June 23, 1985-San Antonio Express-News
Going home again
Home is the many stages of one's life - so I found out last week. It was my good fortune to return to El Paso, the city of my birth and growing-up years.
Accompained by Ramón Vásquez y Sánchez, program director for Centro Cultural Aztlán, and my son, Rikárd-Sergei. I went to El Paso on both on business and pleasure. I spent a week looking for books, while perusing a city I had not enjoyed in more than 10 years.
It had been that long since I left to seek greener pastures. El Chuco - as Chicanos call El Paso for being the birthplace of the Pachuco - had changed. Its heartbeat seemed different, more sophisticated - no longer a Chucoized city, much more of a metroplex now.
The old time austerity of Mt. Franklin is now surrounded by housing - it no longer stands there like a bleak beacon.
It became a vacation, as I visited family and friends, and found that books were not as plentiful as I had hoped. So much for business.
Ramón had gone to talk with "Los Tiguas," Pueblo Indians in the oldest mission in Texas about a possible interchange between them and the mission people of San Antonio. My son wanted to visit his grandparents briefly before returning to studies at U.C. Berkely. My purpose was finding books while also doing a reading-lecture at El Paso Commnunity College.
Manuel Acosta
After checking out book places, I decided to just visit area artists. We went to meet with Manuel Gregorio Acosta at his studio.
It was a lovely afternoon filled with an artist's vision. He put on a slide presentation, a moving retrospective of his works comprising almost 40 years of painting and sculpting.
The works covered different media, from oils to pastels, tempera to acrylics, watercolors to pencil drawings, along with sculptures and murals from throughout the Southwest. A masterful artist, Acosta has painted Time magazine covers while leaving his imprimatur upon the West Texas landscape.
His popularity in that area has given him the means to support himself solely by his art during the past 30 years. Acosta has secured his roost.
We also met with Ernesto Pedregón Martínez, an El Paso artist noted for his precise technical skills.
Another artist we met was Mago Orona, a muralist and sculptor with a forceful drive toward experimentation. Her sandcasted mural at the Villa Verde Campus of the El Paso Community College is a monumental work.
Her linoleum cuts are exciting works of color, while her tapestries are a moving point of departure from her earlier works.
We spent a morning with her, sharing café con canela, pan dulce y tamales. The cinnamon coffe reflected the spice of her art well.
Tigua Indians
Driving away from her studio, Ramón and I took Scenic Drive up the mountain to get a bird's-eye view of the twin border cities. They had changed dramatically, and I felt elated, yet sad in not being able to name more than just a few remaining landmarks.
On the way to the Tigua Reservation at Ysleta. I mused about going home again, thinking that home is a multi-stage phenomenon - that each stage of one's life is home. It was home but only within the constrictions of its having been home years ago. Home only within memories, not within the actual action of my present way of life.
The day was June 13, and the Fiesta of San Antonio de Pádua was being being celebrated at the reservation. We arrived at Ysleta Mission, home of the Tigua Indians.
The Tiguas had resettled in the Lower Valley of El Paso when they fled their native pueblo of Isleta, near Albuquerque, N.M., during the 1680 Pueblo Uprising against the Spaniards.
Modern-day Tiguas, though classified as native Americans, are a composite of Indian and Mestizo, with a trilingual abllity in Spanish, English, and their Tigua Pueblo lanugage.
They have retained much of their culture, and their ceremonial dances are vibrant manifestations of their Indian-ness. Their rituals were handed down over the centuries, not through humanities grants nor as importations from long lost pseudo-Aztecan/Mayan Westernized interpretations. Not at all stylized, the dances centered upon the hunt, foraging and paying homage to godliness.
Manny Silvas, their youthful gobernador (governor), was an exciting dancer to watch. He projected qualities of strength, caring, confidence and decisiveness.
He looked very much the warrior chief, but one who has learned to battle within modern America. A man of few words, he spoke to the point with a genuine warmth that seemed to be based on his notion of la madre tierra.
I felt at home, for I knew first hand that reservation as a child. We met with Ray Apodaca, Texas Indian commissioner, and himself an Indian. He was fully at home as both a culturalist Indian and a man working through a government bureaucracy. Urbane and knowledgeable, he shared his vision of helping reshape our nation into one that is more caring.
Our visit over and our business concluded, we enjoyed a short visit to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where we had an excellent dinner with friends and then left El Paso. I drove away, realizing that home awaited me. San Antonio had become home for me at this juncture in life.
The desert receded, mile by mile, changing in color from its burnt ochres and cactus-laden sands to hillocks covered by greenery. Home was becoming visible on the horizon. Yes, I could go home again, the home of my youth, not of my maturity, for a new home is here.