My Abuela's Comal

The first time I met my Abuela’s comal, I was eight.

I watched my mother, my stern-faced Abuela, and that black iron plate as they made tortillas for dinner. Flour floated in the air like fog. My mother’s hair stuck to her cheeks with sweat.

But it was my Abuela that held my attention. Without hesitation she reached into the fire, pinched the blistering tortillas, and flipped them.

Steam kissed her wrist and fingers but she never flinched.

The woman was untouchable. Small, gray, dusted white with flour, she moved as if she’d been born from the heat itself.

“Here, mijita. You try.”

But I couldn’t do it. Every time I reached for a tortilla the dough tore, the steam inside and the heat from the comal crisped my fingers.

“Ay dios mio!” She laughed, “No no, like thiiiiiis!” And she showed me, over and over again: flip, fold, nest. Each tortilla disappearing into a pile of damp kitchen towels.

I looked at her hands, calloused and worn and then down at my own— Soft, red welts already appearing on my fingertips.

In that moment, I hated that comal.

----------------------------------------------------

When I was sixteen we paid a coyote to help us travel to the United States.

“Here,” my mother said, passing me a pack that clanked as it hit the ground at my feet. Out of the corner of the canvas bag I saw it, a long black cast iron handle.

My fingertips began to ache.

We walked through the desert for three days. The sun overhead cooking everything around us.

I was still a child; I didn’t understand why we needed to leave our home in Mexico, the sun was just as hot in Arizona as it was at home, why did we need to leave?

As we marched through the desert I felt that comal grow heavier and heavier with every step. I begged, over and over to just let me drop it.

But my mother wouldn’t let me.

I hated that comal. I hated its weight, hated that I had to carry it across the desert. Hated that this march meant a new life in a new country.

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I'm 32 now. My accent has softened unlike my hands.

“Like this, Mija!” I say to my own daughter. “You have to flip them fast so you don’t burn your fingers.”

“Mom, this is dumb. We can buy these at the grocery store. Besides, I hate tacos. Can’t we just get McDonald's?”

I look over at my Abuelita’s comal and then I look at my hands. I find the callouses, the tough white scarred areas.

I reach down and gently rest my fingers on the warm cast iron. For a moment, I can almost feel my grandmother's hands guiding mine, reaching into the fire together.

I close my eyes and in that moment, I understand.

I love this comal.

*********Author's Note**********

This story is based in truth. My grandmother was a Mexican immigrant. She spent her childhood in Mexico before moving to the United States where she met another immigrant, this one from Europe. Ignoring the language barrier, the two started a family in the late 1960's and raised six children, five girls and one boy. My grandmother became a CNA— the first in a long line of medical professionals and one of the inspirations for my own career path.

In America's current social climate I am uniquely fortunate.

I am just one generation removed from a life in Mexico or Hungary, yet I have Caucasian features and navigate this world as a white male. I am fortunate because as my country slips into dangerous xenophobic ways I, and my children, don't have to be afraid that we'll be stopped on the street and interrogated about our country of origin. We don't have to worry about being caged at "Alligator Alcatraz" while we wait to be shipped to a country we have no immediate connection to, or a country we fear.

It is my personal belief that every immigrant that comes to the United States enriches the cultural tapestry we share. I grew up hearing that the United States was a great melting pot.

I don't feel that right now.

My grandmother finally obtained her US citizenship a couple of years before she passed. Her ashes are scattered at the base of the Superstition Mountains, in the desert she loved, in the country she loved.

A country that, right now, would have hated her.