Chapter 6: The Family Moves In

I had already been around Maria’s family quite a bit since most of our outings were to “events” with her family. That was only the beginning, however. It would be the year after we got married and returned to the university that the influx of her family onto our lives would increase. Along with that would come my increasing comprehension of what it meant to be a Latino in the United States.

By the time that we were ready to go back to Berkeley, Maria’s younger sister, Ximena, had graduated from high school and was ready to go to college. Unfortunately, she was having a rough time getting along with her mother. Living at home didn’t seem to be an option. She had decided that she wanted to study at City College of San Francisco. Since San Francisco was a mere BART ride away from Berkeley, it was decided, pretty much before I knew what had happened, that Ximena would be living with us, somewhere. Now, not only would I be seeing Maria’s family the majority of the times that we went out, part of it would be living with us full time. But, first, we had to find a place.

Since the two of us would be attending UC Berkeley, we wanted something that would be relatively close to the campus. Ximena needed something that would be close to the BART station so she could easily make the trip to San Francisco. We drove to the Bay Area, with Sonia in-tow, I guess again as a chaperone, without much of an idea where or even how to find an apartment, but sure that we could find something. It took us the entire day of getting listings, checking out the locations and filling out applications. There were more to check out the next day, so we decided that we would sleep in our car up in the Berkeley hills away from the traffic. We were college students without the financial support of either one of our parents; it is not as if we could exactly afford a hotel. I had a Chevy Chevette at the time, not the largest of all cars for four people to sleep in (especially with my six-foot-three frame), but somehow we managed to get a little sleep before starting the next day. That is not the way that I would recommend anyone to look for apartments, but the girls had all of the confidence in the world that we would be fine. Or maybe they were just too naive to know any better.
We woke up, or, more like, sat up in the car and continued are search around the Berkeley—Oakland area. We didn’t find anything that weekend and had to return the following. This time, we decided to splurge and spend the night in an inexpensive hotel. The cheapest that we were able to find was one called “Motel 5.” Like its name suggests, it is a cheaper version of low-cost Motel 6. Frankly, we got what we paid for. The other clientele at the hotel seemed to be hourly and not quite college material.

We went into the room where the ladies refused to step on the floors. “You never know what could be there.” Ximena had her favorite stuffed animal with her. It was an older bear that had been through a lot of difficulties including losing an eye in a run-in with a light bulb. It was in such bad condition that I dubbed in “Scum.” I don’t think that any of us, including Ximena, remember the animal’s real name before then since we continued to call it Scum for years until she finally lost it. The evening was long as the 4 of us tried to sleep in the one king bed and get around the room without touching the suspect floor.

Somehow we survived the night and started our search again the next day. Finally, we found a two bedroom apartment with a large living room and a decent sized backyard. It was on a cul de sac, which meant that there wouldn’t be a lot of traffic driving by on a regular basis. On top of that, it was at the bottom of what is called “Pill Hill” where a good number of hospitals and doctors’ office are located. We wouldn’t have to go far medical needs. Most important of all, the rent was something that the three of us could afford. We took it!

The day finally arrived to move. We packed everything that we had in our apartment in Stockton into a U-Haul truck that we had rented and then drove south to Modesto to pick up Ximena and her belongings. The agreement was that she was going to have all of her things ready; we would just have to pick her and her belongings up from their mother’s. A nice surprise awaited us in Modesto. Not only was Ximena not packed, but she was nowhere to be found. We couldn’t exactly sit around and wait for her. We still needed to drive all the way to Oakland, unload and then come back to return the truck: an hour and a half drive in only one of the directions. The longer we took, the more we would have to pay for the rental. Finally, we decided that we would start packing her things for her. She should get there any time to help us. At least that is what we thought.

The more we packed and loaded, the angrier I got. Where was Ximena? These weren’t my things. Why wasn’t she all packed and ready to go? She knew the schedule and knew that we were renting the truck. Where was she?

We finished loading all of Ximena’s belongings onto the truck. She was still nowhere to be found. I wasn’t happy, but again, what could I do? We got in the truck and started driving towards Oakland. We left Modesto, telling Iris that when Ximena showed up, to let her know that we had gone ahead. We got to Oakland with still no word about Ximena. Maria and I ended up unloading all of our materials and all of Ximena’s by ourselves. Ximena didn’t arrive until a couple of days later.

“Where were you?” I asked when she finally arrived.

“I was busy with my friends.”

“Busy? But we were moving! You knew that!”

“Yeah, but there were some things that I needed to take of.”

“What about all of this stuff?” I said pointing angrily to all of the things in her room. “Maria and I had to move it all for you.”

“Thank you for doing all of that,” was her response. “You didn’t have to.”

That wasn’t the last time that I would have an argument with Ximena while she was living with us. I felt like I was constantly reminding her to do her share of the cooking, cleaning and other chores around the house. There was constantly an excuse as to why it had not been taken care of or a reason why she shouldn’t really have to do it. It was very frustrating for me. In my family, we all had to do our share, no ifs, ands, or buts. Besides, why did I have to put up with this? I did because she was Maria’s sister and as such she part of la familia of which I was now an semi-official member.

In looking back, I know that my disagreements had a positive impact on Ximena. A couple of years later when she was living with Sonia, she was the more mature partner out of the two of them. I listened as she gave many of the same complaints about Sonia that I had given about her earlier. “How come you haven’t cleaned up?” “You didn’t pick up your dishes!” “It was your turn to vacuum!” It was also during that period that I increased my understanding of the family dynamics within a Latino family. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but in marrying Maria, I had married the entire family.

As a married couple, we were now able to host some of the “events” for the family. I assumed, naively, that we could just invite both my family and Maria’s family, and they would blend, just as we had. I couldn’t be more wrong! Maria’s family, united as always, arrived and started talking amongst themselves in Spanish. I should have guessed then, but I assumed that when everyone else arrived, none of which spoke Spanish, they would switch to English and interact. That’s what I get for assuming. They made a circle with their chairs to continue talking in Spanish. My family on the other hand, stood on the peripheries to talk amongst themselves. There was no blending at all between the families. I kept running back and forth with my broken Spanish and my English trying to get the two groups to somehow talk, but no!
This wasn’t the last time that something like this would happen, but it was the first that I began to notice that the two sides didn’t mix as well as Maria and I continued to do.