The Book of Unknown Americans(21)

“I don’t think his ears are so big,” my mom said.

“His ears?” Sra. Rivera asked.

“He keeps saying they’re big, but I think he’s very handsome.”

“That’s why you voted for him?” my dad said. “Because you think he’s handsome?”

“Yes, Rafael. That’s why I vote for one politician over another. Because he’s handsome. Are you crazy?”

My dad glared at my mom for a second, then emphatically put his feet up on the coffee table, something that my mom hated. “We’ll see,” my dad said.

“We’ll see what?” Sr. Rivera asked.

“We’ll see what he does for us. I like him, okay? But I don’t know if he’s going to be who he said he would be. Politicians will say anything to get elected. For some reason with this guy, I believed what he said. I believed he believed what he said. But we’ll see. The first thing he needs to do is get the economy out of the sewer. No one comes to the diner anymore. No one has money to eat out.”

“And now there are pirates,” my mom said.

“Pirates?” Sra. Rivera asked, alarmed.

“From Africa,” my mom said. “Black pirates.”

“That’s awesome,” I said.

“They’re hijacking ships!” my mom said.

I pictured guys with beards and eye patches and peg legs. I still thought it was pretty awesome.

Sr. Rivera said, “But here? It’s safe, no?”

“It’s not as safe as it used to be,” my dad said.

“But it’s safe,” Sr. Rivera pressed, like he wanted to be reassured.

“Yes,” my dad said. “Compared to where any of us are from, it’s safe.”


I WAS LESS than a year old when my parents brought my brother and me to the United States. Enrique was four. He used to tell me things about Panamá that I couldn’t possibly have remembered—like about the scorpions in our backyard and the cement utility sink where my mom used to give us baths. He reminisced about walking down the street with my mom to the Super 99, the dust blowing up everywhere, the heat pounding down, and about looking for crabs between the rocks along the bay.

“It’s in you,” my dad assured me once. “You were born in Panamá. It’s in your bones.”

I spent a lot of time trying to find it in me, but usually I couldn’t. I felt more American than anything, but even that was up for debate according to the kids at school who’d taunted me over the years, asking me if I was related to Noriega, telling me to go back through the canal. The truth was that I didn’t know which I was. I wasn’t allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn’t feel the thing I was supposed to claim.

The first time I heard my parents tell the story about leaving Panamá, my mom said, “Our hearts kept breaking each time we walked out the door.” They tried to give it time. They assumed conditions would improve. But the country was so ravaged that their hearts never stopped breaking. Eventually they sold almost everything they owned and used the money to buy plane tickets to somewhere else, somewhere better, which to them had always meant the United States. A while after I was old enough to understand this story, I pointed out how backwards it was to have fled to the nation that had driven them out of theirs, but they never copped to the irony of it. They needed to believe they’d done the right thing and that it made sense. They were torn between wanting to look back and wanting to exist absolutely in the new life they’d created. At one point, they had planned to return. They’d thought that with enough time, Panamá would be rebuilt and that their hearts, I guess, would heal. But while they waited for that day, they started making friends. My dad got a job as a busboy and then, later on, as a dishwasher. Years passed. Enrique was in school, and I started, too. My dad was promoted to line cook. More years slid by. And before they knew it, we had a life here. They had left their lives once before. They didn’t want to do it again.

So they applied for U.S. citizenship, sitting up at night reading the Constitution, a dictionary by their side, and studying for the exam. They contacted someone at the Panamanian consulate in Philadelphia who helped them navigate the paperwork. Then they woke up one morning, got dressed in their best clothes, caught a bus to the courthouse, and, while my mom held me in her arms and my dad rested his hand on Enrique’s shoulder, took an oath along with a group of other men and women who had made living in the United States a dream. We became Americans.

We never went back to Panamá, not even for a visit. It would have taken us forever to save enough money for plane tickets. Besides, my dad never wanted to take time off from his job. He probably could’ve asked for a few days of vacation time, but even after years of being there, making omelets and flipping pancakes, he knew—we all knew—that he was on the low end of the food chain. He could be replaced in a heartbeat. He didn’t want to risk it.

Because of that, we’d missed my tía Gloria’s wedding, which she’d had on a hillside in Boquete. She told my mom that her new husband, Esteban, had gotten so drunk that she’d convinced him to dance and that therefore the whole event was a success. We had my aunt on speakerphone and my mom had said, “Take it from me, hermanita, they dance at the wedding and then they never do it again.” My dad had said, “That’s what you think?” and clutched my mom by the wrist, sending her into a small spin in the middle of the kitchen. She squealed with delight while he swayed with her for a few beats and then he broke out into some goofy merengue moves, kicking his leg up at the end and shouting “?Olé!” My aunt started yelling through the phone, “Are you still there? Celia! Rafael!” And my parents laughed until my mom dabbed the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. I’d never seen them so happy with each other, even though it was just for those few seconds.