My appreciation of Chicano history and fiction continues to grow. I have read extensively on the history of Mexican Americans, but it was mi jefito’s sense of realism and his tales as a seasonal farm laborer in the Yakima Valley that inspired my interest in reading about the Braceros Program, migrant labor, and the communities Chicano/as built in the Pacific Northwest. My dad’s hunger for knowledge, for understanding the world outside segregated rural South Texas also spurred my reading interests in issues addressed by writers such as Bryan Washington, Tommy Orange, Kristin Valdez Quade, and Jhumpa Lahiri.
And when I am not reading, I am listening to music. I would like to thank, yes, you guessed it, mis jefitos (parents) for my love in music. They were products of the US-Mexico border when it came to music. They were, as I am--years later and miles away from the border--in tune listening to música norteña as well as jazz. Lately, I have developed an interest in Cuban salsa, specifically, the one that became popular in Veracruz, Mexico, in the 1950s and 1960s. Lobo y Melón is the latest Mexican group I have been streaming in Hoopla, and Compay Segundo is the latest Cuban group I have been listening to on YouTube.
