Arlington Literary Review (Edición 33) publica cuento “El Huracán en ingles
Arlington Literary Review (33th Edition) publishes the short story “The Hurricane” by Hemil Garcia
Recientemente, Arlington Literary Journal que dirige el editor y poeta Robert Girón tuvo la gentileza de publicar uno de mis cuentos en ingles. El Texto elegido El Huracán o The Hurricane narra la travesía difícil de Magda, una inmigrante guatemalteca en Virginia. Si bien mi público es obviamente el lector en español, entiendo que en Estados Unidos existen también hispanos que por diversas razones no hablan español pero conservan sus raíces latinas. En décadas pasadas Hispanos en Estados Unidos eran reprendidos (incluso físicamente) en las escuelas si se atrevían a hablar en español. Los profesores creían que hablaban en los alumnos hispanos hablan en español para tramar algo. En la presentación de Cuentos del Norte en Virginia tuve la suerte de tener la mesa de presentación a Dahlia Aguilar que es la subdirectora de un colegio en Washington DC. Ella su no aprendió a hablar Español sino hasta los dieciocho aprendió por voluntad propia. ¿Por qué sus padres no le enseñaron español? La razón es muy sencilla: sus padres tenían miedo que la reprendieran por “trama” algo.
Mi razón primordial por ahora de publicar mi cuento en ingles es para llegar a jóvenes latinos de Estados Unidos que no hablan ingles. Deseo mostrar algo de nuestras raíces y entiendan el duro camino que sus ancestros recorrieron. Se dice mucho que los jóvenes en América “take things for granted” o que no valoran las cosas. Los jóvenes latinos pueden que no sean una excepción a la regla. En América es normal tener un auto de obsequio a los dieciséis (a veces del año) y tener una laptop no es tener una computadora sino un cuaderno para tomar notas. Fuera de los Estados Unidos, un auto es un lujo y una laptop un regalo costoso que no todos los estudiantes pueden tener.
Finalmente, publico mi cuento en ingles intentando llegar a los estudiantes americanos, sumergiéndolos en nuestra cultura latina (mis historias son sobre soldados latinos, la soledad en América, el irreal sueño americano), en nuestra realidad la cual desconocen. América es cada vez un país bilingüe y urge que la problemática del inmigrante sea difundida en ingles o español o como sea pero que sea difundida.
Recently, Robert Giron poet and editor at Arlington Literary Journal was kind enough to publish one of my short stories. The text called The Hurricane narrates the journey of Magda a Guatemalan female immigrant in Virginia. Even though my public is the Spanish reader, I understand that there are Hispanics who don’t speak Spanish at all due to different reasons but they still preserve their Latin roots. Decades ago Hispanics were punished at school (even physically) if they would dare to speak Spanish. Teachers assumed Hispanics were “up to something” by speaking in Spanish. At the preview of my Book “Tales of The North” in Virginia I was lucky to have Dahlia Aguilar who is a Principal Assistant in a DC high school. She never spoke Spanish until she decided to learn the language at age 18. Why didn’t her parents teach her Spanish? The answer is simple: her parents were afraid she might get punished too for “being up to something.”
Mi main reason to publish my short story in English is to reach young Latinos who do not speak Spanish. I intent to show a little bit of our roots by telling them the tough journey their ancestors faced. It is always being said that young American takes things for granted. In America it is normal to get a car at age sixteen (sometimes a new one) and a laptop is not a computer any more but a simple notebook. Outside America a car is a luxury, a laptop is an expensive gift that not every student can afford.
Finally by publishing in English I try to reach the American students and immerse them in our Latin culture, a reality they are not aware (my stories are about Hispanic soldiers, solitude in big cities, and the elusive American dream). America is becoming more and more a bilingual country and it is urgent that the Latino theme must be told in Spanish, in English, in any way possible, but it has must be told.
