Tejano and Motown.
Once I was old enough to make my own musical decisions, I did. When I was 8, I started listening to 97.9 The Box, a mainstream rap station. Then when I was 10, I switched schools and listened to 104 KRBE, which was Top 40 all the way. But before all that, before I knew how to change the dial myself, I listened to whatever my parents listened to. I remember birthday parties, holidays, family reunions on my mom’s side of the family, and the same thumping beat and accordions. As I knew it, Tejano music was either the sad song (whatever gets you angry and drunk at the bar) or the happy song (anything with a synth). I didn’t know too much about the bands or who sang what, but I remember my mom telling me Mazz practiced off of Main and I-45 for a long time, and that she saw Selena play in 1989. Still, means nothing to me, except a small handful of names. My father, on the other hand, listened to a lot of oldies, especially Smokey Robinson. He told me his mom listened to a lot of Motown and he bought her the records, even though she couldn’t speak English.
For a long time, oldies and Tejano brought me some good memories. I stopped listening to Tejano once I had a choice, and I never looked back. A month or two back though, my aunt took me with her and her family to San Antonio, and on our way back, we station-surfed between towns after we got tired of listening to Fergie on repeat. All we could find was Tejano, so she said, “Let’s just listen to this.” I think we both sat in silence for fifteen minutes or so before I heard her in the driver’s seat sniffling. It was such a surreal feeling – she and I both had our own memories of this kind of music after not listening to it in so long. And all she said was, “I miss everyone.”
My heart hurt. I was sitting in the passenger seat remembering cheap cakes, piñatas, and loud music, how young everyone was, when the adults would get drunk and start dancing with each other, and my aunt was remembering the same things from when she was a kid. She started telling me about how her uncle Faustino (who just died last year) would bring his accordion that he couldn’t even play, get plastered, jump on the table and play/lipsynch to whatever song was on. When she said it, she laughed. I reached over and wiped her right eye. She looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t wreck.”‘
She’s been buying me these CDs I only recently started listening to. It’s bittersweet. I smile through some songs, and I feel my chest tighten through others. But memories are memories, and I need them right now. I forget more and more with every day that passes, and I’m afraid that one day I won’t remember what my mom smelled like, or how she laughed at my cheesy jokes just to be polite.
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