All-American Family: Fine Young Cannibals

Friday, October 1, 2010

Fine Young Cannibals

When I was no more than 7 or 8 years old, there was this one place in my hometown we used to drive by all the time en route to other places. The building had mission-style architecture and its sign had Spanish/Mexican-style tilework. Sometimes there'd be small crowds of nicely dressed people hanging around outside the main doors. To me, it seemed like it must be a pretty happenin' place, so as we drove by one evening, I asked my family about it.

Callie: How come we never go to that Mexican restaurant? It looks nice.

Mom: What restaurant are you talking about? There's no Mexican restaurant around here.

Callie (pointing): That one.

Mom (freaking out): Ayyyyyyy! Dios mio! That's Santos Robinson Mortuary!

Callie (totally confused as to why she's freaking out): It's . . . not a good restaurant?

Mom: Do you KNOW what MORTUARY means?

Callie: I thought he was Mr. Santos and Mr. Robinson's friend . . . who runs the restaurant with them?

And that was the night I found out that no, Virginia, there's no "Señor Mortuary."

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What's This All About?

I'm part of an all-American family. We're multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-regional, multi-denominational, and multiple levels of whacked.

The cast of all-too-real characters:

Pops - Our family patriarch and a foreign-born American citizen. He spent the first half of his life in the Philippines and the second half in the U.S. Now he spends half the year in PI with my step-mother and half in the States with his kids.

Chelsea - My sister, who's seven years my senior and a justifiably proud (and frequently exasperated) mother of two. She's had a ton of Latin cultural influences in her life. Oh, and Pilipino. And Hawaiian. And Italian. And Korean. And Japanese. And . . .

Alex - Chelsea's teenage son. Aka: Your Son, Your Nephew, Your Grandson, Darth Alejandro (when it's been more than 90 minutes since he's been fed), and Chuckles (when he's been fed lots of sushi). Alex is Pilipino, Spanish, Irish, Mexican, Native American, and Goofball. Among other things, he's really talented at taekwondo, which accounts for all the Korean influences in our family.

Jon - Chelsea's youngest son (there's a nine year age difference between Jon and Alex) who's got the same super-talkative gene that I was born with. He's following in his kuya's (big brother's) footsteps in taekwondo. His favorite foods are anything Japanese or Indian, and pizza, and he's very proud of his burgeoning Spanish-speaking skills.

Calvin - Chelsea's and my happily married younger brother. Between Pops, his wife, his best friend, and work, Calvin's got his toes in the Pilipino, Chinese, Brazilian, and Mexican cultures. But his religion is kiteboarding.

Nikki - Calvin's wife, who has spent plenty of time with all of the members of her husband's family and (to our immense collective shock) hasn't relocated to a bunker in the wilds of Montana to get away from us. I'm pretty sure she's going to be sainted during her lifetime.

Me (Callie) - Let's just say that I'm a Pilipino-Spanish-Irish Northern California native who transplanted herself to SoCal for more than a decade and whose three dearest friends are (in no particular order) Vietnamese, Brazilian, and Caucasian. Oh, and I neither look nor sound Pilipino, Spanish, or Irish.