Part II, Chapter 1: "Mericans" by Sandra Cisneros

We're waiting for the awful grandmother who is inside dropping pesos into la ofrenda box before the altar to La Divina Providencia. Lighting votive candles and genuflecting.

We're waiting for the awful grandmother who is inside dropping pesos into la ofrenda box before the altar to La Divina Providencia. Lighting votive candles and genuflecting.

Blessing herself and kissing her thumb. Running a crystal rosary between her fingers.

There are so many prayers and promises and thanks-be-to-God to be given in the name of the husband and the sons and the only daughter who never attend mass. It doesn't matter. Like La Virgen de Guadalupe, the awful grandmother intercedes on their behalf.

There are so many prayers and promises and thanks-be-to-God to be given in the name of the husband and the sons and the only daughter who never attend mass. It doesn't matter. Like La Virgen de Guadalupe, the awful grandmother intercedes on their behalf.

There are armies of penitents carrying banners and flowered arches while musicians play tinny trumpets and tinny drums.

There are armies of penitents carrying banners and flowered arches while musicians play tinny trumpets and tinny drums.

I've already made up my mind to be a German when Keeks swoops past again, this time yelling, "I'm Flash Gordon. You're Ming the Merciless and the Mud People."

Why do churches smell like the inside of an ear? Like incense and the dark and candles in blue glass?

The awful grandmother knits the names of the dead and the living into one long prayer fringed with the grandchildren born in that barbaric country with its barbarian ways.