When accosted, the poorly paid employee immediately gave it up. Just a shrug. No big deal. All in a day's work. Another day, another dollar, as the guys used to say in the Army... All they got for offering their lives to the cause of freedom, making the world safe for democracy again. Who complained? Nobody. It was just a saying after a day of drilling: "Column left.... harch!" "Habout.... face!" "Present.... harms!"
Great training for combat. Pérez recalls exactly two days of target practice with M1 rifles (he was rated Expert) and one day with pistols. Colt 45s. Rating: Totally Inexpert. Nobody could hit the silhouette at a distance of 20 paces. Everybody said that in combat they wouldn't shoot the thing at the enemy, they'd throw it! One night of "night navigation," making your way to a designated spot, presumably with the enemy all about, by means of compasses and, it must be supposed under enemy fire. To teach them to keep their butts down. The trainees were told that live ammunition (for rifles, machine guns, mortars, artillery pieces) would be coming in—that they would not just be hearing firecrackers going off, so Don't get careless!
Well, they had overnight marches, obstacle courses and calisthenics to get them in shape, but most of the drill was to get them to shape up. Learn to stand at attention, give a snappy salute! (Like Commander-in-Chief William Jefferson Clinton.) Obey commands instantly, unquestioningly.
About saluting: Every morning they had to police the area. Translation: pick up cigarette butts, candy wrappers, whatever, within a wide perimeter around the barracks. There was a saying: If it doesn't move, pick it up. If it moves, salute it. Now who, one might ask, could say a thing like that? Equating officers with trash? As it turned out, some of them were. A subject for further enrichment, if it can be squeezed in.
Pérez is stealthily approaching whatever it was he has alluded to. When his children were growing up, they would say, "Cut the enrichment, Dad. Just get to the point!" A wonder they turned out to be so wonderful! The point is, the troops were totally unprepared for combat. Who salutes at the front? Enemy snipers would love to have the officers identified in order to pick them off as prime targets. Eliminate the highest links in the chain of command that you can (they would be point men at the front, of course) and the enemy's done for. Oh, Pérez doesn't know about that. Their lieutenant, known as "Schoolboy," wasn't exactly a capable, inspiring leader. He is remembered fondly enough, though, because he was smart enough to turn to the best top sergeant anywhere, Ardel Coulter, and say, "What'll we do now, Sandy?" Without Sandy they would probably all be dead.
Pérez has read that some officers were right up there with the men. As for
their company, they saw their captain twice. At Christmas time, first, when there was a lull in the fighting. During basic training at Camp Howze, their regimental commander, Colonel Donovan P. Yuell (a splendid man... and with a name like that, he should have been the commanding general) was often out in the field with us men, his riding crop under his arm or dutifully flicking his highly polished boots, his eyes spotting everything out of order or not well done.
The colonel wanted to inspect our position at the front so the captain had to come too. Yuell came right to the spot where Pérez's squad was. In fact, right into the abandoned house into which Pérez had found his way. It was cold as bloody blue blazes and Pérez would have had a fire going to give the colonel a warm reception—except that at the first sign of smoke, enemy artillery would have given him a really warm one, blowing the house and them to bits of thither and yon. Pérez was right at Yuell's side as he looked out over the wide valley toward the distant enemy. A right guy, Pérez concluded. Smelled of the sweat of a man—even in that cold. The man was an active man, always in motion. At the front without his riding crop. Pérez missed that.
The second time, they were heading up to the not at all distant front when they were suddenly strafed by Messerschmidts. They dove for the lowest ground around at the edge of the dirt road. Suddenly, the roar of a jeep. The captain, heading the wrong way. "Got to report this to the colonel.... Got to report...." with a wailing sound produced in part, one could charitably suggest, by the doppler effect at that speed. One of the guys by Pérez rose up enough to holler in his loudest voice. "
USE YOUR RADIO!"
Sunbake (the captain's nickname) wasn't reputed to be very bright. A Regular Army man before war broke out, he served in Nicaragua, and the story was that he got his brains fried in the hot climate there. A racing jeep would be a far more inviting target than lumps at the roadside. Ever try outrunning a Messerschmidt? Don't try it. Just drop to the ground, alive, or else you'll drop dead. Comforting thought: You might be dead before you hit the ground in either case.
The captain of Cannon Company, it was reported about the same time, had taken refuge in the cellar of a shelled-out house with only the floor above partially intact and wouldn't come out. Poor shell-shocked guy, he was passing his excrement up in a helmet, afraid to climb out and expose his bare buttocks to merciless shell fire. A sad fact of life: Some things, there's no way out of doing them ourselves. Not even an emperor can have someone else "go potty" for him. A comforting fact to the downtrodden and oppressed. Here's another fact of life, its certainty bolstered by a crude, frequently snorted out G.I. expression: Top dogs like emperors and certain officers think their S-word doesn't stink.
But there was Abby. First Lieutenant "Abby" Abendroth. A high school teacher before the war. Solid as a rock. Rough hewn, smooth-limned granite. A real man's man. Strong. Virtuous. A word he wouldn't flinch from. He embodied it. Everyone could see it. He didn't parade it. Didn't have to. A man of few words. A few words did it with a man like that.
Eduardo had just arrived in Texas for basic training in the Infantry. He was an expert clerk-typist. Knew shorthand. His parents thought that whatever his future career, this would be very useful to him. So his official classification, apparently based on a quickie interview at the induction center and a form he filled out: Assistant driver, weapons carrier. He had driven once, around the block, in an older friend's car, giving the friend quite a scare. The Great Depression. The Pérez family had no car.
One week after his arrival, Captain Sunbake appointed Pérez his personal orderly—a position not found in the table of organization. Pérez was to accompany the captain everywhere. He served no purpose. Just sat in the back of the captain's jeep. The way the older guys gawked at him and snickered, he wondered what was going on. He was very young-looking for his age. Youthful physiognomy was in his genes. One of his daughters, Linda, still looked like a teen-ager after giving birth to six children. Pérez delighted in kidding her. He would go to her door, ring the bell and if Linda opened, he would ask, "Is your Mommy home?" Once Linda accompanied her oldest son to get his driver's license and was told that a parent had to come. A sister would not do.
A few days later, the company was participating in maneuvers away from the barracks. Pérez had his own pup tent and olive drab woolen blankets. The first night, before he could set up his own tent, the captain motioned him toward his large headquarters one. Innocent Eduardo entered. With no preamble, the captain began to show him feelthy peektures. Thanks to the indirect lesson imparted by a certain music supervisor, Eduardo wasn't totally, mindlessly, submissive to authority, although the Army was already rather mindlessly trying to drill that deeply into him. He mumbled that he didn't look at pictures like that and shuffled out of the tent. Any Hispanic of his age knew what a
maricón was. He would rather die, as his mother and father had taught him, than become one.
Although Eduardo had only seen Abby at morning inspections and drills, it took only one look to see what kind of man he was. He went directly to Abby's tent and haltingly told him what had happened. Pérez doesn't know whether Abby said eleven words or twelve to Sunbake, but the next day Eduardo was back with his squad. No orderly, period, for the captain after that. No pervert, whatever his rank, could attempt to prey on vulnerable boys thinking that Abby might stand mutely by without coming to their defense. Later, in combat, it made Eduardo feel inexpressibly more secure knowing that Abby was there, doing things courageously, skillfully, and right—it mattered not what lesser men might do or fail to do.
Pérez's first day of combat.... The regiment was approaching the front. Had to be. Where else would they be going? The sky was overcast. Rather cold weather. They were bundled up. "Hey, listen to that thunder," somebody said. "Looks like we're in for rain." That's how totally green and untrained the troops were. Rain? You bet. They got rained on good! That wasn't thunder. It was artillery fire, and all kinds of shells would be raining down on the troops in no time at all, to be joined shortly by bullets and land mines. A comment: Couldn't some officer in the know have informed them that they were not far from the front and would be there all too soon? Better not to prematurely scare the spit out of the troops, Pérez supposes.
