t black and white.

 

The book reflects all the tragedies one child suffers in a world designed by ‘The System’ to help children. Through it all, Jewel continues to strive for excellence in herself and in others.

 

Jewel will never let you forget her, or the winding path she’s been forced down.

 

THE STORY:

JEWEL describes her life as a child with her mother and the kind of predicaments she becomes ensnared in by living with her mother’s latest boyfriends.

 

Because she fought off her mother’s latest boyfriend, he promises her mother marriage and a home if she gets rid of Jewel. GRACE CLARKE, the social worker, picks up Jewel. This is when she begins her “Jewel Speak.”

 

Jewel offers uncanny views on the court system she is subjected to in the processes of being kept safe.

 

Before Grace leaves for work in the morning, she and GLEN discuss the difficulties they are facing in their marriage.

 

RAUL ORTEGA tells his wife, IRMA, of the young girl he picked up that day and how he found her odd. When his son, JULIAN, arrives home from school, he and his son argue over what is appropriate for his future.

 

Julian speaks to his mother about want he wants to do for college and his fears that his father will disapprove. Julian believes that his father will hate him forever.

 

When Jewel is moved into her fourth placement, Jewel befriends an older foster child, NORMA, who is hurt by the stigma imposed on her for being in foster care. Norma believes that a boy employed at the neighborhood grocery store has an interest in her because he asked for her name. Norma’s heart is broken when she learns the boy’s sole interest in her is the fact that she’s a State Kid, and store policy dictates only one State Kid on the property at a time. That night, Norma jumps out of the window. State Kids can bounce back from anything.

 

TOM GARNER, the teacher, selects Jewel to tutor RONNIE MENDOZA.

 

When Tom is alone at home, he thinks about his previous marriage and its downfall. Tom is infatuated with the Health Ed teacher, SYMONNE. Jewel spots this infatuation and with the aid of Ronnie and Julian brings the two adults together.

 

Jewel and Ronnie become best friends.

 

Raul is outraged that he has “caught” his son with Jewel.

 

Jewel’s hope grows when she interprets Ronnie’s concern as caring for her but is disappointed when she is introduced to his girlfriend.

 

Jewel runs to her mother for comfort and finds that she has attempted suicide. She cleans her up, cares for her, and calls the paramedics who are familiar with her mother’s reactions to the disappointments over her boyfriends.

 

Raul tells his son, Julian, that Jewel ran away. Julian has a black eye, and Raul finds out that Julian and Ronnie fought several guys when they called Jewel a “State Kid.”

 

Grace, the social worker, and Tom, the high school teacher, discuss what should be the best way to handle Jewel’s situation. Tom believes Jewel needs to stay where she is so she can find out that people care for her. Grace intends to move Jewel to a more structured educational environment.

 

Jewel clashes with the social worker about being moved to another school and foster home, skips school, and hangs out at a skinhead friend’s apartment, where she is raped.

 

Raul Ortega is among those who raid the apartment. In the process, he is shot. Jewel saves his life.

 

Three young women from Ronnie’s group visit Jewel and invite her to join their group. They befriend her, and Jewel finds it impossible to believe they don’t have an underlying motive for their actions.

 

Jewel and Raul speak in his hospital room, and she explains how he must learn to trust his son by listening to what he does. (An old title: Listen to What I Do)

 

Raul and Julian speak and clear up their differences. Raul tells his son that he loves him.

 

Grace breaks down and tells her husband about her fears, and they promise to stay together.

 

Tom and Symonne remark on how much they owe Jewel for bringing them together.

 

Ronnie celebrates with Julian and his girlfriend, MARISELA, about the top grade he earned in passing the exam. In celebration, he buys Jewel an assortment of fluorescent-colored shoelaces.

 

Grace reports to Jewel that her mother committed suicide. Jewel goes to the funeral home to have the purple feather placed in her mother’s casket.

 

Jewel feels alone. She has always felt responsible for taking care of her mother. With her mother’s death, Jewel believes she has failed. She can’t see how her life contributes to anyone or anything and takes an overdose of pills.

 

Grace and her husband, Glen, Tom and Symonne, and Ronnie and his whole group of friends attend the funeral to lend support to Jewel at her mother’s funeral. Jewel turns away from them. Grace and Tom explain to Jewel how she has affected their lives. They say it is time for her to have a life of her own. She joins Ronnie and his group of friends and asks for a ride home. As they drive away, Ronnie tells her they are friends. Jewel isn’t sure what that means but prepares to stay a while to find out.