THIS IS WHERE I LEARNED WHAT IT MEANS TO BE NICARGUAN AND A LATINO

I think I was maybe 15.  My grandmother would send me to buy fresh tortillas 3x a day.  Over time I was able to watch her roast the corn and grind it up for masa.  This is the day I learned about aloe vera.  She tried to teach me how to flip the tortilla with my hand. As I flipped my first my fingers touched the clay comal.  They burned.  I still waited for the order and when I showed my grandmother, she had the maid cut some aloe vera and she put it on my fingers.

The next day was the big day.  I learned how to make the tortilla puff.  When you see it is done you wet your palm and put it ever so lightly on the tortilla.  It puffs.  Then you can stuff it with gallo pinto.  It is refried rice and beans.  Or you can stuff it with cheese.

For Christmas I am buying myself a full Blackstone.  Prepping the tortillas is easy.  I do it by hand. Una tortillita para su mama, una tortillita para su ma ma. But it is a challenge only cooking 3 at a time on the stove, while people are grabbing them hot.  I think I will be able to prepare 12 at a time on the Blackstone.

You are not Nicaraguan because of a name, nor are you a Latino because of a name.  You are both by having lived it. 

If you haven't run out the door with your mother behind you with a slipper, I do not think you can understand. 

There was always rice and beans on the stove.  When asked how she did it, the answer was simple.  When you run out, you make more so there was always plenty for anyone who showed up.

Sorting the beans was something you learned early.  The little red Nicaraguan bean always came with small bugs and dirt.  Sitting at the table learning to sort them is what makes you who you are. With one hand you pushed the bean into a bowl, and with the other, you killed a bug or 2.

ONE LAST THING

I view my father's family as a New England family.  He actually tough us to distance ourselves from the English heritage because his family fled the religious persecution.  They arrived in the mid 1600's.  The local indigenous tribe taught them how to make small Johnny Cakes. We still eat them.

I love the fact from Central America we have the corn tortilla and NE the corn Johnny Cake.  

And for the record, a distant cousin, Elijah Wightman was one of the 300 who came with Stephen F. Austin.  His father Benjamin is the only known Revolutionary War veteran buried in Texas. He is buried in Matagorda. I say known, because he is recorded as part of the original settlement.  I am sure there are many more who were not recorded by name.