You are asking, Well, how about when they were trained to keep their butts down? That was totally different. To avoid any casualties in training, only safe, close-range fire that could be absolutely accurate was coming at them. This was long range, distant, and the sound really was like thunder. Later the meteorological rain did come.
The troops were so ignorant, thanks to months of training, that they envisioned the front as a place where soldiers would be charging around with fixed bayonets. They soon learned to hit the dirt, the mud, ice, or snow. To take cover. Any soldier in motion at the front—much more likely to be visible moving than if dead still—could promptly be dead still. A piece of S-word. Pérez hated this G.I. expression. Loathed it! Altogether too exact from any cynical.... Comes from the Greek word for dog. A cynic will lift his leg on anything or anybody, Sánchez y Escribano later on would say.... All too exact from a cynical perspective, but how could cherished buddies, together day after day, 24 hours a day, closer to each other than many people get in a lifetime, be called pieces of........! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Noooooooooooooooo!
Pérez postulates, though, that this was just how these rough, untutored men railed against being nothing but dirt-cheap expendable cannon fodder, protesting in a macho way, as forcefully as they knew how, the unbearable, unspeakable slaughterings that threatened them and their comrades at any moment. No fancy literary type could have expressed their anguish with half the blunt, crude, doleful, savage, bitter impact.
Dog turds encountered in the mud or snow were called dead soldiers. (NOT BY PEREZ!) Oh, how horrible! Horrible! What a metaphor from hell! Pérez for forever would see his dead comrades not dirty, soiled, worn, worn-out, unshaven, with one bullet hole, riddled with holes, mortally dismembered and maimed, good for nothing now but fertilizer, pushing up daisies in Flanders Field.
No. He would see them sharp, splendid, luminous, wearing halos. No. He would never forget, as they became casualties, the laugh, the jest on their lips. Bill Schor, killed almost immediately on arrival at the front. Blown to bits. Moments before, he was declaiming comically, professorially, "Our artillery shoots one long, one short, and then one (the theory is) right on target. The Germans triangulate you. One at the apex, one at each corner and then right on center. Blooey! You're gone!"
The two were only a few feet apart. Bill was taken, Ed was spared. He resolved then that he would try to live a larger life, no matter how long it might turn out to be. Large enough to fill—at least a tiny bit—the void left by the loss of such special comrades, fated to be unsung and largely unremembered, perhaps, but not by Ed. Gifted comrades, capable in the future, if they had survived, of achieving great little things and great big things.
To keep them in remembrance he kept Old Glory in his office and flying from a staff outside his house. It was his custom to remember them as he saluted it every morning and evening and whenever he passed by. And oh, if he could only make his life larger, more useful, of greater service, fighting on for what so many gave their lives, in his own unit and in other outfits and theaters of operations, including many boyhood friends. He felt that he was always failing in this but would continue to kick himself in the behind to get with it.
The troops had reached a wooded area on a hillside. Nothing in sight. It never occurred to them, and it was never pointed out in training, that the enemy would have binoculars. Bill Schor was the first casualty and then Corporal Hardy stepped on a land mine. Horribly mutilated, in terrible pain, he got out the words with a strangled laugh, "Hey, don't cry for me, boys, I'm going home." The rest of them were paralyzed. Afraid to move, to take one step, even to take better cover.
That's when Pérez's admiration for the medics became unbounded. Here they quickly came, summoned by a field radio, bearing a stretcher, unarmed, their armbands with a red cross on a white field their only—laughably theoretical—protection. Where others feared to tread, risking the loss of legs or their lives, the medics moved swiftly, placing Hardy on the stretcher, hurrying him off to an army ambulance and then to a field hospital back behind the front line. Poor Bill Schor's shattered corpse was left for later removal after the platoon moved forward.
(Total casualties for the 103rd Infantry Division were listed as 9,369—a turnover of 66.5%. Non-combat casualties, presumably primarily from illness, are included in the figure. When the fighting was over, an exhausted Pérez was sadly jubilant to be among the 33.5%.)
Though over fifty years have passed, Pérez's remembrances are clouded with anger. How could the American High Command be so utterly incompetent! They are honored now. One was elected president. General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, was considered a genius. Didn't a single one of the geniuses have even a casual, passing glance at the potential battlefields to check out obstacles and dangers, and determine what weapons, equipment, and tactics might be required to cope with them so the troops could be properly armed, equipped and trained? The nature of the terrain....
Couldn't even one of them take a dogface's look at it? Dogfaces, that's what they were. There were several impolite cognomens, too. Tens of thousands of dogfaces, loaded into landing craft, often having to wade or swim to the beaches, loaded down with equipment and supplies, half-drowned or drowning, many dying under intense enemy fire. Surviving only to meet the hedgerows of Normandy. Banks of earth over six feet high topped with trees and bushes. Allied advances against them were measured in yards.
Not one single officer involved in planning the assault had taken them into account. All their marvelous maps had absolutely no earthly value. What could have been a mad dash for Paris turned into a near disaster resulting in the unnecessary death and disablement of many thousands because no one in charge had the brains of a Sergeant Coulter. Why all the parading and Tench hut!? (Attention!) The troops could have learned a lot more about combat from reading a Spanish Civil War novel than from all the months of so-called basic training. Basic? They scarcely touched one base!
Now, now. Let's not exaggerate. A base and a half? Three? Training around eight million raw recruits overnight was no easy task. Even obsolete relics from the past had to be issued. Pérez's first rifle was actually a pre-World War I Enfield. Still, in such a dangerous, threatening time, Roosevelt was totally remiss in allowing our armed forces to become so weak. Instead of all the CCC, WPA, NRA, AAA, CWA, NYA and other alphabet-soup make-work jobs he instituted, he might have provided a build-up of the military with all of its massive job creation in and out of the services. If he had done this in a timely manner, it would have got us out of the Great Depression much faster and with a credible threat of serious intervention by large, well-trained and armed American forces, there may have been no World War II.
Well, generals are looking at the big picture, the grand strategy. They play their games. Well, in the future, let them get down to earth, literally, and check things out with the dogfaces! And in the future, make on-the-spot battlefield promotions of sergeants like Sandy, if not to the rank of general then as a general's aide-de-camp with authority and instructions to speak up.
Is Pérez overdoing here the greatness of a sergeant? A mere sergeant like Ardel Coulter? "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example," said Mark Twain. Among other remarkable things, in addition to being such a strong, sturdy, knowledgeable, sensible example, Coulter was great because to him you didn't have to be one of the boys to be one of the boys. You could refrain from smoking, drinking and cursing and still be one of his boys. You could be a "98-lb. weakling" (in the words of the Charles Atlas ads of the day that promised monstrous biceps, pecs and abs for a nominal sum) and be one of Sandy's boys. You were expected to seriously do your best, however.
Peer pressure can be so distorting, freakish, crushing. In today's gangs, you may have to disfigure or mutilate your body with unnatural things in unnatural places, do drugs, or even cut or shoot someone to belong. Sandy was peerless in controlling and rejecting pressure. "Everybody's different," he would say. "Thank the Lord!"
Pérez was a reader. Another of Mark Twain's good ones: "Someone who can read and doesn't has no advantage over someone who can't." Eduardo was friendly enough, and appreciated the much good in the guys, but he preferred to sit on his bunk reading rather than be with the gang that devoted lots of free time to gambling, smoking, drinking beer, cursing, and telling raunchy high tales and jokes. Once after a visit to the latrine, Eduardo entered the barracks just as this gang, with tremendous outbursts of raucous laughter, was taking the Lord's name in vain in every unimaginable way. "Tone it down!" Sandy said. "Rugged's here."
