Preview of an Introduction

Dear Blog:

I apologize for neglecting you for so long. I realize that when we started our relationship I promised that I would make one entry per week. But you must admit that for nearly five years I have kept that promise, even though there were many instances when I was tempted to take a vacation. Well, five weeks have gone by without me contributing to your growth. But I have a good excuse: I’ve selected the best entries for a manuscript titled Harvest of My Gathering: A Collection of Brief Essays. I’ve been working hard polishing and updating these; I’ve arranged them in an order that makes sense, and then I asked my trusted first editor—my wife, Erinn—to review the result. She believes the book reads very well. I was so thankful to hear this. But then Erinn gave me news that set me back a bit. She said, “You need to write an introduction.” Her words brought forth a mild case of writer’s block—something that I’ve never experienced before. But after tossing many ideas around, I believe I came up with a decent opening for the collection, or so I hope. Please keep in mind that it’s just the introduction. Someday you’ll be able to read the entire book that we’ve written together, and I pray that you’ll approve. In the meantime, I now promise to get back on track with my weekly entries. But so you’ll see that I’ve been busy and not goofing off, here’s the "Introduction" to Harvest of My Gathering: A Collection of Brief Essays.

Love,

Silvio


Introduction


A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out.
Virginia Woolf

The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything.
Aldous Huxley


I first visited Nicaragua, my parents’ country of origin, when I was a year old. Of that trip, I remember nothing except for a handful of peculiar scents that fused themselves into my olfactory banks. But experiences like this—coupled with growing up in a Los Angeles Latino household—made me believe, as a child, that every family in the world was a mixture of Spanish and English, cheeseburgers and tortillas, rock and roll and boleros, staid colors and gaudy visual displays. In my eyes, then, throughout the first five years of my life, being bicultural seemed the norm.

But I woke up to the harsh reality that I was dwelling on the outer, largely invisible fringes of US society my first day in kindergarten, at Vernon Avenue School. And at this juncture, as a five year old Nicaraguan-American—this was long before hyphenated ethnic identities became the norm—I wanted, more than anything, to become solely “American.” The last thing I sought was to stand out among my Los Angeles schoolmates: I fervently desired to blend in seamlessly into the society for which my teachers were preparing me, even if that came at the expense of my Latino identity.

Throughout the years of my “Americanization,” however, my parents continued visiting Nicaragua, in spite of the huge economic sacrifice this represented for our family. I traveled there twice again—quite an odyssey on the aircrafts and in the Central American airports of that era—at the ages of seven and nine; and, in spite of the brevity of these visits, on both occasions I returned to the States with concrete memories of people, Spanish-language tongue-twisters, foods, places, and fascinating stories. The experiences harvested during these trips took their rightful place in my memory alongside the smells I internalized as a toddler.

And there was one thing, above all others, that I knew, although not rationally, with every fiber of my being—an intuition so overwhelming that it became truth: life in Nicaragua was closer to being real, the country’s history was more palpable, and the culture was easier to grasp and dissect than that of the United States. Because of the affirming immediacy of these childhood impressions, I became very fond of my parents’ homeland.

But that affection was not enough to prevent the feelings of shock and dismay when my parents informed me, shortly after I had turned ten years old, that we were moving to Nicaragua, for good. The mere notion made me feel as if my American heart and identity were being ripped to shreds, thoughtlessly discarded because of my parents’ selfish desire to return to the familiar, to a homeland that nostalgia had rendered as virtually flawless. But for me Los Angeles was home, the center of my universe; California inspired awe, and while attending school I learned to swim rather effortlessly in the diverse cultural waters of the United States. Moreover, although my experience in and knowledge about Central America was limited, I knew two things for certain: the United States looked forward, usually with optimism, but Nicaragua was mired in the past.

Aware, even at that young age, that my sights are normally cast on the brightest spot on the horizon, I abhorred the thought of leaving the only homeland I knew—the most innovative and creative nation on earth, where I saw myself, and most clearly, growing happily into adulthood. In my ten year old mind, Nicaragua represented a retrograde culture where order, discipline, industriousness and efficiency were concepts that no one seemed to understand. And my American upbringing had ingrained these traits in me as the most admirable in any civilized society. Because of this, moving to my parent’s country of birth represented a giant step away from the All-American boy I had worked so diligently to become. Thus, to reword Dylan Thomas, I did not go gentle into the tropics.

