7th grade: I lost all of my friends because Horacia said I had no talent and was not as pretty as she is. That’s fine. I mean, it’s not actually fine. She called me a Really Bad Thing* that I had no idea was an insult. Now that a few years have passed, I’m glad she broke up our friendship. My cousin Gabriela who is one year older than me and way cooler than Horacia said that I shouldn’t surround myself with heifers who will put me down. Did you know that a heifer is a cow? I definitely didn’t until today. (That’s not what Horacia called me.) Anyway.
We also moved into a two-family house. My mom, grandma, tía Felicia, and ñaño Toto pooled all their money and bought our very first house. Mom, grandma, Lily, and me live on the first floor. Tía Felicia, her husband, and my cousin Ronaldo are on the second floor. My mom’s youngest brother, ñaño Toto, lives in the basement but he’s barely ever home because he works in Manhattan and his commute back to Queens Village is over an hour and a half. Anyway, that’s the only good thing about that year, even though I have to share a room with my little sister.
8th grade: I graduated junior high and became a citizen of these United States! I wish that my mom had told me to, I don’t know, brush my hair for the photo? I already hate my nose and that my hair is too in-between curly and straight. Now I have a certificate that says I’m an American and a photo that says I was hatched in a Dagobah swamp.
Getting your citizenship kind of feels like getting your graduation diploma. It’s the same shape and cardstock with gold cursive letters and some official-looking seals. Except, when you graduate school, you know what you’re getting right away: more school. But when you pass your citizenship test, what do you do? Do you keep studying and memorizing dates and the names of presidents? Horacia was born here and she doesn’t even know that Pocahontas was a real person or that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States. She didn’t have to take a test because she was born in Brooklyn a decade after her parents immigrated from El Salvador. Lately, I’m not exactly sure what it means that I’m an American citizen.
I was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. My little sister, Lily, was also born there, but we moved to New York when I was five and Lily was ten months old. Lily has no memories of Ecuador. I have some but they’re fuzzy. I remember a big house and a metal swing in our backyard. I remember a mango tree and a goat that died after a rainstorm. What am I supposed to do with those memories now? The way my mom talks, we’re never going back. It’s confusing and I don’t have anyone to talk to about it. I know if I asked my mom she’d say she can’t afford to be confused because she has to work. Sometimes I wish we were the kind of family that talked instead of the kind of family that swallowed our real feelings like bad medicine.
My citizenship diploma, or whatever it’s called, is in a blue leather folder in my closet. We should really get a fireproof safe because what happens if it burns or there’s a flood or I lose it? Does that mean that I have to go away? Do I have to sit in that office all over again staring into the face of an angry old Italian man who scowled so badly he looked like the time I over-boiled a potato?
I just don’t know, Yoda. Mr. Johnson made us keep a reading journal and I think it helped me write better essays. If only I could figure out a way to get straight As in life. Maybe writing down everything that lead to My Cousin’s Big Fat Disaster Quinceañera will make this tight feeling in my chest go away.
Finally, 9th grade rolled around. Everyone made a big deal about starting high school, but I didn’t get what the big deal was other than everything being terrible. I think I have to break it down into further sections.
9th grade—Part A: Remember my ex-best friend Horacia? Well, she came back and started dating MY COUSIN RONALDO. So she was here all the time. Et tu, Ronaldo?
It’s not his fault, I guess. Gabby says boys only think with one thing, but she didn’t exactly say what that thing was supposed to be.
The sad part is that I used to love Horacia. There was a time we were inseparable. We went to P.S. 95 together. Her mom used to send me an extra pupusa stuffed with cheese and chorizo for lunch because my mom didn’t have time. When I got my period at ten, I thought I was dying. My mom was at work and I was too embarrassed to tell ñaño Toto, so Mrs. Móntes gave me a pad. I’d had a nose bleed earlier that day and thought the blood was going the wrong way. But then after she called me a Really Bad Thing* I realized my friendship with Horacia was over. How can you give someone a friendship bracelet one day and then decide you hate them the next? How can you be “part of the family” one day and then ignore them in class?
Gabby says not to worry about it. That life is long and I’ll have amazing friends one day. But what about the parts of life I’m living now? For instance, a few weeks ago when I walked down the halls at school and Horacia shoved into me and called me “Ecuadorkian.” It felt like being punched in the face. I wanted so badly to not let