Ardel gave Eduardo this nickname. No sarcasm. No irony. On Sunday afternoons after church services, Ed would go with the other guys to the U.S.O. (United Service Organization—including Army, Navy, Marines Coast Guard, everyone) in the nearby town of Gainesville, Texas but would head for the library in the basement. He was the only one there ever, as he recalled. Always alone, with one exception. Two of his buddies, Pollacks from Chicago, came staggering down the steps one evening with a bottle of whiskey.
"Pérez, we're going to give you a little drink!"
"Thanks anyway, but my parents taught me not to drink and I'm not going to."
"You're going to!"
Older guys, bigger than Eduardo, they took him to the floor. One straddled him while the other attempted to force the bottle into his mouth.
Pérez hates to even think of it or mention it, but something has to be said here. Keep your eye on the ball, they say, but that was the problem. When he was 15, Pérez had his head turned while chasing a fly ball, ran into a fence post and broke out 2-1/2 upper front teeth plus shattering the tips of lower ones, giving one of them a very bad jolt.
One of the last times he went to the dentist (We're talkin' 2002), he showed me an X-ray and reported what had to be done. "And what about my loose tooth?" Pérez had to wiggle it about with his finger to show him. Hey! What an admirable tooth! It's still hanging in there after all these years. The dentist explained what could be done and how much it would cost (a fortune!), so he said he'd just hang in there with it.
Just as Pérez was beginning to notice girls in a different way! And now he had a horrible gap in his mouth. No girl would want to even look his way. Great Depression days. No money for a dentist. For years, Ed would hardly open his mouth. His smile, especially for photos, was very tight.
At age 18, with good jobs becoming readily available because of the approaching war, Eduardo finally earned enough to get the job done. A good fit, a good match. As he aged, though, the false bridge remained sparkling white while the other teeth yellowed somewhat. Made him a hit in Latin America. People always commented on his wonderful smile. They are so kind.
Some years later, as a professor, Pérez attended a lecture by a much ballyhooed man (hometown boy makes good), who spoke of his recent visit to the Soviet Union. An event. The height of the cold war. Few Americans ever went behind the Iron Curtain. The man could say no good about the Russians. His every word dripped with derision. "You should see the stainless steel false teeth they have! Never saw anything so crude!"
Pérez felt overcome with despair. Communism was taking over around the globe. A menace everywhere. How could "ugly Americans" hope to turn back the tide? What poor, miserable denizen of a "third-world" country, a "developing" nation, wouldn't give his or her eyeteeth for an American dental job? Totally out of the question. Who made affordable stainless steel teeth an option? The Soviets. What people could these "denizens" best relate to? Rich Americans? To the Russians, of course.
Most people who have never read Lederer and Burdick's
The Ugly American misinterpret the title. They don't understand that the "ugly" American, was a plain, not good-looking, ordinary man who loved the people of southeast Asia among whom he and his wife found themselves and learned their language, mingled with them, ate their food, respected their customs and observed many of them. Handy with hands and tools, they helped them solve desperate needs. An assured supply of potable water, better ways to produce food.
The irony of the book is that the truly ugly Americans were the fancy striped-pants diplomats—al
, not bothering to learn the people's language, not interested in their quaint ways, never grasping the fact that they were sinking the United States of America into a quagmire. Marlon Brando, the star of the eponymous film, was far too handsome to play the role of the plain, physically unattractive guy with a plain, physically unattractive wife.
Eponymous slipped out this time before Pérez could stop it. Well, he was familiar with Spanish
epónimo long before the word became common in English in the highest falutin' prose.
When Eduardo hissed through tightly clenched jaws, "You'll have to break my teeth first!" he alone could understand what a loss to him that would be. He struggled desperately but they were too big and heavy for him. Fortunately, the sound of the struggle brought G.I.s running downstairs who pulled the Pollacks off him. ("Pollack" was not politically incorrect back then. His two friends didn't mind referring to themselves as "Pollacks" at all.)
G.I. stands for Government Issue. A sardonic reference to themselves by the troops as being just another standard item like a shoe or a rifle stocked by the quartermaster.
The next day, the two Poles were more than slightly hung over. Eduardo wasn't sure they had any clear notion what had happened in the library. A 20-mile forced march with full equipment was scheduled for that night. In the heat of a Texas summer. It would have been murder to do it during the day, though the Texas-size mosquitos wouldn't be out like at night. Eduardo must point out that the M1 rifle carried by a "98-lb. weakling" weighs exactly the same as the one carried by the 250-pound athlete. True also of gas mask, canteen, bed roll, ammunition, folding shovel, bayonet, steel helmet.... O.K., O.K. Pérez's socks weighed less.
Everyone knew that the "meat wagon" was following on their heels. No one wanted to experience the disgrace of having to be picked up by it. All marched steadily along for starters. Little by little, though, as mile after mile went by, guys started lagging behind. The heat and the humidity were just too much. Finally, the two Pollacks, well ahead of Pérez in the ranks initially, fell back, fell back, until they were just ahead of him.
Keeping up the pace, Eduardo finally had to pass them by. Sgt. Coulter, who not only kept up but also went back and forth checking things out and offering encouragement, happened to be there at that moment. "Hey, look at Rugged!" he exclaimed. And "Rugged," Eduardo was, from then on. No one expressed it derisively. It just became a nickname like any other. Like that of Buck Private Charles "Halftrack" Hall, for example. Because of his huge feet. Halftracks are armored vehicles with tank treads in back and regular wheels and tires in front; hence, the name. Hall's nickname should have been "IQ," he was such a brain. The poor Pollacks, thanks to their untimely swigs of whiskey, had to ride back to camp in the meat wagon—an ordinary army truck covered by a tarp with benches on each side.
The story is told of Mark Twain that, distressed by Twain's habitual cursing, his sweet, dainty wife Olivia decided to cure him of it by letting him hear how he sounded. She knew the words, having heard them more than enough, so when the right occasion presented itself, she let out what she thought was a horrible stream of frightful obscenities. Twain just shook his head and said, "Honey, them's the words, but that ain't the music!"
Well, in one of their most frequent bouts of cursing in combat, the dogfaces didn't use the words but they very definitely used the music. On any occasion, in any situation at all, someone would bitterly mimic F.D.R.'s infamous words: "Ah hates wah. Eleanah hates wah." (Wife Eleanor, too!)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had promised the mothers of America that their sons would never go to war. Music to Hitler's ears. The U.S. would not resist him. The sons of American mothers would not go to war. A typical liberal. Saying what sounds good. What gets votes. Not thinking or caring what the import or consequences of the words might be. It's a leader's job to lead. Churchill understood immediately the deep danger in allowing Hitler to march troops unimpeded, even unscolded, into the Rhineland to retake it contrary to the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. If the Nazis had been stopped then (and they easily could have been), there would have been no World War II, no Holocaust.
The conscience of a liberal is a dangerous thing. The Treaty was unjust. We've got to be fair, reasonable.... Unjust it may well have been. Pérez personally thinks it was, though Prussia obtained greater reparations from France after the Franco-Prussian War. But you don't make reparations for past errors to a raving, wild-eyed maniac. A liberal U.S. Secretary of State lets North Korea know that what happens in that region is unconnected with U.S. interests. The Communists march in, and we're still embroiled in the consequences of that. Fuzzy Wuzzy wuzza bear? Fuzzy Wuzzy wuzza liberal.