Este es el enlace y el texto: http://arlijo.com/
The Hurricane
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.—Friedrich Nietzsche
Can we stay here? asked the child and Magda, for the first time, did not know what to say. She breathed in deep and finished the last of her cigarette. She looked at the child. His brown eyes awaited an answer. She put out the cigarette in the ashtray and sat the child on her lap while cigarette smoke drew arabesques throughout the room.We can't stay here. We have to move my darling, she said and kissed him. It was not a lie. They had to move every two months. Magda, already accustomed to the routine, was getting ready to take a bath while Bobby, her child, dealt with their errant lifestyle with the help of a videogame he took with him all over Virginia. They had been traveling for almost three years. New faces, always different and terrifying, appeared and disappeared quickly from their lives like the cars on Arlington Boulevard. The large and unfamiliar avenue was home to Latino restaurants, laundry mats and food stores, and was sprinkled with South and Central Americans—cigarette in hand—as they waited for some contractor to offer them work, if only for a few hours. The room on the third floor where they live has an perpetual smell of tobacco that seems has always been there; a rancid smell as if the room—the whole building—had been constructed by smokers who had purposefully left their cigarette buts inside the fragile walls of pressed wood. Can I turn on my videogame, mommy? said Bobby and Magda gave him a consenting look. I have to take a bath, sweetie, she said. She went to the bathroom and left the door ajar. She looked at her thirty years in the mirror, or are they thirty-three, Magda? Does it matter? As she took off her pajama her cinnamon-brown skin, still soft, glowed inundating the yellow walls of the room. In her tired face, her vibrant eyes shone bright. They were of a green like the Caribbean Sea, a calm and transparent sea that on occasions can turn wild and unpredictable, like a hurricane, and she knows, although she may not want to accept that she carries a hurricane inside her.Magda turned on the water faucet and the warm water bathed her skin. She slid the soap around her arms and back then searched for her generous breasts, she dallied about and then slowly reached toward her stomach, and her sex; she cleansed her thighs and calves, and finally, she bend down to caress her feet with the soap, I'm exhausted, she thought.She remembered her brother had offered to give her a job in his store, back in Guatemala, and told her not to worry about anything. A little help wouldn't be bad now, she thought. How different things were from five years ago when she came to the United States with so many dreams. She was working as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant and received very good tips. After a year she met Jose Ramon, a good-looking Mexican employee who swept her off her feet. And as a fool (she thinks now) she lost her head and became distracted: let's go dancing, Magda; lets take a trip to the beach, princess. And it was all dancing, trips and happiness until she became pregnant. When she told him, Jose Ramon seemed happy and they went together to her first prenatal appointment. But the next week, the Earth, Immigration Services, destiny, God, the devil or the chupacabras must have swallowed Jose Ramon because she never saw him again. She had a difficult pregnancy and was forced to leave the restaurant, and from then on her life took a sudden twist. So now, what are you working in? her brother asked her once and she simply answered, I'm independent. I work in sales.Now the view couldn't be starker, or could it? If she could only return home with money, always the damn money. If she had money she'd send everyone to hell. I should hurry and get ready. And if I listened to my brother? Maybe things would be easier there. But my baby, that's the problem. Would he get used to life there? He has to practice his Spanish, and the food would be the hardest. Mommy, I don't like beans, he says and he won't eat them, but he can sure down those chicken nuggets without a problem. He's so adorable with his Nintendo. Why don't we have a house, Mommy? he asked the other day and he caught me unprepared. We'll have a beautiful house, I tell him. When? he asked. I told him that someday and changed the conversation and asked if he would like to go to Guatemala and meet his grandparents and he said yes kids are so clever but only if we would have a house there. I said yes, and told him that the grandparents' house is large and that it is ours too and that we will go to the beach and that when we sit on the beach we won't ever leave and.She was almost finished bathing when the bell rang. Mommy, the bell is ringing, said Bobby, and Magda rinsed quickly and closed the faucet. She grabbed the first towel she could find and put her hair in a ponytail. She put on a fuchsia robe and stepped out of the bathroom. Who is it, Mommy? the child asked without stopping his videogame.I don't know, sweetie. I'm gonna see, she answered, walking towards the door. There was a strange man outside. She looked at him as she raised one eyebrow and after making a sign she closed the door. Bobby, sweetie, go over to auntie Sandra's for a bit and I'll pick you up later, ok baby? she said and disconnected the videogame. She put it in a bag along with some cookies that were on the nightstand. The boy left the room with the bag in his and knocked on the next door. A messy-haired woman in red shorts and wearing only a bra opened the door, and when she saw Magda, they understood each other without saying a word. As soon as the boy had entered the other room, Magda returned to hers. Come in, darling said Magda to the stranger waiting outside and close the door. She barely hinted a metallic smile as she took off her robe and lay down on the bed, naked and lost because she knew that the hurricane she carried within even though she did not like it would come afloat once again to lash against the sheets.
*************************************************************************************
Biography:Journalist and writer Hemil Garcia Linares was born in Lima, Peru. He has published articles in Peru’s El Comercio newspaper, as well as in several Hispanic periodicals in the United States. He is editor of Raices Latinas, a bi-monthly magazine in Northern Virginia. His stories have been included in anthologies in the United States, Mexico, and Argentina. He was a finalist at the 2008 Junin Pais International Short Stories Contest in Argentina. Contact him at his webpage, www.hemilgarcia.com, and blog, www.hemilgarcia.blogspot.com.
Blog Literario. Realismo y Horror.