Money Cannot Buy Happiness

"They say that money cannot buy happiness, but poverty can absolutely rob you of it."

- Unedited quote from La Reina, by J.D. Yanez

The house my grandfather built, and the one most of us grandkids grew up in.

My grandfather passed away this past Monday. He's been sick and it was not unexpected. In fact, he'd been in long-term hospice care at home.

This home. It's not as comforting as I wish it was.

This house was grand once. Or at least, that's how I remember it. There were no cracks in the framework, no excessive amounts of trash and junk littering the yard. It was clean, and the people who lived here, belonged here. Some of us more than others, probably.

The book I'm working on right now, a paranormal horror titled, "La Reina" is very loosely based on my life. Obviously, I did not bury secrets in the dirt that turned around and came to life and subsequently haunted me and all of my friends. But, me and my siblings, along with a dozen first cousins all grew up here off and on. And we are, unfortunately, sometimes, maybe, the result of how Chicano culture in America failed us. Much like Raina, Tommy, Eddie and Lola from La Reina.

I'm not saying Chicano culture was and is inherently bad. I take pride in it, I love my background, I love my family, and I am proud of who I am. But maybe I should be more specific...

We are the product of Chicano culture; the kind that grew up in the projects, where we had little to no supervision, surrounded by violence, gangs, drugs, and abuse.

So, maybe it's not Chicano at all...maybe it's simply growing up in poverty, and on the wrong side of the neighborhood, with parents who didn't know what the fuck they were doing and did not care to fix themselves.

The 80s and 90's were a wild time. Older cousins were raging against conformity, getting into trouble, all while our mom's and dad's fell prey to drugs, alcohol, and pawned us off on our grandparents. And if you know anything about Mexican-American culture, you know that just because I said cousin, it means nothing - most of us were so close and raised in such proximity, we were practically siblings.

At any given time, our grandparents would have anywhere from six to ten grandkids or great-grandkids living with them.

My grandparents were not young either; they had six children over a fairly large span of time. For example, my mother had me in her late 30's, but my brothers were born before she turned 21. We have a 15 year age gap. Many of their children did this with their kids, and had quite a few!

How could they have possibly managed all of us under one roof?

So, while the "older boys" of the family were running around the neighborhood, repping "neighborhood pride" as the guise for a local gang, or getting into...everything - us younger kids were the witnesses. We saw it all.

Some of us copied that behavior, and were unable to get out.

Some have died, some have landed in and out of prison, unable to break a cycle.

Other's sprinted in the opposite direction and crossed their fingers they could find a normal life.

Even amongst all of ^ that ^, I still remember much of my childhood as loving and happy, when I lived here anyways. If you get a chance to read La Reina, you will see why that changes - although some of the finer details of abuse are changed for dramatics, it is still very close.

I hope that when readers finally get their hands on the stories of The Four from La Reina that they will remember not everyone grew up with white picket fences and nice neighborhoods. Some of us grew up in a world clouded in destruction and selfishness.

To be clear, I am not Raina (my primary view point character), and Raina is not me. She gets some of my baggage, however, and has had to suffer through quite a bit. I don't take that lightly. I am not into "torture corn" (read: torture porn) or anything. But I think, maybe a bit, I might be projecting my bullshit onto her.

Is it possible to project all of your trauma onto a character in order to live and let go?

If I put her story out into the world, will I finally have "my story" out there, too?

Will I finally be able to walk away, then?

Can I let it go?

Do I get to stop feeling this way?

I hope so.

I hope it was all for something. Otherwise, it was for nothing.

And that doesn't quite seem fair.