From Colombia to New Jersey to Iowa, With Love

Soraya Raquel Lamilla Cuevas was born on March 11, 1969, in the city of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, part of the inextricable maze of counties, townships, and other assorted man-made institutions that make up the New York Metropolitan area. Her parents had recently immigrated from Colombia, and Soraya would spend most of the first eight years of her life there, only to return to the U.S. and and the New York-New Jersey monstrosity. Her parents seem to have believed in America, and if you study Colombia in the 1970's and 1980's, it's easy to see why.

Soraya had both an unnatural gift and interest in music. Wikipedia reports that she became fascinated at the age of five with an uncle who was playing "Pueblito Viejo", a coming-of-age song played on a tiple, a version of guitar played with three strings.

I'm sure the story is much more complicated than Wikipedia makes it sound, but somehow Soraya (as she came to be known in the music world) continued learning and performing music. Her ability to switch seamlessly between English and Spanish undoubtedly helped her in Hispanic-heavy eastern New Jersey. Nevertheless, Wikipedia glosses over this seemingly interesting plot point by saying, "Soraya worked as a flight attendant for a time before signing a contract with Polygram Records in 1994" (paraphrased).

Nevertheless, the albums got made. Her early work features a Spanish clearly influenced by English; for example, she uses the "v" sound in words like "vaya", whereas a monolingual speaker would say "baya" (the English "v" sound does not exist in standard Spanish). Her first three albums were made for both English and Spanish consumption.  The albums are not complicated musically; they depend heavily on catchy guitar licks around which Soraya sings lyrics about the insecurity and infatuation that nearly all of us have experienced. They could almost be about teen angst, except, I'm 41, and they still draw me in, perhaps moreso now than ever.

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I may have gone my whole life without experiencing Soraya. I followed music pretty seriously in the late 90's, but I have to confess that the Colombian-American singer passed me by. Then, I made five separate trips to Venezuela from 1999-2002, and out of that milieu--Ricardo Arjona, Mana, Aterciopelados, Shakira, Enanitos Verdes, Juanes--came a vague awareness of this Soraya. A friend of mine (gringo, no less!) made me a mix tape. Sonia did not know Soraya either but "De Repente" ("Suddenly"), a magical song about falling in love unexpectedly, made it into our wedding ceremony.

I said before that her songs are not complicated musically, but at the same time, Soraya's sing-a-long-friendly voice and her readily accessible lyrics led to lots of repeated listening. Particularly, after long days spent teaching, my mix tape of Soraya became the perfect Xanax-like medicine for coming down from that constant social buzz. Songs like "Amor en tus ojos" ("Love in your eyes") were reminiscent of her early work, while songs like "Lejos de aqui" ("Far away from here") began exploring a deeper, more melancholic side that resided in the singer, without losing the humanity and accessibility that had been her hallmark.

Then, suddenly, the songs stopped coming.

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Long before becoming a Soraya the singer/songwriter, Soraya the woman lost her mother, her maternal grandmother and maternal aunt to the scour of breast cancer. In 2000, at the age of 31, she found a lump during a routine self-inspection. She was already Level 3.

She fought. Her third album had been finished just before the diagnosis and after chemo, radiation and a mastectomy, came out with a fourth. The songs were more urgent, but just as human and vulnerable as ever. "Casi" ("Almost") is probably the most famous song from this time. but I'm partial to "Solo por ti" ("Only for you").

She shaved her head and became an advocate. She got sick again, got better, made a fifth album. A year later, on May 10, 2006, Soraya's body gave in. In a final statement to her fans, she said "I know that there are many questions without answers and that hope doesn't leave with me, and above all, that my mission does not end with my physical story."

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A few weeks ago, I found myself driving home from West Liberty after a 12 hour day of teaching and conferences with parents. I was tired and it was dark, very dark. I hate driving home in the dark. All around me, the lights of combines and tractor trailers were busy trying to get corn and soybeans out of the ground, oblivious to the 2013 Sonata moving towards home. A Soraya song popped up on my playlist and suddenly I knew what I needed. I switched my playlist to artist and let Soraya take me home. I don't remember the precise songs I listened to, but I sang along to every one, letting the melodic voice temporarily bring me into her world, which is really all of our worlds, one vulnerable lyric at a time.

I reflected, just for a second, on the oddities (miracles?) of the modern world, in which a Colombian singer raised in New Jersey could have such a profound effect on an Iowa boy driving home during harvest season, the bright lights for the tractors illuminating his way home. But just for a second. If you reflect on things too much, you tend to ruin them. Soraya's been gone 12 years (12 years?!), but I think she'd probably just be glad I her music means so much to me. I know I am.

Just another one of life's little miracles. I sang full blast all the way home. 