Today, however, with the radiant clarity of hindsight, that move has become the most significant milestone of my life.

After only a few months in Central America I began to see great order in what once appeared to be unadulterated bedlam; I saw supreme discipline in the lives of so many Nicaraguans who struggled every day against the tidal wave of poverty to make something of their lives; I witnessed indescribable acts of courage in those who risked everything to speak out against injustice, against a government whose sole purpose was to retain power, regardless of the human cost.

In the midst of poverty so oppressive it would wrench anyone’s heart, I witnessed countless noble, compassionate deeds, often bordering on heroism. Life in Nicaragua, then, both its pleasures and its pains, soon became far more stirring than it ever had been in Los Angeles. And to incorporate the experiences of Nicaraguans into my personal history, all I needed was to keep my five senses on alert. What’s more, as an “American” teenager living in the underdeveloped world, I learned that both the beauty and the ugliness of humankind are always in close proximity, at less than an arm’s length.

My Nicaraguan adolescence is what led me to become a writer. What I experienced on the streets, what I heard in casual conversations, what I read in the papers throughout those years filled my mind with wondrous, and often tear-jerking, stories—and I became duty-bound to one day tell as many of them as I could.

Immersed in a world that revealed something new and often magical every day (Gabriel García Márquez, by his own admission, hasn’t invented a thing; he considers himself merely a chronicler of tropical experiences), within less than a year I had become fully Nicaraguan, and enthusiastically so. My identity as an American went dormant—although on occasion it would resurface to give me a slightly skewed framework, compared to those of my peers, for viewing world events. The boy I had been in Los Angeles faded away as I learned to think and feel like the people around me. And as I grew increasingly happy to live in Central America, a new identity, that of a Nicaraguan, took hold, and firmly.

But after living eight years on this narrow strip of land that connects a continent, I was obliged to leave. The options for continuing my education in Nicaragua were too confining; thus, my only choice became to return to my place of birth, live in the company of relatives, and attend college. But the move back to the United States carried a hefty price: I plunged into a severe identity crisis. For decades I was unable to bring my two cultural beings into harmonious co-existence—one identity always sought to dominate over the other—and regardless of how hard I tried to craft both halves of me into a peaceful whole, the differences seemed irreconcilable. But, in spite of this strain, or perhaps because of it, something worthwhile emerged from the quest to understand the hybrid I am: this collection of essays.

When I committed to one entry per week in my blog, I allowed myself the frivolous luxury of writing about my personal fixation of the moment. Nearly five years later, after sorting through these micro-obsessions, I can observe, and clearly, an ongoing exploration of the recurring themes that constitute my search to find my place in the world.

The first section of this harvest, “Hopes and Smiles: The Panama Writings,” consists of essays that seek to understand the culture and politics of my recently-acquired third homeland: Panama, where I’ve resided since 2002. The second section, “A Worthwhile Journey: The Nicaragua Writings,” are pieces that attempt to sort out the convoluted world of Nicaraguan political affairs, a seemingly inescapable quagmire of power-mongering and greed, regardless of where the leadership resides on the spectrum. Section three, “Writings Without Borders,” are a gathering of entries that probe political and cultural events throughout the rest of the world, including the United States, that have moved me to comment upon them. The fourth section, “Mirrors Reflecting Back: On Favorite Readings,” are brief annotations about books that have contributed to shaping my identity. And the fifth section, “Love Made Visible: On Writing, Teaching, and Other Diversions,” are my most personal essays—they explore events from my past, the things I most love doing, and other experiences that have played a role in turning me into a writer.

Regardless of the topic of the essay, Harvest of My Gathering is, in its soul, my attempt to reconcile the adolescent who radically shifted his cultural identity with the person I am today. And although the journey has at times brought its share of confusion and pain, every step has been worthwhile because the experience of gaining insight into the cultures that have molded me has unquestionably informed the way this Nicaraguan-American acts, thinks, and writes.

Panamá, May 2009