THE NEWSPAPER
By Marie Delgado Travis
It is one thing to read the newspaper, quite another to become the story.... My parents, who migrated to New York City from Puerto Rico, raised me to speak both Spanish and English. It would take a friend to point out how odd it was to listen to my family’s conversations.
My father spoke to me in English and I answered him in that language. Yet my mother and I spoke Spanish exclusively. And, of course, I spoke English in school and with my friends. It was so natural, I was rarely aware when I “switched” from one language to another.
Reading was another matter. I was, of course, taught to read English in school. To the astonishment of the local librarians, I'd leave with the maximum number of children’s books allotted— a stack almost as tall as I was—and I'd return in the next day or two for a new batch.
“Surely you can’t have read all of those books already!” they would say, skeptically. But not only had I strained my severely myopic eyes over every word, I could recall the details and even photographed some of the pages in my memory. This technique was handy when it came to taking tests in school. I had, in fact, learned to read when I was three, by looking over my father’s shoulder, as he read The New York Daily News aloud for practice.
As a result, I was well over my grade's reading level in English and always made the Honor Roll at my Catholic grammar school in the Northeast Bronx. But I looked longingly at the Spanish newspapers my parents read. One day, when I was eight, I decided to finally see if it was very difficult to read in Spanish. I began reading syllables aloud and, to my surprise, I realized almost immediately that– much more so than English— the words were pretty much pronounced as written.
I perused the newspaper with excitement now, surprised to see that I used so many of the terms before me on a regular basis with my parents or that the words before me were often similar to their English counterparts: Presidente was President, el Capitolio, of course, the Capitol!
The words I didn’t understand, I could figure out, at least roughly, from their context. From then on, I devoured the Spanish newspapers that my father brought home daily after work, from cover to cover (except for the sports section, which I only looked at tangentially during the World Series).
This was how I became familiar with a special feature in the Spanish-language newspapers of the time. Early on, I observed the photographs of young men serving in the military, sent in by their proud, and sometimes worried, families, with the caption, Escríbanle, “Write to him.” I determined that when I was older, I'd write to one of those handsome and brave U.S. soldiers.
Over time, however, that girlhood promise was forgotten. On the occasion of my twenty-first birthday, I thumbed, somewhat apprehensively, through el periódico searching for my own black and white image. My Godparents, who doted on me because they were unable to have children of their own, made it a regular practice to send photographs of me for publication in the Spanish daily to announce important passages of my life.
Thus, photographs of her First Holy Communion, high school graduation and other events of my youth had been chronicled, sometimes to my complete horror. There was, for example, the hideous close-up of me as a nine year old, emphasizing the wide space between my two front teeth, before molars grew in and helped close the gap.
Now of “legal” age, I had almost magically been transformed into a shapely and somewhat attractive young woman, with glossy black hair, oriental eyes (since corrected by contact lenses) and full lips, which heralded the ethnic mixture that so enriched the culture of my parents’ native land.
Halfway through the newspaper, I stopped at the image of a young Puerto Rican helicopter pilot, an Army Captain, who was serving in Vietnam. I was struck immediately by his dark eyes, so expressive in their sadness and enormous in contrast to his relatively slight build.
I continued to look through the newspaper in search of my own image, but kept flipping back to the soldier's photograph. Then, hoping that my parents would not miss it, I tore the page from the rest of the newspaper, cut the photograph carefully and hid it quietly under the lace lining in one of my dresser drawers.
Over the next few weeks, I'd return home from graduate school and try to concentrate on her schoolwork, but I was unable to think of anything but the photograph. I removed it from its hiding place again and again, just to look at it, telling myself that I would not, could not, write to him, for fear that he would think me too bold. Yet each day, I became more and more obsessed with his eyes, until it seemed I had no choice but to write.
Apologetically, I wrote that I hoped he would not think ill of me, but that the Spanish newspaper had suggested that I write to him at an APO address. I said that I knew he was in Viet Nam and would pray for his safety. I added that I hoped he did not feel lonely, but did not add, “As I do.”
He would later say that his parents had submitted the photo to the newspaper without consulting him. He received over a hundred letters during that time period and distributed them among his friends. Mine was among the last letters he received and the one he finally decided he would answer.
Our whirlwind marriage would last only a few years. But in time, I'd understand the hold the image in the newspaper had over me.
They are my son’s eyes.