President George Bush, when promising no new taxes said, "Read my lips!" and when he raised them, to be bipartisan and go along with the liberal majority in Congress, believing their promises to curb spending, he was hooted out of office. Despite Roosevelt's promise and his politically motivated, moronic removal of the major deterrent to World War II, he was elected for an unprecedented four terms. He could talk the talk and too many fell for it. Too many millions fell literally, in combat and in the desolation and destruction of war... men and women, young and old... precious little children.
Laws were on the books during World War II that would have allowed thousands of European Jews to obtain U.S. visas. Nevertheless, Roosevelt's Under Secretary of State Breckinridge Long, in his now infamous memo to U.S. consular officers, ordered his subordinates to "postpone, postpone, postpone" the applications of Jewish refugees. Even after the war, Jewish holocaust survivors and even Catholic applicants for visas were shunted aside in favor of more politically acceptable refugees. Roosevelt, ultimately, was responsible for this. In all the analyses of the century about to pass as the year 1999 came to an end, all the liberal pundits ponderously or gleefully announced the name of the greatest man of the Century: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Enough to make Pérez puke!
All those who know actual history without the liberal spin on it, and especially those who lived through the Great Depression, know very well that F.D.R. did not take the country out of it. It was only the build-up for World War II that finally did it.
Saltillo, Mexico is a great little place. The inhabitants refer to it as the Athens of Latin America. Yes, a little exaggerated, a bit pretentious, but it probably was a lot like Athens in appearance at several points in Athens's history. Pérez delighted in the architecture, the gardens, the plazas, the friendliness and the gentility, too, of many of the people.
One of his finest memories: He was wakened at two or three in the morning by the sound of music. Turned out to be a serenade. For his landlady's mother-in-law. A regular mariachi band. Beautiful! Why the serenade? It was the mother-in-law's birthday. Who was she? An elderly lady who had retired several years previously as
directora (principal) of a prestigious girls school. What an indescribably lovely custom! To be remembered and honored like that....! Makes you short of breath. It's been taken away. Fills you with envy.
Mariachi, strangely enough, comes from French
mariage /
/. The symbol <
> represents the sound of <a> in
father, <i> as in
ski, <s> in
measure, <z> in
azure, <g> in
barrage, <zs> in
Zsa Zsa, and <zh> in transliterations of words and names from French (
bon voyage / <g> = <zh>) and other languages. <zh> is sometimes employed in English as the voiced counterpart of voiceless <sh> and <ch>. For example, to indicate the pronunciation of
luge (loo
zh) and
douche (doosh). Just one of the 14 or so phonemes of English (depending on the dialect and the analysis employed) which have no symbol of their own—orphans left bereft of a letter..
Speakers of German have a beautiful way of referring to their lexicon as their
Wortschatz (word treasure). A language's sounds should be thought of as a treasure too. Speakers of English are the inglorious possessors of an alphabet that devalues its
Lautschatz (stock or treasure of speech sounds), one of the greatest treasures a people can have—of inestimable value! For speech, oratory, poetry, theater, song—for utterance and expression of all kinds. Every single significant sound (phoneme) of English is so precious it should have its own letter. Not so, so as a consequence, English has the most disreputable, mixed-up, fouled-up
system (
NOT!) of spelling in the world.
In his spare time Professor Pérez is working on interim and definitive solutions to our English literacy crisis. The fact that "third-world" countries like Bolivia and Cuba are leaving us in the dust in terms of literacy should mortify us to the very core. Thanks to a nearly perfect spelling system, compared with our non-system, Hispanics can devote more time to other subjects.
Ours—which makes learning to read and write so unnecessarily complicated and difficult—hogs time and money from the teaching of every other subject. Since a picture can put you in the picture better than thousands of grotesquely spelled words routinely accepted without question and allowed to crush our children with the remorseless weight of tradition, Pérez has prepared some posters for you. View them
here and let the full tonnage of their message sink in.
When the French occupied Mexico while the U.S. was distracted by the Civil War, Mexican musicians who played at social events—prominently at marriages—soon had the neologism
mariachi attached to them. "Standard" Spanish has no /
/ phoneme so the closest sound to it was employed—represented by the digraph <ch>. A widely spoken dialect of Spanish in Argentina and Uruguay (designated
rioplatense for proximity to the
Río Plata Estuary) does use /
/.
Yo me llamo (I call myself), for example, is pronounced /
/.
The second day of his stay in Saltillo, Pérez removed his watch. Few others had one and the custom was to approach anyone who looked fairly affluent and inquire ¿
Tiene hora que me diga? (Can you tell me the time?) Having read Anatole France, Pérez had agreed, sometime previously, that it is ridiculous for living, sentient, human beings to be governed by machines (not just clocks but traffic lights, etc.— like French drivers). Pérez has seldom worn a watch since then except when an absolutely requisite item for certain assignments. He loved to approach someone and say, "¿
Tiene hora....," which often led to opportunities to strike up conversations and get better acquainted with people.
If you are in another culture for any length of time, try to do a few of the things that make it distinctive. You can still be yourself, remain yourself. It won't transform you, except possibly in a deep down, maybe even lasting way. It will let you experience life somewhat differently, help you escape from your narrow provinciality and feel more a part of a greater, world-encompassing humanity out there.
Do you know that you have an "inner clock"? One of our special senses. Passing through Navaho Indian country in Arizona recently, Pérez noticed that dogs were moving from hogans and other dwellings out to the road. What's up, he wondered? Continuing on, he met a school bus. The dogs' inner clocks had told them that it was time for the children's arrival. A TV documentary recently showed how a faithful dog continued to show up at a train station at the same hour every afternoon for months, not knowing that its master had died of a heart attack.
The noise of the approaching train was not a factor. The dog arrived well in advance. Programmed by experience, the inner clocks of humming birds let them know when flowers of a given kind will have nectar again in order to time their return for more. Our own very civilized inner clocks are undoubtedly all fouled up, thanks to electric lights and timepieces.
All right, back to
Repeat after me. The
directora's little grandson,
Andrés (Andrew), who had become Pérez's fast friend, was always playing tricks on him or laughing at him when he couldn't solve his easy riddles. For example: "
Plata no es. Oro no es. Cobre no es. ¿Qué es?" (It's not silver, it's not gold, it's not copper. What is it?) A long silence punctuated by a little muttering. Finally, "
¡Me doy!" (I give up!) "
¡Plátano es!" he squealed with delight. (It's banana.) English
plantain is a cognate of the word.
Then he said, "
Repite conmigo" [Repeat after me] and started reciting the alphabet. A A, Be Be, Ce Ce, De De, E E, Efe Efe.... and at that point Pérez caught on. "Oh, no you don't, you little rascal!" One of the upcoming letters, spoken twice, was Ka Ka. In other words,
caca—one of several Spanish S-words.
Another riddle: Andresito took a piece of paper and drew a heart with some numbers on it like this:
We have here a
corazón, a heart. A special kind of
corazón, Pérez learned. A —-cere one. He had to give up, so little Andrés gave him the answer. "
Es un corazón sincero."
Sin = without. The Spanish for zero is
cero. Eduardo is sure that you can easily figure this out now. More easily than you can puzzle out exactly where this uncertain Heisenberg path is headed.
Hmmm, what other thread has to be picked up? A guy needs help, like one of Pérez's professors at the University of Vienna not long after the end of the war. This professor, in particular—departing occasionally from his written text—would create such long, masterful German sentences that he couldn't keep in mind the past participle needed for closure. After a very brief hesitation on the professor's part, accompanied by a slight nod of his head, any number of students at their
Pults keeping track for him could supply it.
The
Pults (nouns are capitalized in German) were long, narrow tables behind which the students sat on long narrower benches. His first time in a
Hörsaal (lecture hall to us, hear hall, listening hall, to them), Pérez noticed all kinds of names, hearts pierced with arrows, and other stuff carved into the
Pult tops. He couldn't believe his eyes. How could this be? Such serious, disciplined people! Oh.... This is Austria. Must be different in Prussia.
