“Most of the arcs of these stories will start with facts, dimmed under the sun.”
Juan Delgado provides the following, extracted from his larger essay “Remembering, a Little Bit at a Time,” as a reflection on the character of memories and historical facts, and the process of retracing one's past:
I am on the freeway, going over my lesson plan about meter and rhythm in my head when I spot a rainbow. Each strand of color from afar seems distinct, but the closer I get to the rainbow, the more the borders blur. Is this true of other borders? Of memories?
My father, Juan M. Delgado, was born in Whittier, California, and he traveled between Mexico and the US all his life. He married Ofelia Camacho-Castro in Guadalajara and lived in Mexico for the first four years of their marriage. I was born in Guadalajara along with my two sisters. In 1964, we settled in El Monte, and then we moved to Colton in 1967.
My green card taught me that there are borders we can’t see yet. The Migra [authorities] one day swept away a family who lived near us, leaving their driveway a maze of half-empty boxes and piles of children’s clothing.
I tried to claim my US citizenship through my father’s American passport. I had to document his years in America, but the process was complicated by his numerous border crossings. Along the way, I discovered unexpectedly the boy and man who happened to be my father while revisiting his childhood cities. I learned details about his childhood, his education, and his family life in both Mexico and America.
I discovered that my father was registered by his father as “Lupe Delgado” in several schools. I like to re-read a letter from a school recorder, Elizabeth A. Ruffner
“To Whom It May Concern: This letter is to verify.... The date of birth is listed as 5/29/25 and the parent as Adolfo Delgado. Due to the age of the document, we are not able to read the name of the individual school or the name of the teacher. The grade is also blurry.”
Do facts gradually grow faint like the colors of a rainbow?
If I still had it, I would give you my Etch A Sketch--it had a red plastic frame and the two knobs that made figures appear like my aunt, Manuela, my father’s sister. She is buried in San Gabriel Mission Cemetery. Plot: Lot 84, Grave 9, 2nd line. She is listed as “Infant Delgado.” Her birth is “unknown.” Her death is “May 24, 1926.” She is buried under an unmarked grave stone.
She is the muffled cries behind a bedroom wall: Whooping cough. She is the ghost child who never fully appears in any of your father’s family photos, but her shadow is there--you just have look harder for her. It all begins by encircling a fact that once was blurry.