TRACING CONNECTIONS

By Heloiza Barbosa

I remember Logan Airport in 1994: its corridors like an elongated centipede and the air outside chillingly cold.

I remember getting off the bus on Mass Ave. at Washington Street. Passing a group of men at the corner store, one walked up to me and said, “Hello sweet ass.” I had no English to understand what he said. I turned to him and broadly smiled my honest apologies. He became embarrassed. After that, every day he would say to me “Hello sweet girl! Have a good day.” I felt welcomed.

I remember that my ESL teacher advised me to watch “Cheers” to learn the Boston accent. I had no TV. When I did, I could not hear anything different.

I remember my first bagel. It was cinnamon and raisins with cream cheese at Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square. Later, I got a job there.

I remember when a customer pointed to the shelf and asked for the donut “in the middle.” I told her that we had “Boston cream, Chocolate and vanilla frosting, but not inthemiddle.” She asked for the manager.

I remember my first snow. I opened my mouth and let it melt inside me. I too was transforming into something else.

I remember going to the emergency room of Boston Medical Center. The resident came with a nurse from Mexico to ask me questions. I said that I could understand a little bit, because Portuguese and Spanish are similar languages. He left, came back with a cleaning woman from Cape Verde. The resident gave me pills and hydration juices enough for a whole month. I wish I knew his name to send him a card.

I remember the first and only time that I ate Boston Baked Beans. I almost vomited in the restaurant. In Brazil we would never, ever, put sugar in our beans.

I remember that I could not believe that in coffee shops they left pitchers of milk out, free, for anyone to pour as much as they want into in their coffee. So rich was this city, I thought.

I remember, years later, when I received my acceptance letter to graduate school. I had wine and lobster at the top of the Prudential with friends from the US, Spain, Argelia, and Colombia.

On May 14th, 2018, I was one among the one hundred and eighty-seven immigrants from fifty-seven countries to be naturalized as U.S. citizen in a ceremony held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The journey had been long. Looking around me, I remembered that it was in Boston that I first tasted food from Afghanistan, Armenia, Barbados, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Guatemala, Greece, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Tibet, Vietnam.

There, I remembered that there is no life that is not constructed inside a system of constant interconnections and differences. Viruses, bacteria, cells, animals, us all: we are all connecting, we are all meeting, we are all in movement forging each other inside this plural environment. Transformation is a migration within; migration is to stay even though you leave. All of us retaining what we need and transforming.

Tracing Movements # 3

Tracing Connections - *Heloiza Barbosa, p. 112*