Lecture comes from the Latin root for to read, so lecture implies reading something, though sometimes in U.S. culture the lecturer will speak without notes and not even read a quote, reciting it from memory. Emphasis in the German terminology is on listening, and not infrequently the lecturer may read every single word. Exception: Herr Doktor Professor Benda had given his lecture so many times he would usually not even deign to look at the students as he gazed out the windows (a wall of them) and gave his lecture entirely from memory.
Eduardo strained his eyes to see anything of special interest out there. Could it be the
Votivkirche (Votive Church), striking in its architectural style, but basically presenting an unchanging view from day to day? Perhaps Dr. Benda was perpetually bemused by the fact that it is located on what is now called Rooseveltplatz (Franklin D. Roosevelt Square), historically, for Central Europe, quite an amazing turn of events.
After just a couple of lectures, Pérez panicked. How was he going to remember all this and pass any tests? He tried to take notes but was slow at it in German and it diverted his attention from what was going on. He noticed that no one else was taking notes and envied
diese junge Leute (these young people) their great memories. The third week, salvation hove in sight. The student association had mimeographed all the lectures and was selling each set—complete for an entire course—for a few Schillings, about $1.00 back then.
Oof! What a relief. But Pérez attended every lecture, to improve his comprehension of spoken German and observe Austrian ways. This is not the moment to mention a dazzling (also pert)
Mädchen (maiden, young lady) who attended Benda's lectures.
Pérez recalled how furiously later on, at the University of Michigan, he took notes in Anderson-Imbert's courses and how pleased and happy he was a few months afterward—in some instances—to buy Anderson's newly published book on the subject. Talk about thorough preparation! As souvenirs, the notes he took were almost at the same level to Eduardo as Anderson's books. Unlike courses at Vienna, there was always lots of discussion and give-and-take with Anderson, plus lots of showmanship on his part. Videos of his courses, not notes, are what Ed would like to have.
The first days of class in Vienna, the lecture halls were crowded to overflowing. All of the students registered for a given course were there to get their
Studienbücher signed by the professor. These little books were very official, with lots of seals and stamps and administrative signatures and spaces opposite each course where the professor would sign. By the third week not nearly as many students showed up. Why should they? They had their signatures and copies of the lectures and asking questions of the professor just wasn't done.
Pérez wishes he still had his
Studienbuch. In order to receive state-side credit for his doctoral-level courses in Vienna, he had to surrender it to the Registrar's Office at a great American university. No credit was granted. There was no reciprocal agreement with the University of Vienna. Despite repeated attempts, Eduardo was never able to retrieve his treasured little book. Transcripts of Credits were unknown documents at
Die Universität zu Wien. (
Wien is German for Vienna. Make that, Vienna is English for
Wien. Derived from it are
Wiener Schnitzels and wieners.)
With no transcripts of credit available, everything depended on your
Studienbuch. In it were recorded the courses taken, the dates, the professors' names and signatures, tests taken, dates and scores. Without it you were sunk. But think of the savings in overhead costs. In the U.S. so much education funding is spent on burocrats and administrative costs that there is much too little left for education. Make individuals responsible? Hey, even ultra far right-wing extremists wouldn't go that far.
A few professors, like Sánchez y Escribano, were impressed by Eduardo's foreign study and, naturally, of course, they expected more of him because of it. Don Federico once asked, potentially very impressed, "
The professor Benda?" The binds a guy can get into! Benda was O.K., but could he be
the Benda? A quagmire, whichever way Pérez jumped. A yes could exalt his foreign experience to greater heights. It could also elicit inquiries regarding the teachings and writings of whoever the real Benda was. If he was Eduardo's, then
the Benda certainly was very unpretentious. "Bend a bit, Ed," he told himself, "and stray a bit from your characteristic forthrightness. Don't say 'I don't know.' Say 'no.' Your Benda couldn't really be
the Benda."
No turned out to be right. Apparently Sánchez y Escribano had in mind the Benda who is
the Benda to Pérez now and to all those who have fought for and cherish freedom, truth, justice, and right... To all those who deplore today, as Julien Benda did in 1927, in his
La Trahison des clercs (The Treason of the Intellectuals), the fact that to too many people (including above all too many intellectuals) "the morality of an act is measured by its adaptation to its end, and the only morality is the morality of circumstances." The "morality" behind Naziism, Communism, Fascism and so many other isms... The "morality" by which terrorists justify their barbarous, horrific acts and others slowly—in pursuit of a "non-extremist" higher morality and what is just and fair—legislate and adjudicate away the best aspects of our national character and culture today.
There in the
Hörsäle of Vienna, a series of pert
Mädchen taking a given course would present a bouquet of flowers—an almost ritual offering—to the distinguished man at the
Lesepult (lectern). A lovely custom. A splendid way to honor someone. When the professor entered, all present would rise to their feet and remain standing until with a graceful flourish of his hand, the professor indicated that they might be seated.
On the many cold, rainy, wet, and snowy days, they waited patiently while he hung up his umbrella, removed his hat and a woolen scarf so long it could wrap around a Kiosk. He did not remove his overcoat. Nor did the students remove their coats nor the sweater, or two, underneath them. Freezing cold and no central heating. No heating of any kind.
If a professor uttered a particularly eloquent or striking remark, he was rewarded by the shuffling of the students' feet on the floor. If it was a really great one, they would also stomp their feet. If it was spectacular, they would in addition drum away with knuckles or slaps of the flat of their hands on the
Pults. Pérez joined in with the greatest glee, warming his hands and feet in the process.
....Pérez hesitates, nods almost imperceptibly. Nothing. All loose threads appear to have been tied up at this juncture. We may now return to the motor home.
You are not to consider this enrichment material idle or inconsequential. It is essential background information for what is coming.
Pérez typed out:
No problem, using the SIL font. He is quite certain that's the way it had appeared in front of his glasses in the air. A good starting point, at least. He studied it... closed his eyes... relaxed his eyelids... stared at the screen which the back of them seemed to provide for his retina. Nothing. Well, what did he expect, other than to go to sleep at a possibly critical moment. More staring. More concentration. Zilch. So he shoved his chair back, came to his feet and went to his little midi keyboard. Inexpensive, not too many bells and whistles, but a fond possession. He selected setting 002, "Bright Piano," set the volume at max, and after four measures of introduction sang:
Hay un tierno recuerdo que siempre tendré
en el pecho y nunca lo olvidaré,
de la madre tan linda que vida me dio,
ninguno te ama, mi madre cual yo.....
There's a spot in my heart that no colleen may own,
There's a depth in my soul never sounded or known,
There's a place in my memory, my life that you fill....
No other can take it, no one ever will!
Refrain:
Sure, I love the dear silver that shines in your hair
And the brow that's all furrowed and wrinkled with care.
I kiss the dear fingers so toil worn for me....
Oh, God bless you and keep you, Mother Machree.
Every sorrow or care in the dear days gone by
Was made bright by the light of that smile in your eye.
Like a candle that's set in the window at night,
Your fond love has kept me and guided me right.
Refrain:
|
Attributed to Rida Johnson Young, Chauncey Olcott and Ernest R. Ball.
Mother Machree. Irish, right? Oh, his
mamacita, so devoted to her children, sacrificing everything for them. Watching over them like a mother hen. Anxious for their welfare, doing all in her resourceful power for them to succeed in life. To accomplish this, she knew that Eduardo and his siblings would have to be proficient in English. Some Hispanics resented what they considered disloyal acceptance of any aspect of such an alien culture. Some succumbed to the lure of social and economic advancement and laughed it off.
