by José de la Isla
HOUSTON – Immaculate Heart of Mary was the family church. My brothers and I were baptized, made our first holy communion, and were confirmed there. We continued attending even after we moved two blocks from the old neighborhood.
My father’s custom was to stop at one of the several nearby panaderías or the grocery store, one of the cafés, or at the tortillería after church. To this day, I wake up on Sunday expecting pan dulce or French bread on Sunday morning that my father picked up on the way home.
Mostly, I remember the sound of the church bells ringing right before midnight on New Year’s Eve. Lalo, the church assistant, would begin ringing the bells at Immaculate Heart right before midnight. The foghorns from the ships in port began blowing long, breathy baritone and bass calls for two minutes or more. Then, from up the street, came an explosion of fireworks and shooting rockets from the corner Chinese grocery store operated by Mr. and Mrs. Shew, Ham Lu and Bobby.
We witnessed this from the front porch, gave each other a New Year’s abrazo and waved to any passing cars blowing their horns. Then we went back to the dining room for buñuelos with chocolate or coffee. Guy Lombardo and The Royal Canadians were on the radio with the “Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven” and the big band sounds of Glenn Miller, even though this was long after the height of their popularity.
The tradition continued long after I left home, first to go away to school, then to start a career, later just to follow the roads of opportunity.
I remembered all this the other day when I was in another neighborhood, not terribly far from the old one, where my parents settled after my brothers and I had moved away. Immaculate Heart was no longer convenient and they began attending mass at St. Christopher’s. The community was no longer almost
exclusively Mexican and Central American. Now Anglos, Vietnamese, Nigerians and Latinos formed the new tapestry of people and customs.
At communion, the Latinos look diminutive beside Nigerian women with textile headgear of vibrant tropical colors that sit high on their heads. The Vietnamese chant the Ðoc kinh, the words of Hail Mary intoned, forming what liturgical music composer Rufi no Zaragoza, OFM, calls “a sonic environment.” The familiar traditions contrast with new sights and sounds that make me think my father, an artist in his later years, was happy here.
It is also appropriate that the church honors St. Christopher, the popular patron saint of mariners, ferrymen, travelers and people on long journeys. In 1969 he was bumped from the universal Catholic calendar. The “saint’s” life was found to have been mostly legend.
Perhaps it is more important for the congregation of sojourners who traveled from faraway places to get here to have their temple go by the name of a guiding spirit.
Park Place, the church neighborhood, has seen better days. But redevelopment and revitalization is transforming many distressed buildings into new offi ce centers, charter schools, shops and cafés.
The transition is what sociologist Mike Davis calls “magical urbanism.”
Very good but overabundant Mexican restaurants now share turf with some acclaimed Chinese restaurants and a Vietnamese bistro serving an outrageously delicious pho and earthquake.
However, in 1979, he joined the popular group, Los Ramblers in Nicaragua, which took him to represent Nicaragua in Cuba’s festivals on July 1980. He returned to Cuba in 1981 to play at the Festival de Varadero.
At the time, Los Ramblers musical success was taking off, and they were invited to play in San Francisco in 1983, according to a band member, and it was during this tour that the members of the group, including Mr. Murillo, who was from Barrio Santo Domingo in Managua, decided to stay in the City by the Bay, which became their domicile up to this day.
“He (Murillo) was an individual of good manners… a peaceful man who got along with everyone,” said Arturo Ibarra, the musical director of Los Ramblers.
Among the groups he played and recorded with, include, La Fórmula Infi nita, en San Francisco, Los Dandis, Los Gatos, in Costa Rica, Los Ramblers, with whom he recorded in Cuba the famous Calos Mejía Godoy’s song Alforja Campesina, Orquesta Borínquen and Sonora USA, Los Clarks in Nicaragua; and played with Macondo in Ni-
vermicelli dishes.
As I have put it off for a long time, I am still deciding what to do with some of the things in my father’s desk now that he is gone.
One of them is a cassette recording. The fi rst several seconds are silent, then you hear the bells of Immaculate Heart of Mary ringing. Then the foghorns of the ships in port go off. A minute or two later the fireworks begin, with Guy Lombardo and The Royal Canadians playing “Auld Lang Syne” in the background.
Then it all goes silent again. Hispanic Link.
[José de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. His 2009 digital book, sponsored by The Ford Foundation, is available free at www.DayNightLifeDeathHope.com. He is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). E-mail him at joseisla3@yahoo.com.]
