So here is an image taken from my father's book Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America. It shows Nanita with her indomitable spirit, and colorful aura. When I tell my father of how fondly I remember her, and of how kind she was to me, he agrees. But he tells me too, that she could also be very intense. Which I have no problem believing.

One of the reasons I remember her so kindly is because my father was an intense individual, himself. He always had very strong opinions about everything: food, language, the world. I was not allowed to eat sugarjunk cereal. But I really wanted Apple Jacks. And my nanita snuck them to me. Can you see why I loved her so? I remember him getting angry when he found out. And I remember her slapping tortillas back and forth in her hands, en la cocina. I remember her holding my hand as we walked through the market, as we walked through the hot, maize-scented air, past the women who ground the corn into meal and sold so many ingredients that would later fill a kitchen with the scents of love and family.

In my mind, mi nanita may as well be juxtaposed with the image of La Virgen de Guadalupe that was shellacked over a slice of wood and hung on our wall. She beams beatifically over and down upon me from the heavens, where all is love and kindness. She knows me, to my simple core, knows me as I am purely, with a child's heart. I don't have many memories of her, but I know she will never leave me, is always with me, and that her spirit is one that mingles with my own, her words handed down to me from my father:

If they don't criticize you for wearing red, they'll criticize you for wearing green, she said. And while she did not raise me, but only lived with me for a little while, I found the truth of this on my own. I found on my own that ones own heart must be consulted for matters of importance, that you cannot live your life pleasing others, that the love and hate of the world is a fickle thing, and that there will always be something to displease someone. And that I cannot let that displeasure rule me. And I will not.

I don't know how my Nanita would feel about today's issues. I wish she were still around so that I could know her better. I wish our own family did not get broken up along the way, so I might have spent more time with her. But it's funny, for her wisdom still shows me the way, even when I am not paying attention to her words, or am not even aware of them.

My father and I began healing our relationship about 18 years ago. But for a long time, I was doing my thing, he was doing his, and the two did not overlap. But lately, seeing the direction in which I was headed, reading the words I've been writing, noting the energy and the love and the purpose with which I have taken, he passed along another piece of wisdom from Maria de la Luz Quintana:

The blood does its own work.

And it is true that if you find your heart and follow it, you will be on a path you may not have planned to walk down. And that is the work we must do.

I can only think of all the other strong, proud, smart, beautiful, passionate women who come from poor peasant villages or crowded, gritty, urban streets in Mexico. I can only imagine how many nanitas, how many abuelitas are clutched in the loving memory of Mexicanos south and north of the Rio Grande. It is for them, for you, for all of us that I hope to bring some small measure of awareness to the world, in whatever tiny way I am allowed. Or at least to tell those who paint dark demons on the walls of their heart that these people, my people, they are not invaders, and they are not criminals, and they are not "filth." La Raza Humano ought erect no fence of the soul, no barbed wire of the heart, no National Guard of the Antepasado. Do not be afraid of the changing world, or the one you do not yet know. There are more important things than tolls and a country that only knows one language, and your precious Census results. There is memory. There is family. There is love.

To you, María, Lucha, Abuelita, Nanita: saludos. Te amo.