Pérez's pal Gerardo Ortega, jokingly called himself Gerald O'Tega. He was climbing the linguistic ladder in a serious way and became fluent enough to pass as an Irish American with a fairly light tan. Jet black hair, soulful brown eyes, a very handsome youth. O'Tega's eyes were so dark, he doubted they could ever pass—with contacts—as Irish shamrock green. So....? Aren't there plenty of Irish swains with soulful dark brown eyes? Pérez was professionally expert in the use of contact lenses.
Pérez is going to throw this out: The small plot for a garden which helped the Pérez family eke out a precarious existence was so full of rocks that, removed, they formed a garden wall. One St. Patrick's Day when the teacher passed out little paper shamrocks to the children, Pérez said, "Thank you, but I don't need any sham rocks. We've got plenty of real ones in our back yard."
The boy was progressing. He could make jokes in English. Later on in life he delighted in making bilingual jokes all the time.
Je ne sais pas. (I don't know.
(pas, pronounced "Pa" = not) Je ne sais, Ma.
C'est la vie. La vi (I saw her, in Spanish).
C'est tout. Two.
C'est ça. Saw.
C'est nous. New. Get it? Hmmm. Say, now, there are better bilingual jokes. Now, there are better.... (French
c'est, meaning
that's or
it's, is pronounced
say.
C'est la vie = That's life,
C'est tout = That's all,
C'est ça = That's it,
C'est nous = It's us. )
During the Great Depression, Pérez and O'Tega could have more fruitful fun in that back yard than contemporary kids at Disneyland. Because nothing was handed them on
una bandeja de oro, they had to be inventive, creative, a much more valuable thing—active rather than reactive.
One example: Not having any pedal cars or other toy vehicles, they would invent them in the dirt, digging away to shape a seat and then digging some more to get a lower surface for brake, clutch, accelerator and gear-shift. An old junkyard tricycle or wagon wheel attached to a broomstick would do for a steering wheel. Pieces of wood with short vertical rods attached with nails and fitted into holes in the ground were the brake, clutch, accelerator. Another piece of broomstick for the gearshift (on the floor back then). Old junkyard cushions could be placed on the seat. Sticks driven into the ground at each side and joined at the top simulated a windshield from which traditional items like a small image of the Virgin could be hung or slogans like "
Dios es mi copiloto" (God is my Copilot).
They employed no plastic. There wasn't any back then, like today. A simple, uncluttered world.
They preferred to drive in Spanish. In English the motor goes ur ur ur.... vroom vroom....; in Spanish, mighty trilled rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs and
barum barum.... (u as in English oo of vroom. Spanish phoneme /b/, which can be spelled as either <b> or <v> has two allophones, an occlusive (the air stopped and then suddenly released) and a fricative. The fricative is bilabial (both lips coming almost together), not labiodental (lower lip against upper teeth) like English v. It is pronounced as an occlusive when initial after a pause or after a nasal (the air is diverted through the nose).
People mistakenly say "talking through your nose" when just the opposite is true. When you have a
code (cold), the nose is stuffed up, blocking air. Id dat dot do? (Is that not so?) More or less. Pinch your nose and try it.
Bebé (baby) illustrates both occlusive and fricative b. [bebé]
Bienvenido (welcome) illustrates two occlusive [b]s: [byembenido] The <n> is pronounced [m], becoming bilabial like [b].
If you substitute English v for Spanish fricative [b], speakers of Spanish will detect a foreign accent. An interesting side note: One of Eduardo's and Gerald's friends had the surname Baca. Fine. Looks better than
Vaca (cow), but the pronunciation is identical. The same as in the name of the famous Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca. It should be noted, however, that Hispanics proficient in English know labiodental v and may employ it.
Allophones of a phoneme may be in free variation or bound. Bound means controlled by the phonetic environment. Take these allophones of English, s and v: In slow, careful speech,
angloparlantes (speakers of English) may say haz to, but ordinarily this comes out hass to. "It hasta to be Shasta," a commercial used to say. Carefully, again, I have to go. Normally, I hafta go. What is happening here? The two phonemes assimilate to their phonetic environment; i.e., they become similar in some way to the following sound. Do we say "He hass been?" "I haf done?" No. Because in these instances a voiced consonant follows a voiced consonant. In the other instances, a voiced consonant is followed by a voiceless one.
Some allophones have become so bound that this is reflected in spelling. Consider
consider. Compare
compare. Both prefixes,
con- and
com- come from the same Latin word:
cum (as in
Pax vobiscum—Peace be with you). This time, not the manner of articulation is involved but the point of articulation. Pronounce /p/. Your lips come together. A bilabial sound. Pronounce /m/. Voiced and nasal, but also bilabial. So the nasal of
compare assimilates to the /p/ of
compare. Pronounce /n/. Also voiced and nasal. Where does your tongue touch? Just above the teeth, at the alveolar ridge. An alveolar sound. Pronounce /s/. The tongue doesn't touch but comes close enough to the alveolar ridge to produce a sibilant sound. In this instance, the nasal of
consider is /n/ because it is followed by an alveolar sound in terms of point of articulation.
How about allophones in free variation? This usually reflects dialectical usages that tend to be as much or more social than regional. Eyether vs. eether, nyether vs. neether, for example, varying freely in identical phonetic environments. Those who say eyether may also say potahto rather than potayto, while spelling it exactly like Dan Quayle.
Back to Ed's and Gerald's great little car. If the motor was running on one cylinder or coming to a slow stop, it might go putt putt putt in English but not in Spanish. The English p would best be indicated with superscript h [p
h], indicating "aspirated." P
hutt
h p
hutt
h p
hutt
h. (The /t/ is only aspirated when "released"—by pulling back the tongue.) Not so in Spanish.
Your fond love has kept me and guided me right....
Her fond and tough love, Eduardo reflected, as he sang this line in his unrefined stentorian baritone. Some mothers, in accordance with the ideas of the time, waited for a "golden teaching moment" to get across something vital to their children. Not doña Josefina Salazar de Pérez! To her, the golden moment was now! You say
caca within her hearing with obscene, filthy intent and you got your mouth washed out on the spot. With naphtha soap, too. Big yellowish bars of soap so strong your mouth would stay scoured till the cows came home.
Or it could be homemade soap. Lye was leached from ashes saved for the purpose. In Spain, olive oil was the typical fatty ingredient. Tallow could be used but there in California, doña Josefina preferred
aceite de oliva. Soap-making was not an easy process. The olive oil and lye had to be boiled in a cast-iron pot. Salt was added so the soap would float to the top. It would be skimmed off and the process repeated until the mixture was of a consistency to pour into molds. Doña "Josefa" would pick strongly fragrant flowers early in the morning, adding them as a perfume, straining the coarse part out while still hot.
She also liked to add coloring of some kind. A complicated, laborious, time consuming task, but what else could she do? The Great Depression was crushing them. No work, no money, very diminished hopes. Josefa had to
ingeniarse, employ her wits in every way she could, to keep the family afloat. And clean. Well-scrubbed and kept in clean clothes, though old, patched and worn. Ah! What a mother!
When possible, doña Josefina (diminutive form of endearment of Josefa) would find some
bonilla, a plant growing wild like catnip, from which to make the ashes.
Bonilla was the traditional source of lye in Old Spain from which the best Castile soaps where made. Doña Josefina was proud of her Spanish ancestry and the elements of Spanish culture passed down to her. And unlike some who made a point of saying they were Spanish, Josefina really was—melded with very few Indian additives along the line. The evidence was there in modest but plain sight for all to see.
