Yasmín Ramírez - ¡Ándale, Prieta!: A Love Letter to My Family

Mira, Ita, lo hicimos.

Finding Ita

I SPENT FIVE years selling lingerie at Nordstrom in the elite Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas. Though that season of my life is peppered with countless memories, I dont really remember the very first time I helped a woman find the correct size prosthesis for her bra. But Ive never forgotten the conversations I had with these women before we began each fittingalmost always the same.

Every time I stepped into the black-and-white paisley- printed fitting room to help them, theyd ask right away, Cant your manager help me?

I am the manager, Id reply.

Pinched eyebrows, pursed lips.

I was in my mid-twenties, a baby in the eyes of most fifty-year-old women. What did I know about the scars that marked their bodies?

They hesitated to take their blouses off.

Please sit down, I would invite them. My grandmother had breast cancer, I would begin. I grew up watching her adjust her prosthesis in mastectomy bras. I know what the scars look like. It wont shock me. I just want to make sure youre comfortable. If at any point youre not I can step out. Or we can stop.

Theyd relax. And when they took off their blouses and allowed me to see the pink scars on their chests, I didnt blink. We talked about Ita as I measured across and around their naked torsos.

How old was she when she got cancer?

Forty. I wasnt born yet, but my mom told me about ithow she changed after.

Was it bilateral or unilateral?

Id slip a robe around them so they wouldnt have to sit in the fitting room facing the mirror naked from the waist up when I stepped out to get the flesh-colored prosthesis and mastectomy bras.

They made me think of war veterans. Where did you serve? What unit? But instead, Was it one breast or two?

Uni.

Ita had a jagged scar because it had happened long ago when surgeries werent so sophisticated. I told them about the special bra shop, Margies, in downtown El Paso where I watched a woman fit Ita while I sat on the fitting room floor holding her purse. She always complained about the ugliness of the bras. They nodded, understanding, as I lined the fitting room with various nude bras they would never find at Victorias Secret.

You dont have t-shirt bras?

The smooth molded cups would do nothing for them. No. The seams in each of the bras give shape to both your real breast and the prosthesis. The seams even things out, and theyll only show a little bit under snug t-shirts.

Oh.

There should be prettier lingerie for breast cancer survivors, Id say.

Your grandma must be glad she has you to fit her.

The women would leave with a bag full of silicone or gel prostheses and nude bras with pockets to hold their new breasts in place. They would thank me. Some of them even hugged me.

I didnt tell them I never got a chance to fit Ita.

AT THE TIME it seemed normal. Later I learned that most grandmas dont teach their granddaughters to fight, especially when their granddaughters are only in first grade.

But there she was, holding her clenched fists in a fighters stance in front of me. Si alguien te pega qu vas a hacer?

Sowhat would I do if someone punched me? Punch them back?

No empieces nada, pero no te dejes, eh?

Okay, Ita. I wont start anything, but I wont let myself get pushed around either.

Y ms vale que ganes, eh? Porque si no, cuando llegues a la casa te voy a poner otra chinga.

I stared at Ita, letting her words sink in. I really dont think she would have given me a chinga if I lost a fight, but just in case, I was definitely not going to lose.

Earlier that day at Lamar Elementary, Eric had pulled my braid. Hed pulled so hard, the red plastic bolita at the crown of my head snapped. Pop! Mrs. John, my teacher, asked me what had happened when I came in from recess, my hair all over. I told her my bolita had broken. I stared up into her crinkled blue eyes when she asked me again, but I told her the same thing, and this time I looked down.

Every morning, music from a Jurez radio station crackled through the house. Ita hummed along to the boleros, ballads, and other stuff they played while she brushed and braided my hair. My hair was long, way past my waist, thick black waves of wires pointing in every direction. She brushed it with a metal bristle brush, tiny steel soldiers standing at attention, ready for battle. Id heard people tell her that I had cabello de india, but I didnt understand what about my hair made it Indian? It didnt look like the hair on the pretty ladies in the cowboy movies we watched.

She brushed and brushed until every tangle was out, pulled my heavy hair into a tight ponytail, smooth and perfect at the crown of my head, then braided it into a thick three-strand rope. Sometimes my eyes watered from my hair being pulled so tight. My eyelids pulled at an angle from my temples. I held my head high and braced against the pulls, my neck stiff to make the process easier.

But today after recess, Id kept my face down, staring at the brown wooden desktop, my loose braid pulled to the right side of my face so I wouldnt have to see Eric, wouldnt have to see anyone. I hated Eric. I knew Ita wouldnt be happy when I got home, my hair loose and disheveled.

But now, there I was, braid repaired, standing in front of Ita, my eyes wide, while Estela Casas on the 6 oclock Channel 7 News reported loudly in the background. Ita sat on the edge of the worn brown paisley couch, so I was her height. Wed moved the green marble Formica coffee table out of the way for more room. The gold cross she always wore lay shiny on her chest. It rose and fell with her breath. She wasnt saying anything. I stared at her face, waiting. She stared back, sin sonrisa, her arched brows squished to the center. I squished my eyebrows and lips to match hers.

She took up a boxers stance again, but this time she opened her palms toward me. I stood ready, left foot in front, right foot back like shed told me...

No. Mira, Prieta.

I glanced at my feet and then back at Ita as she stood up. She placed her feet the same as mine but bent her knees a little. Porque as Mine were locked. She reached over and shoved me. I lost my balance. Tienes que plantarte bien para que no te tumben.

I put my feet back where theyd been, this time with my knees bent like hers.

She shoved me again. I stayed put.

Eso! She smiled and sat back down on the couch.

A ver, las manos como le ense.

She held up her hands and made two fists, her fingers curled into her palm, her thumb wrapped around her bent fingers. The green center vein on her right hand bubbled when she clenched her fist into a tight knot. A nurse had popped her vein trying to put an IV in. It had been that way ever since.

Amacice bien el puo para que no se quiebre la mano. She showed me her tightly clenched hand. Mire.

I made my hands into fists too.

Itas face was soft. She seemed young, not like the other grandmas at school who looked like raisins. She held her clenched fist out for me to see. She didnt have any make-up onwe were staying homeit was a school night. The skin on her face glistened from her face cream. I smelled its mixed floral scent. She looked at my hands and nodded. I wondered if, when I hit someone, my nails would hurt my palm. I wanted to ask her but didnt. She held both hands face out on either side of her chin.

ra s, pgale.

I stayed still, my fists clenched to either side of my chin the way she showed me. I didnt want to hit her.

Pgale! Pgale! She waited some more, nodding her head, her eyebrows raised.