By Dan Elijah Vazquez

It’s happening again.

My eyes are burning with conviction as Nero plays his violin. My heart is swollen with compassion for the men whose backs are bent from years of labor and the mothers squeezed for every second of their time as they do what they can for their children to thrive. I read Eduardo Galeano. And that’s my problem.

You can’t read these sorts of writers if you’re from Newark, New Jersey, let alone the Ironbound. Not if you want to go back to work on Monday. 

Can a seal still clap on command once he understands it’s a circus?

The problem is, I’m only two generations into this American Dream and my blood still runs Spanish. I don’t like to go to bed before midnight. And there’s no time for siestas in a country that makes dollars, but not sense.

The problem is, I’m not the descendant of just any Spaniard. 

No. There isn’t a Picasso in my lineage. There’s probably little sophistication in my bloodline, let alone artistry. I am the grandson of gallegos. We are a brutish, simple people—paranoid as all hell, distrustful to our core. Perhaps Hemingway would admire our grit, but bullfighting isn’t our thing. If anything, we’re more like the bull—infuriated by the dancing red cape that eludes us. And sure we play soccer, but not particularly well. We’re too busy surviving the latest trial history has asked us to endure in the green and rainy land in the northwesternmost region of Spain that gives us our identity. 

Here, we don’t dance flamenco or make regular contributions to the world of pop or reggaeton. We play bagpipes and cry the skin-raising calls of those long gone who sang the same songs and danced the same dances well before us. 

This is Galicia. 

The place that birthed, on the one hand, Spain’s fascist dictator, Francisco Franco and on the other, Fidel Castro’s dad. 

How’s that for yin & yang? 

Well, if Franco himself was a gallego and managed to win a civil war and assert his authority over Spain for several decades . . . and if the son of a gallego led a communist revolution, overthrew a dictator just to make himself one, and managed to stay in power until his death and preserve the ideological infrastructure of his regime beyond it. . . . 

What could the grandson of a gallego do in New Jersey? 

Probably not much. Maybe win a few games of futbolin at Club Spain. Score a few goals at Independence Park. Hold down a job. Be less stingy than my grandfather. Be less afraid. Dare to love, without posturing, without negotiation, without keeping score. Remember the bible verses and embody them, instead of wielding them like weapons. Laugh. Sow seeds of peace. Be clever, but for good purposes, not for cruel pranks (giving an electric shock to the mailman when he rings the doorbell). Sing that one song by Julio Iglesias that made my grandma cry when I played it for her on an iPad at Christmas dinner before the world ended in 2012. Sing that song with gusto. Because it’s hers. And my grandfather’s. And all of Galicia’s. And despite the fear, the unkept promises, the betrayal, and the abuse, this was common ground between them. They loved that song because they loved their home. 

An ocean away and decades later, they never stopped missing it.   

They call that morriña. 

They call that saudade.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the place where they settled is now the only home I’ve ever known. It isn’t perfect. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t green. But I wouldn’t want to leave. I just want to protect it for myself and for everyone else who by choice or by circumstance have come to call it home. 

I don’t want to miss it. 

I want to serve it. 

I want to see it flourish.

It was Galeano who said the veins of Latin America were open and bleeding. All I know is that mine are pulsing here in the Ironbound, where something is deeply wrong. 

But I have to get dressed. I have to hop on my bike and go to work. This seal has not forgotten how to clap yet, but I suspect the circus will be closed . . . someday. 

Dan Elijah Vazquez is a Catholic writer from Newark’s Ironbound District who works as a laborer for Essex County Parks. His work is often inspired by a desire to stimulate the conscience of his readers and invite them to reassess modern sensibilities, specifically secularism.  Dan Elijah enjoys playing pickup soccer at Independence Park and wandering without aim throughout the neighborhood.

Featured Image provided by Dan Elijah Vazquez