It's a well-known fact, among some, that Mexican ladies of Spanish extraction do not shave their legs. Why is that? Because the indigenous people of America have very little facial and body hair compared with Europeans and Semites, etc. When Hernán Cortés arrived in his "floating houses with enormous wings," with his horses, gunpowder, steel, huge mastiffs to chase the poor Indians down, and measles and other contagious diseases to which the Indians had no resistance, the natives took him for a godly creature, the returning Quetzalcoatl, until they discovered that the Spaniards could be slain (pretty good proof of their mortality) and until they got a good whiff of them.
Europeans of the time thought that it was unhealthful to bathe. Customarily, they took the risky, rash step once a year. In the springtime. Some of them, it is said, only bathed once in a lifetime—the day before their wedding. The annual bath in Spring when streams, rivers and ponds had warmer water coincided with all the June marriages, the month which to this day, more than any other month, is still associated with tying the knot. In the Spring a young man's fancy turned to marriage and, oh horror, to taking a bath.
By contrast, the Aztecs and other Indians were very clean, bathed often, and constructed structures for steam baths. The poor
indígenas (natives) were repelled, repulsed and ultimately overwhelmed by the interlopers' superior weapons (including the terrible fierce mastiffs and the diseases which—by credible estimates—wiped out 90% of the Indians in some areas), and their hairiness and smelliness.
You might say that to the natives the Spaniards were repulsive, if not loathsome. On the other hand, judging by the great multitudes of mestizos of mixed Spanish and Indian blood found throughout Spanish America, the Spaniards did not find the natives' dark skins and lack of hair forbiddingly disgusting.
The Aztecs were also repelled by the Spaniards' bloody intent to kill in battle rather than take captives, affording the victims honorable deaths in sacrifice to the Sun so that it would continue to rise each day. In fairness, it must be said that there were caring Spaniards like Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas who defended the Indians against Spanish onslaughts and enslavement.
A footnote: In 1760 a British general battling the Delaware Indians deliberately distributed among them the blankets and clothing of smallpox victims, knowing that the Indians had no resistance to the disease. The proud man killed many thousands of them by this means in achieving his glorious victory. Other incidents of this have been recorded. "The only good Indian was a dead Indian," so.... So what? So why are we so repelled by the knowledge that Iraq is building up an arsenal of biological weapons? Thankfully our attitudes have changed.
Europeans and others had built up resistance to these diseases over the centuries—diseases largely transmitted by animals with which they lived in close proximity. No doubt you have heard of so-called cowpox and chicken pox, not to mention AIDS (from monkeys). The Indians had no horses, no cows, no sheep, no pigs.
They had llamas, guanacos and alpacas in certain areas plus dogs (the Mexican hairless, for example) which helped provide protein in diets largely lacking it. They also had Muscovy ducks (from
musk, not
Moscow). Of course they hunted various animals in the wild but did not live with them. Read Jared Diamond's
Guns, Germs and Steel or Thomas Sowell's
Conquests and Cultures to see how this has helped to shape human destiny, determining victors and vanquished.
Yes, the Aztecs and other Native Americans (not all) ate dogs. Very tasty. A hot item. Many Europeans relish horse meat. Butcher shops that specialize in it are identified in certain countries by a red horsehead. On his way to or from Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, Ed rather frequently had to stop while horses were herded across the narrow stretch of coastline from railroad tracks to the
matadero (slaughter house) across the road. His understanding was that the meat was shipped to Germany, Austria, Belgium and France to placate delicate palates. O.K. To
please their palates, but Pérez likes rime (phony, not phonetic here) and alliteration.
Italians also like
carne di cavallo. Colt, according to them, can be compared to veal, although it is more flavorful than the latter. In horse butcher shops, donkey meat is also sold. If the mule is young, the meat is very similar to horse meat. Donkey meat is used to make
tapulone, a Piedmontese specialty. Maybe these meats would be more acceptable and exquisite to our taste if we coined a new term following the pattern of
pork for pig meat. How about
cheval or
cavallo? Dog meat could be
chien. (We could pronounce it
shen.) For fashion, French is always the preferred language. So
chien, not
Hund, perro or
cane.
Just out of curiosity, Pérez checked this out on the internet and to his astonishment discovered this item: U.S. Department of Agriculture promotes horse meat! Eduardo quotes only this:
Retail cuts of horse are similar to those of beef. The meat is leaner, slightly sweeter in taste, with a flavor somewhat between that of beef and venison. Good horse meat is very tender, but it can also be slightly tougher than comparable cuts of beef. The meat is higher in protein and lower in fat. The meat of animals beyond three years of age is a brilliant vermilion color and has better flavor. The meat of young horses is more tender but lighter in color.
On other websites, this was strenuously, even violently, opposed. "Horses are more than meat!" protested one site. Very true. So are little lambkins, bunny rabbits and kids (little goats).
So why don't Mexican ladies of primarily Spanish descent shave? Because if they did, they could be mistaken for Indians—despised low-class working persons. Some Spaniards and other Hispanics tend to look askance at manual labor even today. Utterly unfit for a gentleman. Or gentle lady. In some countries, particularly in Colombia, the custom still persists among some men to grow their fingernails unbelievably long, perfect proof that they've never labored a day of their lives, the nails forever unbroken or marred in any way.
In Chile, as administrative director of the Chilean-North American Cultural Institute, don Eduardo was numbered among the "
autoridades," the prominent people. At one time he lived with his family in a posh
Las Brisas apartment on the shore of the Pacific. One day, dressed in old clothes and in shirtsleeves, Eduardo removed his Chevy Greenbriar van from the garage assigned to him and went to work correcting a mechanical problem, getting rather dirty and greasy in the process. His legs and torso underneath the car, Eduardo looked up, sweating and breathing hard from his exertions, to find a well-dressed neighbor in suit and tie staring at him incredulously. A law of nature was being broken in his presence!
In Chile, no man couldn't afford to appear in public without a suit, no matter how threadbare, for fear of being mistaken for a "
roto" (a ragged one). The street sweepers and garbage collectors wore shabby suits. A gentleman did not transport burdens.
Once on entering the Institute, Pérez noticed a small bundle of periodicals on a bench, picked it up and headed for his office. Immediately the
mozo, Aldo (a kind of custodian, messenger boy, doer of manual chores), hurried up, seized the very light package from him and expropriated to himself this unseemly menial task,
sintiendo vergŸenza ajena, feeling ashamed and embarrassed for the
señor director for this lapse of decorum, fervently hoping no one else had witnessed it. Do you think this could be classified as a type of silent language that could be included in a supplement to Edward T. Hall's book?
Actually Hall treats just about every aspect of culture under the sun—at least in his all-inclusive "Map of Culture" found as an appendix to
The Silent Language. You must also read his
The Hidden Dimension, about how different cultures (and sub-cultures) structure space. If architects would only read this, huge public housing developments would not have to be demolished by wrecking balls, as has happened a number of times in the U.S. And don't fail to read Hall's
The Dance of Time and
Beyond Culture.
Pérez has a file on his hard drive with the title "Treasures." He has collected in it short quotations, poems, song lyrics, etc. which he counts as real bonanzas, of far greater value than the materialistic things so many people chase after. Above all, he likes to list great books which he has enjoyed so much, and profited from so much, that he is always overjoyed when someone recommends such books to him. So please... He hopes you don't mind his recommending several of these to you.
As for authentic Chilean "rotos," Eduardo developed an intense admiration for them. At the very large outdoor and indoor markets, occupying a street for several blocks or a multi-story building, the
rotos could be seen—torsos bare, shoeless or wearing cheap fiber
alpargatas—hoisting to their backs crates of fruit, oversized sacks of potatoes and other uncommonly large loads and running up flights of stairs with them. Oddly, Chileans extol in fervid patriotic song, poetry and prose the heroic courage, strength, endurance, and skill of the Chilean
rotos who defeated the Peruvians in the War of the Pacific. On the streets, though, care had to be taken not to be mistaken for one of them.
