Letter to the Spirit World

Three sentences in my middle school history book about the Bracero program were the birth of my curiosity. As I scanned numerous black-and-white photos of brown men who looked like my family, I thought this might be the start to finding answers about my family history. 

Grandma and I were in her kitchen, with the comforting aroma of chorizo y huevos wafting up from the gas stove through the chestnut cabinets and down to the brown linoleum floor. I asked my grandma if Tata, my great-grandfather, was a Bracero. She answered without a second thought, “Oh yeah. That’s how we got here. The US needed workers to come out here when World War II had that labor shortage —didn’t they tell you ’bout that in school?” she asked, flipping tortillas on the burner.

My Tata, alongside 4.6 million other Mexican men, were lined up like cattle, fumigated with white poison to cleanse them of any remains of México as they came to work for the United States. They were taken advantage of, easy prey to the American dream. A dream that filled my Tata’s liver with a buzz that was more bitter than the rind on the lemons he picked.

I often think about how we have dealt with the pain that flows through our bloodline. Nana, I’m working on it. But sometimes it feels like I’m the only one in this family who is searching for answers, or possibly the only one with the time to do so. Time to look for names of ancestors we’ve lost. Time to question what I’ve been told as truth. Time to listen to the faint recuérdame I hear when sitting at my altar. 

Remembering is important. To remember is to know the past and to know who you come from. To know where our roots lie. To know why my family feels so close-knit, even though they do not listen to the remedies and healing practices I long to share. To know why Dad springs from his bed in the middle of the night gasping for air, scratching his neck, feeling like someone is restricting him from breathing. To know why Grandma has crosses up in her house but repeats the vile story of a school nun slapping her with a ruler in the name of God each time she spoke Spanish. To know why our pain is never discussed and to know why healing feels so far away for our family. Why do we keep allowing the white man to squeeze his prized citrus into our open wounds?

I’m trying to help heal us, heal our family, give us the strategies to feel whole. I’m trying so hard to unlearn and then learn and learn and learn. I’m healing for you, Nana—and for Grandma, for Dad, and especially for my little sister “Ysa”—short for Ysabel. She carries your name, Nana Ysabel. Sometimes I get jealous that she has your name because she is so powerful and part of you. I think you’re guiding her. She is beginning to ask questions and is yearning to learn our ways that have been covered up for far too long. She is remembering where we come from, one mile at a time—just like the miles you crossed to be on this side of the frontera.

Your photo hangs above my ofrenda because I want to honor you every day. I want you to know that I acknowledge your guidance and that, even in death and in spirit, you deserve everything. You deserve to be thought of. You deserve to be talked to. You deserve to be remembered in our traditional ways. I honor you to show Ysa that she can honor you too. I do it because I need her to remember you and the others whose names we do not know. I can’t do this work alone, and Ysa is beginning to know that. I want us all to heal from the US programs that doused Tata and millions of others in pesticides because to them being brown and Mexican meant dirty, uncivilized. We were valued only as strong arms to pick the sustenance that fills other people’s stomachs. But we are so much more. 

Your lineage shows Ysa and me that we are filled with magic. That we are wrapped in the finest stories and spiritual guidance. That we are children of the sun who dare to shine amid the smog. That our lineage stems from the roots of the límon tree and from the bees and chuparosas that suckle sweet nectar.

Your photo hangs above my ofrenda because you hold answers that can unlock the questions I seek. You encompass ways of knowing and existing that I cannot know without you. Nana Ysabel, your whispers are winds that transform my soul, releasing the gifts that were uncovered for me and the next generations. You are a guide, an ancestor who deserves the whole world in life and death. Nana, they say you haven’t crossed over yet—that worries me. But then again, what if you’re tired of crossing borders, not knowing what lies ahead?

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Kaske's essay will appear in the next print issue of Ofrenda Magazine. Sign up for our newsletter, and we'll let you know when it's available via print-on-demand.