On Being Latina a Long Way From Home

I found out that the Mexican singer Juan Gabriel died through a Univision news alert on my phone. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was wandering through Eastern Market in D.C., stopping here and there to look at jewelry or taste some fruit. My phone buzzed, and when I saw the headline I stopped short, surprised by my sudden intake of breath, by the scramble in my brain. “I have to call my mom,” I thought.

I didn’t call her. I waded through the initial fuzz of confusion and denial to find a deep and strange sadness that I did not expect and could not explain. On my walk home, I searched Spotify for my first favorite song, one of the slow, beautiful duets Juanga was famous for doing with the Spanish singer Rocío Durcal. It’s called “El Destino” (“Destiny”), and features a melody so deeply familiar to me that I feel like my dreams are soaked in it. The next morning, on the metro on my way to work, I played it again. It became the background music to my commutes, then my leisurely weekend walks, then my errands. I carried it all over the city with me, suddenly seeing places differently.