One of his mother's golden teaching moments materialized when Eduardo snitched one of
tío (uncle) Silvestre Salazar's cigars. His friend O'Tega lived in an old house with a typical crawl space at the side of the stairs to a small cellar—very constricted and a favorite hiding place for boys. An excellent place to nurture your budding masculinity—get started on your way to macho manhood. After a few puffs—no air, hardly, in the tight little cubby hole—the two soon were so sick they thought they would die. O'Tega's
madre caught the two in the act and sent Gerardo's little sister to alert Eduardo's
mamá.
When Lalo staggered home, eyes teary and bleary, sick as a dog, doña Josefina sternly inquired, "Eduardo, have you been smoking?" "Of course not,
mamá. What an idea!" He says this reeking of cigar smoke and with inflamed teary eyes.
En un santiamén, in the blink of an eye (literally, in a holy amen), Eduardo had tears of another kind in his eyes and his backside was smarting and a tender red.
Eduardo wants to make clear that his mother's legs were very shapely and the hair adorning them was scant, soft, fine and practically flesh-colored in tint. Very subdued in tone, in our Hispanic community it was nonetheless almost like a badge or sign proclaiming "I am Spanish." Her skin had scarcely a touch of tan in it.
In the U.S., the question of race is so conflicted it's hard to make any sense out of it. With
Latinos becoming so numerous, the political parties compete vigorously for their vote. Strange things happen. Pérez quite possibly wouldn't be courted as a potential political candidate or appointee because his skin color isn't dark enough. Political correctness demands a rainbow of colors. Hillary Rodham Clinton, at a rally in New York City promoting her senatorial campaign, insulted many light skinned Hispanics by her cynical use of reverse racism: dark is good, white is bad. Bad of you, Hillary. Did you bronze your face for the occasion?
Actually, with his linguistic and cross-cultural skills, Pérez could easily pass as "White." At one time he briefly considered changing his name to Peterson. Sure, like the Mac/Mc of the Scots, the O' of the Irish, the -ian/-yan of the Armenians, the -sen of the Danish and the -son of others, Spanish -ez means son or son of.
So Sánchez is son of Sancho, Martínez is son of Martín, Álvarez of Álvaro, Benítez of Benito, Rodríguez of Rodrigo, etc. And Pérez? Son of Pero—archaic form of Pedro (Peter). Pérez, however, was the first name ever. No such claim can be made for Peterson. Of course! Haven't you read how God created the first man and woman and told the man if he didn't watch it, "
perecerás (you shall perish)? Humorously interpreted, God said, "
Pérez serás" (You shall be Pérez). The z is pronounced as s except in Castilian Spanish. Groooaaaan! Hey, Pérez didn't invent this joke. He merely passes it along. Feel free to just throw it out, if you wish.
This too: McDonald = Donaldson. What about McPherson? Pher's grandson?
"Hispanic," in U.S. usage, correctly refers to any speaker of Spanish who retains at least some aspects of Hispanic culture and wants to be so considered, although for some burocratic or political purposes a citizen may be counted as Hispanic even if only one grandparent is. Many have fully assimilated to so-called American culture. Sure, they eat tacos, but perhaps no more than any other citizen. Ask one of them whose only obvious connection to "
la raza" (the race) is a Spanish surname what his favorite restaurant is, expecting as a response
Los Tres Amigos, El Jarabe Tapatío, etc., and you might get
Chez Alphonse, The Outback, China Village, Olive Garden, or my Mom's kitchen.
Pérez has never been hassled as a result of "profiling." Police on the lookout for drug runners, for example, would never accost him unless they were made aware of his Hispanic name. He has gone by other names, including non-Hispanic ones. The last name he had used—on a fake passport, etc.—was Peterson. In a transitional way he was still using it now. Better not to come in out of the cold too abruptly. Better to thaw out gradually from cases of frostbite like his.
En mis años más tiernos velabas por mí,
mi vida fue buena a causa de ti,
y cual luz en la noche sus rayos al dar,
a mí, linda madre, solías guiar.
Every sorrow and care in the dear days gone by,
Made bright........................!
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¿Pero por qué....? Why had that particular transcription from a phonetics drill in
My Fair Lady edged into his awareness? From one of his favorite scenes, as it would be, naturally, to a linguist. Higgins is refining Eliza's coarse unlettered speech— first, by teaching her to pronounce ay/ai as in standard
say/pain instead of like <y> in <by> (phonetically transcribed as [
].
Then he attempts to get her to pronounce her aitches by repeating into the flame of a lamp "In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen," which she normally renders "In 'artford, 'ereford and 'ampton, 'urricanes 'ardly ever 'appen. Simplifying this for her, 'iggins has her just repeat "huh" over and over into the flame, which wavers with [h] and otherwise remains stationary. She gets so wildly engaged in this that the lamp flares up and almost sets the place—and Eliza—on fire. A hilarious scene.
Pérez reminisces of a time when in Phonetics courses he used the same technique to make students aware of aspirated and unaspirated voiceless occlusives in English. With a candle. Say "spin." The flame doesn't waver. Say "pin." The flame flickers. Or to teach Spanish "Pérez" contraposed with English "perish." Same thing.
Pérez was cautioned that no fire of any kind was permitted in the building—not a candle, not a match, which would work almost as well as a candle. Humph! Back then professors were smoking in their offices, but Pérez didn't argue. The demonstration could be done just as well using the back of the hand.
Go ahead, try it. Three words in the English-speaking way, one in Spanish. You should feel blasts of air for
pin and
perish but not for
spin and
Pérez (
as pronounced in Spanish). A problem? Hold your hand closer. But don't pronounce the words too vigorously. Don't spit! No saliva!
English phoneme /p/ has two allophones, aspirated and unaspirated. Natives take them to be the same, not conscious of any contrast, so only one alphabetic letter need be employed to represent it. That is the difference between phonetic and phonemic. Phonetic transcription:
. Phonemic transcription:
. Some languages, notably in southeast Asia, do make a distinction. There is a contrast—as much as that between English
zoo and
sue. So in these instances, not allophones but separate phonemes are present, requiring separate graphemes (letters, symbols) to represent them.
O.K. How did it go? Do you understand now how English could sound a little sputtery to
hispanoparlantes (speakers of Spanish)? An English occlusive has two distinguishing characteristics when initial: voiceless and aspirated. In Spanish, only one: Voiceless t, p, k, vs. voiced d, b, g (as in
go, not
gem;
gato, not
gente), for example. So on hearing initial Spanish [p], an
angloparlante (speaker of English) may think it sounds like [b]. Unless the Spanish spoken by an Anglo is learned as a child or extremely well-taught, any aspirated plosives carried over from English will betray a foreign accent. Or vice-versa. Spanish [p] instead of English [p
h].
Well, Pérez shouldn't say sputtery. Like the old German in Buenos Aires. Pérez's good friend and pretty good at Spanish, but if you sat too close.... Get your handkerchief out.
Any synesthetic reactions? Color, sound, taste, smell? Did
evoke purple?
a caressing breath of wind across your brow?
Hmmmmm.......
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Wait a minute.... Waitacottonpickin'minute! Se le estaba iluminando una ampolleta. A light bulb had turned on in his brain.
He grabbed his cell phone. "Anneliese! Don't argue! You know the drill. Drop everything and get in the motor home."
He dashed outside to disconnect modem, electrical, and water connections and then quickly jumped into the driver's seat and started the motor.
]! But would they welcome me—my tongue, lips and vocal flaps getting such a workout from trying only half successfully to emulate their amazing phonetic performances? Sure, they'd be super-delighted to know someone is trying. Someone who scarcely knows anything about them at all but who would be very excited if the opportunity came to get to know them just a little or to know them well.
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