--Mark

"Hoy que vuelvo a tus lares
trayendo mis cantares
con el alma enferma
de tanto padecer...
Quiero pueblito viejo,
morirme aqui en tu suelo
bajo la luz del cielo
que un dia me vio nacer..."

"Now that I return to you
bringing my songs
soulsick from my suffering...
I want to, Old Town,
die here on your ground,
underneath the sunny sky,
that one day witnessed my birth..."

https://youtu.be/i1W2QcMLO_8 

Nice kids. Just ordinary, tremendous, nice kids.

This morning I needed a stop at the gas station for straight sugar.  I was off. It's been raining in Eastern Iowa for about 18 years now and on top of that I slept like shit last night, staring at the walls for a couple hours in the middle of the night. After dropping Sonia off at work I headed down for the local BP. Giri's BP. Two gas stations in West Liberty and that's the one I picked.

As I went in so did two young women from my school. I said hi and they said hi back. In Spanish even! After wandering I decided on some Hostess cupcakes and a Pepperoni Pizza Hot Pocket for lunch. I paid the bill--four dollars and something, collected the coins of my change, and left for school.

The whole day passed. Trip to BP forgotten. After lunch duty I headed for 7th period. We're talking 1:30 in the afternoon at this point. As I entered the classroom the first thing I saw was a five dollar bill in my face. Then I heard voices. Practically shrieking! They said, "Mr. Plum, you left your change at the BP! This is your money!"

I sorted it out. Apparently, I had paid with a ten at 7:30 in the morning and forgotten to take my five dollar bill. The cashier asked the girls if it belonged to them and they said, No, it must be my teacher's. He's your teacher, the cashier asked, suspicious. Yes! Absolutely! they said. I'll take it to him at school. Six hours later, the goods were delivered. Mission accomplished. Thanks, I said. I've always said the nicest kids live in West Liberty, I said.

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There's whole lotta shit out there right now. In fact, I have to consciously make an effort to keep the shit out of my life. And there's a whole lotta people who disparage the youth of today. Oddly enough, many of these people don't spend a lot of time with the youth of today, and if they do, they compare them with a mythical version of the youth of a generation or two ago. Well, I was in that generation, and I will tell you, we were most definitely NOT any better than the youth of today. I won't say we were worse--although I kind of think we were--but we definitely weren't any better.

What I'm trying to say, y'all, is that the kids are all right. There as all right as they've ever been. If you have any doubt, leave a five dollar bill at your local gas station with some kids you know around. I can't guarantee they'll get it back to you. But if I had to bet, I'd damn sure put my money on them.

--Mark

Southern Iowa -- Part 1

MY UNCLE JOHN MALETTA DIED RECENTLY.  He was born in July of 1932 to his parents, Mike and Victoria Maletta, in Clarkdale, Iowa. Eighty-six when he died. He was Mike and Victoria's first child; Mike, my grandfather, would have been 23 or 24 years old when John entered the world. Mike and Victoria went on to have four more kids, all girls; Victoria died tragically and a few years later, Mike was remarried to the woman who would become my grandmother, Maxine Shephard. Maxine also had five kids from her first marriage--three boys and two girls--so when her and Mike had my mom, they made a grand total of eleven. (Sorry about the use of first names for elder relatives. I'm not trying to be disrespectful--it just makes it easier to keep everyone straight).

I don't think you can even find Clarkdale on a map these days, but when my grandpa Mike was a boy, it was a real live functioning town. The coal mine set up shop there and built some houses for their workers. Mike was born in 1908 and after fourth grade went into the mines with his male relatives to help put food on the table. (This, remember, is when America was great). Back then today's Latinos and Muslims were Italians and Slavs, and that's who followed the coal mines and did the dirty work: both Mike and Victoria's parents were Italian immigrants.

When the mines around Clarkdale ran out of coal and moved on some of the people decided that instead of following the mine, they would try their hand at farming or something else.  The coal company didn't care--they had extracted the labor they needed.  Mike's parents were one of those households. They eeked out an subsistence during the Depression years, when several of my aunts and uncles were born.  Their big meal was on Sunday evenings, when spaghetti feeds were ran out of Mike's parents' (my great-grandparents') house.

When the United States entered World War II in 1941, Mike was 33, just past draft age. Young workers flocked into the military and Mike and several of his brothers and cousins found good-paying jobs at the John Deere factory in Ottumwa about an hour away. They took turns driving, one every week for five weeks.

After Mike and my grandma Maxine got married, they moved into Centerville, the "big town" around which towns like Clarkdale were scattered. Back then, Centerville would have had maybe 8000 residents. My mom was born in 1951 and didn't know the poverty that her dad did (nor, I should point out, have I). Mike, for his part, took Maxine's kids as his own, refused government help, and churned them out, all of them, all high school graduates, some college graduates, all eventually becoming parents themselves. By the time my mom graduated from high school in 1969, she was the only one of Mike or Maxine's kids--the only one of eleven--left at home.