Downey, Mi Amiga Vieja

Christmastime at Stonewood Center. (Courtesy photo)

DOWNEY – My formative days in Downey spanned from the late 70’s through the early 2000’s. I witnessed its transition from skate town to the “Cuban Malibu without Mel Gibson and the beach.”

My mother was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, and my father was from San Turce, Puerto Rico. They met at the Hollywood Palladium on Salsa Night, scouting lovers when they were teenagers. Legend has it my father was taken by my mother’s red hair, freckles, and alabaster skin – she was a Mexican Lucille Ball. My mother dug his “island blue eyes” and Chiclet smile. Together they looked like golden age movie stars.

Unlike my Mexican mother, my Puerto Rican father wasn’t technically an immigrant, but he certainly felt like one. (He had the privilege of being the product of the only US territory to be allowed to fight for our president but not allowed to vote for him.) My parents’ bond and attraction were one that many Latinx Los Angeleno couples from the 1950’s shared. To improve and surpass their parents’ experience. To either rebel against their limited dreams or make them proud. They knew they could be better off than their own parents without a college education.

Downey was Emerald City (with its own police station, fire station, civic center, and decent public schools). To start and raise a family of their own in Downey would be the ultimate American triumph - a universe away from east 40th Place where my mother grew up, and the suburban safe haven my father only saw in television shows.

I grew up in a two-story off of Mattock and Florence around the block from Karen and Richard. My mother knew them as the famous Carpenters, I knew them as the family that gave away dollar bills and giant Heath Bars on Halloween.

One year, my bestie, Jesse Morales, (another light eyed Latinx) came up with a brilliant scheme. We would acquire as much Carpenters loot as possible with more costume changes ready than a Lady Gaga concert. Luckily, the Carpenters never caught on and we made $18! That was enough cash to afford a Gremlins movie poster from Country Spice, a small Farrell’s hot fudge sundae, a ride on the Little Indie Racers at Golf & Stuff, and a half day at Skate-O-Rama with a few arcade quarters to spare.

Q*bert was my “go to” game and my all-time fave rink ballad was Lionel Richie’s “Penny Lover”. Of course, my sister, Athena, (who was 11 years older than me and by all accounts the coolest punk rock girl in North Downey) would be our chaperone and insist we pay for her Berlinetta’s unleaded.

We lived in the kind of house that belonged in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie mixed with a little Tim Burton. My mother’s extensive LLadró collection and blue velvet furniture were her most prized possessions. The living room was off limits - roped off to prevent any dirty fingerprints from getting on the bowl of butterscotch disc candy and wax fruit displays. I would have to practice my Puttin’ on The Hits audition in front of our rock fireplace. It was spacious and elevated and became my “go to” rehearsal space whenever I had pilot auditions. I’d throw slumber parties on our shaggy yellow carpets directly underneath the cottage cheese ceiling adorned with a crystal chandelier and learned how to swim in our pool shaped like Mickey Mouse’s head. I thought we were the most exotic family since the Medici’s.

Downey is where I honed my craft of mimicking. From the quirky music aficionado clerk at Middle Earth records and my middle-aged dentist (with an elaborate comb over, who wore braces and a head gear) to the bitter, blue-haired cooks at Hollander’s Cafeteria, Downey was a unique combo of an immigrant ‘Our Town’ existence just a stone’s throw from Hollywood. I could smell the grease paint 10 miles up the 110. To become a child actor made a whole lot of sense to me. My parents especially loved the idea of their weirdest, aggressively unabashed daughter pursuing one of the most unpredictable livelihoods known to man.

We lost my father in a tragic manner when I was 19. He had proudly created a flourishing lithography business from the ground up in his warehouse space near downtown Los Angeles, with my madre as his second in command and his loyal, colorful workers. His passing was a great loss to everyone who knew him. Mom chose to stay and cherish the home they made together. I processed my loss by literally acting out playing Latinx prison inmates, Spanish exchange students, and the cheery best friend in rom coms. Finding the myriad voices in my expressive mind all of which percolated in Downey.

I saw my mother take her last breath on February 1st of this year in that very same house of her dreams on Lesterford. She was diagnosed with an incredibly aggressive cancer diagnosis and died three months later. We celebrated her 81st birthday on January 27th with an all-female mariachi group that played her favorite Mexican ballads at her bedside (La Bruja and La Llorona to name a few). After sharing her small plate of chicken, tostones, white rice and black beans from Havana Cafe, she had the calm of someone saying “goodbye.” Not just “goodbye” to her daughters, her cousins, her chihuahua, “Bonita”. But to the home and the town that saw her become a wife, a mother, an entrepreneur, a Catholic Republican, an agnostic Democrat, an avid reader, an art collector, a widow, a grandmother, and a force that I will never be without.

I carry my family’s legacy like a badge of honor and hold this town in my heart and marrow. It always kept me feeling safe, comforted, welcomed, embraced, and understood. Naturally, we all must leave at some point, but I know I can always come back for pozole at Yoli’s or a Pieloon omelet.

I drove by our house on Lesterford last week. We sold it immediately after mom passed. Repainted a tasteful beige with brown trim. The lawn manicured and modern with succulents and potted bonsai. The windows adorned with French shutters. A kid’s scooter in the driveway. Same neighbors. And as I turned onto the Lakewood on-ramp heading back to my home in Los Angeles, my husband, mom’s dog, and her only grandchild, Tomacito, I waved. She waved back.

Downey, mi amiga vieja.