WEEKENDS IN THE EAST SIDE
WEEKENDS IN THE EAST SIDE
By Essy Barroso-Ramirez
As a kid, I always looked forward to the weekends. My parents would get us up early to clean, shower, and spend the weekend with familia in San José. I knew if I played my cards right, cleaned extra well, and let mami put the agonizing bolitas in my hair without moving or complaining, I could convince her to take my primos and me to Chuck E. Cheese. The badass one in the East Side of San José; that one was better than any other Chuck E. Cheese could ever hope to be.
For me, this was the ultimate experience as a kid. Growing up in Santa Cruz, surrounded by whiteness, la cultura made me look forward to weekends in San José as far back as I can remember. I would get so hyped in the car on Highway 17– just counting down until I could see the Chuck E. Cheese off the exit. It’s not so much that I loved the rat that was training kids to love gambling, it was being together as a family and haciendo travesuras with my primos just hit. My primos had the coolest toys, sick outfits, and were so grown up; they taught me all the bad words and how to use them. They also taught me not to take any shit from other kids.
“Growing up in Santa Cruz, surrounded by whiteness, la cultura made me look forward to weekends in San José as far back as I can remember.”
Sounds I distinctly recall were the sprinklers my tios would turn on for us to play in; we’d run, screeching under them, and if we were lucky, someone would bring us kids a slip and slide (or set up black trash bags with the hose) so we could play for hours and let the adults grill in peace. I loved pulling up and hearing the music blasting from my tia’s house on the East Side. La Sonora Dinamita, Los Angeles Azules, Joan Sebastian, Celia Cruz, Juan Gabriel, Los Huracanes del Norte, Ramon Ayala. The list goes on, and so do the memories. I listened to my tias and tios singing to the music, laughing and echando carrilla; roasting each other all day. They loved to play dominoes, loteria, watch futbol– always trash-talking each other’s teams en Español. The more my tios chugged, the louder the GOLLLLLL. They also loved to indulge all of us kids when the paletero would pass by– one of us would hear the campanita and yell to the others el paleterooo! Back then, you could buy toys from the paletero, too, not just ice cream and paletas. These sweet sounds of my childhood revolve around the East San José. My family may not have had abundant financial wealth, but our cultural richness is priceless. The inheritance my primos and I have received from our family is a gift we keep on giving to our next generation. I am incredibly blessed to have grown up how I did, hearing the sweet sounds of our cultura, mi familia, in the East Side of San José.
“My family may not have had abundant financial wealth, but our cultural richness is priceless. The inheritance my primos and I have received from our family is a gift we keep on giving to our next generation.”