KEEPSAKES
Its a trick.
•
Its a trick. •
I repeat it in my mind the way he says it. Eyebrows raised in question, accent thick, heavy, born with a skepticism lacing his tongue.
It’s a trick.
This time, I’m so surprised he doesn’t fully recognize it.
A few months ago I headed to the same NYCHA building I’ve been so familiar with since I was born. The muscle memory of the walk from the train, of knowing the door at the bottom would be broken, of knowing where to stand in the elevator to not touch the sticky walls or get dead roaches on my shoes, of knowing what buttons to push without looking, of knowing which door bell to ring without breathing.
It was my Abuelo’s 76th birthday; 20- something years spent in Puerto Rico, fifty-something years spent in New York. He hasn’t opened up in general throughout his life, machismo in latinx men being the culprit; it’s being diagnosed with cancer that has changed how he interacts with his past. More vulnerable and cracked open than ever witnessed before. So when he told me his story of how he wound up in Long Island City, New York, all the way from Yauco, Puerto Rico– a man of the montañas– I opened up my camera and I listened. He detailed his story (one similar to many Borikens subject to United States violence) of becoming a fugitive of the United States military during the Vietnam war, refusing to participate–refusal to bend to a power that in one breath destroys the economy and politics of one country and in another breath offers their own as a false salve. Displacement is a ravenous beast in the way it is never satiated, molding and transforming communities into becoming comfortable with its appetite. The same low-income building my abuelo has lived in for all of my life is being transformed slowly before our eyes; I seek to document it before it fades away forever, taking my abuelo along with it. His story, one of many that sit in the nexus of disability, language, diaspora, and immigration politics. His home is, like many, in danger of a second displacement in the face of gentrification– a cultural shrine holding every instrument, photo, indigenous practice, food, and music that one clings to in order to extend home.
Yo vivi en Puerto Rico y era un chamaquito–ellos llamaron del army, me llamaron y fueron a buscarme a Puerto Rico… yo pagué 85 dólares–no 45 dólares por el plane. I coming here, y el army outside, wait for me. I going to Fort Hamilton. I go stay there about two weeks. Cleaning outside, the paper, the cigarette y para potatoes. Everyday ! [laughs] Yeah, en el army! About 7 people. Big potato, everything in the army is big. Y this is my job. I said to el capitan, you took me y this is my job? He said yeah this is your job. Y cuando me hicieron el examen físico– I pass.
My abuelo keeps a large stone on a makeshift side table, that once used to be a speaker, in his kitchen. Sitting between his guitar and his ceiling-tall plant shelf, he places a handmade beaded necklace around the neck (he spends most of his free time creating beaded necklaces from materials he finds on the street or lost in his home) and stones arranged in a circle around it. There’s a face found on the stone, the way you can find faces in trees, in the sidewalk, in large patterns in the clouds. It watches over him everyday. I believe they have the same nose.
Y me dijeron que me fuera por un mes, outside, para ver mi familia, y me fuge al Bronx. Cuando–ahh–el día que necesitaba reportarme, no me reporte. I no want to kill people, for why? Why? Me quede aquí en Queens. Yo trabajé en una fábrica de ropa de mujer. En puerto rico, they took my friend, my brother. A lot of young people, young men die. For why? Nah. Y un dia en mi cuarto, el army tocaron la puerta de donde vivía. They say: William Suarez live here?
William “Tito” Suarez is a collector of things people have mistaken as unusable, damaged, trash. Guitars that have broken strings still make sound. An accordion that can no longer move can still be falsely played when you have your music at full volume. A jar on the street is now a maraca, a comb becomes the partner to a guiro. A collector of things that remind him of home, he sits in his apartment, alone amidst these mementos–atonement for a separate, un-archivable past predating abeulo. Every item linked to a collection of thoughts and memories circling through his mind hour by hour, minute by minute. A collector of feeling. It’s subtle but it’s there.
Yeah, yeah. I had one TV en mi cuarto y nada mas. It was two, three months. When they came you know what happened? They say they were looking for me, they say tu ta fugitivo. Y yo dije: What?! What?? Me ?? No, no. But they took my clothes, take me outside, put me in a car. So many people looking to me. The army take. I go to Fort Hamilton again. I sleeping and next day I pack the paper, desanimado. Everything’s in english, pero I no speak english. On the paper, I no understand so I put: no, no, no, no, no. [laughter] I no speak english. I was born in Puerto Rico, we say mami not mother. Me dijeron, but you live now in New York! But Puerto Rico is not America. I no speak english! They say, okay. I was doing everything wrong, I no understand. He gave me a token. I still have token. El train, it cost 20 cent. Only 20 cent, tiny one, small small. Not like now, the card, it’s different. [ laughter ] Ok abuelo, okay. Y despues?
Me mandaron un discharge. Yo no puedo trabajar con la oficina de correo, yo no puedo trabajar con el gobierno. Para mi, eso no es un problema. So many of my friends coming from Yauco … they die in Vietnam. Why do I want to go back to Yauco? They die. Nobody there. Puerto Rico, too many Puerto Ricans, they die. Puertorriqueños y prietos y algunos blanquitos. Die. Los que fueron al army, por que el army era … este… te mandaron una tarjeta que tú tenias que reportarte. Si no te reportaras, te vienen a buscar. So many people, they die.