Catalina

by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

My grandfather said that back in Ecuador, summer nights in Esmeraldas were so loud, it sounded like, well, what it was—a beach and a jungle.

lived in the real world, and the real world was sad, and he lived in literature, and literature was beautiful.

lived in a small city in Ecuador called Cotopaxi,

They got on the phone and had loud fights with my aunt and uncle using a calling card

I remember using these cards to call my dad

“We all knew you would have better educational opportunities here,” she said, working the comb through a knot, “and now you can be anything you set your mind to.”

We are all told this

playing water games with my cousins during Carnaval, eating crab in Guayaquíl.

Playing with cousins and foods are the main things that stay with you

the next eruption was in 2015.

grandmother. I was a spoiled princess. I hadn’t even had to cross the border. I came on a plane.

This is called guilt

Being undocumented is not for the weak of heart.

Rosalía Arteaga, Ecuador’s first and only woman president,

“better our race.”

Dad

“Okay, pedazo de tonta,

Lmao

“My grandparents came here for a reason and I think they want to look forward and not back.”

I did not know a thing about mosquito nets or the diarrhea and vertigo from altitude sickness.

Ecuadorian ceviche,

My favorite dish

knew this was coming, it happens to every undocumented person in America. It is simply a matter of time. A close family member back home dies. You are unable to leave this country, unable to travel home, to say goodbye, to bury your dead.

musica corta venas,

So traditionl

Immigrant English, a dialect all their own. Gloria Anzaldúa said that when the Third World and the First World meet, they rub against each other and produce an open

Delgado Travel

We used this too

“Don’t talk to your grandma like that. If I had talked to my mother like that, she would have slapped me across the face.”

We all heard this

It’s how she handled me not wanting to go to school as a kid, back when I did not know English and school was terrifying. If I made it through the week, my grandmother made me cheese and cane sugar empanadas or bought

We all had to be bribed

ICE let them all go, but not without initiating their deportation proceedings.

Don Luis’s office was a tiny travel agency in Queens, cluttered with photographs of Don Luis with everyone from Bill Clinton to Rudy Giuliani to Marc Anthony and Don Francisco. Don Luis had existed since the beginning of time.

“What an amazing idea,” my grandfather said. “Too bad Latinos don’t buy insurance.” “Abuelo!” I scolded. “It’s true,” Don Luis said. “You ask any immigrant, ‘Do you want to die here? Do you want your body buried here, or do you want your body sent back home where people can mourn you?’ people are going to say, ‘Yes, yes, me, me,’ but you try selling insurance to Colombians.”

I was hurt and surprised to hear my grandfather say he wanted to be buried in Ecuador. I had no way of getting to Ecuador. I would have nowhere to lay flowers.

rocanrol.