Improving the Race

by Alfredo Zaldivar (Cuba)
translated by Margaret Randall

I

Jacinto was his name a black African my grandmother’s father
who married Rosa, my white great grandmother,
that pretty girl with the long straight hair
the one in the oval portrait in the living room
beneath where my grandmother placed
the whitest flowers every day.

I never saw a picture of my great grandfather Jacinto
don’t know if there was one somewhere
maybe nobody ever photographed him.
I don’t know if he was a slave or born free.
I only heard in sotto voce that he was a black man from Africa
that the family’s dark skin came from him from over there
that he was ruthless.

Although she was born
back in 95 in the forests of Mayar
and couldn’t have known much of that war
she called herself a rebel
maybe because her father really was.
My grandmother with her white skin
thin lips and long black hair
not silky like her mother’s
but pulled back
always gathered
in a bun or braid at the nape of her neck.
My grandmother like Cecilia Vald s looked white
married a white man of Portuguese stock
and had ten children of every hue.

Indigenous looking with cinnamon skin and straight black hair.
Indigenous looking with cinnamon skin and slightly kinky hair
Some white–skinned or cinnamon who passed
others copper–colored and pigmy–haired
Some very white with frizzy hair
and others white with straight.

They could all pass for white.
We were a white family
with small stains
but white.
In our family we never talked about race
I never heard the term miscegenation or mulatto
much less the word negro.

Males and females chose their partners freely
no one ever told them who to wed
no one arranged a marriage
but they all married white women and men.
It was understood.
You had to improve the race.

II

And the family got whiter got whiter got whiter
until the little Spanish kid
who’d always shaved his head
reached adolescence and wanted long hair.
One day he scandalized the family
by coming home from boarding school with an afro.
This gives us away they said.
They told him off in no uncertain terms
Some sneered he’d released the fever
but he wore his do proudly.

And the family got whiter got whiter got whiter
until one day the little girl blond as her father
with such blue eyes and long locks
the family’s best example of whiteness
the one they displayed as living proof
discovered her curls were becoming rebellious.

From then on only the blacks in the family
with their hot combs and tongs
managed her hair.
They were the great grandchildren and great great grandchildren
of Grandfather Jacinto. That strong African black man.
They’d inherited the family’s curse.

III

All sides
in every war
against that human disaster.

Cold war against mixing the races
against that shadow that only brings decline
and tries to impose itself on a white world.
Cold war against interracial shame.

Hot war of combs and tongs against bad hair.
Days and nights in labs compounding and mixing
looking for the formula a straightener that would imitate
white people’s hair.

Enormous investment for prodigious products
capable of civilizing everyone
of putting an end to bad hair.
Economic war against blacks
almost magical substances
combs tongs electronic devices
classes in high style social pressure against bad hair.
Sophisticated hairdressers for bad hair.
Miraculous pin–curls against the curse.
All of it high class and expensive for blacks
because they must poison their bad hair.

IV

My father was supposed to marry Blanquita
that girl as white as he was her mother said.
But my father fell in love with Julia Rosa
the darkest of Jacinto’s ten grandchildren
the one everyone lovingly called La Negra.

I rarely visited my white grandmother
only accompanied my father one sad Sunday.
Not enough time to love her.
My mother and sisters never visited her home.
She never visited us.

Some of my uncles on my father’s side
were close to us and kind
their children our dear cousins
but the aunts were too white.
They never visited us.
We never visited them.
We had no time to get to know them.
My father had set the race back
the unforgivable sin.

Just before he died
at a hospital in Mayar
my mother sisters and I
stood around his bed
when the white sisters showed up.
We greeted them with the courtesy extended to strangers.
We appreciated them coming to say goodbye to my father
who loved his family so.
I saw his eyes light up when they arrived.

They looked at us one and all
examined us shamelessly.
We were proof of the crime
the stain in all its rawness
the curse they had to repudiate.

I thought they might produce a wooden cross to berate us
or cross their fingers in our devilish faces.

Then one of them whispered to another
and finally as if the only reason for their visit
pointed at the whitest of my sisters
ignoring her blond rinse
and perfect hair straightener
pronounced their verdict
— she’s the only one who takes after us.

V

They tug at me from both sides.
On one those who want to improve the race.
On the other those who don’t want to hold the race back.
And I know the same fear
that ancestral terror that eats away at both parts
the boot the whip the hunger the face–down
the banishment the disdain the orphanhood
not knowing how to be free

VI

Here I am
bound
hand and foot
enduring
waiting
for my body and their bodies
on one side and the other
to achieve
the same unanimous color.

VII

If I wear my hair short
I will look white.
If I use the hot comb
I will look white.
If I shave my head
I will look white.
If I pull my hair back and wear a wide–brimmed hat
I will look white.
If I cut my hair very short
before it begins to frizz
I’ll have pigmy hair, like my uncle called it,
but I’ll look white.
If I straighten my hair
I’ll look white
If I wear a pirate’s kerchief
I’ll look white.
If I dye my hair blond
I’ll look white.
If I sleep with a stocking on my head
I’ll look white.
If I use hair oil
I’ll look white.
I will.
Won’t I?