Losing a Dominican Mother
I went to college in 2014. I am the eldest of four kids, thus, the first to leave home. Growing up in a Latino home meant the vague expectation of pursuing higher education. In my house, our parents said if you were not working, then you were in school. My parents were not raising a bunch of bums. Mami y Papi instilled in us the importance of working for our own. If we wanted something, we had to work for it. I learned this quickly and, at the age of fourteen, had my first, legal job. But drilling college into us was so obscure, we had no idea what to expect. Secretly, this expectation was tied to moving back to my parent’s home -or near it- just to marry under the watchful eye of a stubborn father and bear a slew of grandchildren. I had a different plan for my life. I wanted to travel and meet people unlike me. That was going to be difficult under my parent's esto-no-es-hotel roof.
When I received my acceptance to college, I imagined a magical change of my family, to be enveloped with love and support. That did not happen. It is like giving a dog a jump rope and expecting that shit to double-dutch without context. My family had no real examples of how to show support. How was a dream actualized when the landscape for the dream was smeared with bills, work-worn knuckles, and welfare checks? When I showed the letter and scholarship to my mom, she just said que in total disbelief, which was quickly replaced with worry. She scowled in disapproval, te vas a convertir en lesbiana en esa escuela. Her homophobia overlooked the enormous accomplishment of being the very first person in my family to go to college, and eventually the first to receive a degree. I was disappointed but unsurprised. I was accustomed to her disapproval as our relationship had always been a difficult one. As an older child and a daughter, I faced the brunt of her beatings and first-time parenting decisions. I wanted to prove her wrong, I knew myself enough to escape esa cosa lesbiana.
My parents sent me off to college with a mini-refrigerator, forty dollars, and a brief happy birthday. That sendoff felt like a release, a weight from their life. But the first two months of college were transformational. Mami was displeased with my eagerness to be gone from home, calling me una puta y callejera. Over time, this revealed an ever-present fear for straying too far from home, an understanding of who we truly were as a family. On my first Thanksgiving home, my sisters, brother, and I shared jokes over pernil, reminiscing over family stories. We fumed over her racist comments. All the while, I missed my freedom with my friends, safe to question and celebrate our cultures. Early on, I was ready to radicalize the idea of what a supportive family meant to me.
Back at college, my friends explored their sexuality, rejecting or welcoming religion and spirituality, traveling as first-time members in their family, or breaking generational trauma in therapy. On the other hand, Mami was trying to understand eating kale, calling it cosas de gringos, and I continued to reject her idea of a life for me. When I mentioned wanting to continue my education with a doctoral degree, she said para que gastar más dinero, failing to realize a bachelor’s degree would not grant THE degree. Mami's ignorance reflected the neglect of systems refusing to represent us in the world, forcing our people to believe the world did not have more to offer us. We were seen as unworthy or incapable of being excellent. Recognizing this catapulted taking back my education to fuel my future, to pave my path informed by my passion, distinct from what was expected of me.
By sophomore year of college, I was bitter and lonely in a white-serving institution, not quite invested in my success. I prepared to transfer back to a New York school to be around Latinos. One night, I had a painful migraine and called my Mami. I never called her when I felt any emotion, it was new for me to even recognize I was feeling anything. But I was depressed. At home, emotions were not welcomed, so everyone expressed themselves in anger. When I told her about my schoolwork, part-time jobs, volunteering, or the lack of Dominican cheese in the stores, she was silent. There was nothing in her survival kit to help me navigate whiteness and institutions. But eventually, I adjusted and made the best out of that experience.
Inevitably, the boyfriend question popped up. Mami’s nagging over when I was going to find a boyfriend made me anxious to bring anyone home. She always asked me y el novio? I told her I was too busy with work, school, internships, and socializing with friends, but she would scoff and remind me I was going to get too old. She held onto the picturesque wedding she often relayed to me and my sisters (my brother was never part of these conversations). She visualized me in a sleek, beautifully laced gown with a tall Dominican man.
When I came out to my mom, I was twenty years old. April 1. I was living with friends in an apartment in Baltimore when I just felt the urge to come clean. My partner and I had been dating for about four months, too soon in my book, but it felt serious. I called my mom in the evening. The ringing of the phone enclosed my throat in a chokehold. Te tengo que decir algo, Mami. Que, she asked seriously. I was odee scared. My feet pulsed with heat as the world turned, dangling me by my ankles. Estoy con Andreina, ella es mi novia, I finally spit out. Tu ta jugando Cynthia, tu ta jugando. And I almost took it back. It was April Fools. This was just a joke. But it was not. She cries and slams the phone, picks it up and screams, cómo me puedes hacer esto Cynthia, ¿cómo? Trajiste a esa marichacha a mi casa. ¿Cómo me puedes hacer esto Cynthia?
Was I a masochist for staying on the phone, for taking this beating? Was I also a marimacha? I cried and sweated. Nothing could have prepared me for Mami's tears. This feeling of betrayal. What had I done? My dad hopped on the phone, screaming, what is it? My mom cried in the background while I told him, Andreina is my girlfriend. He was stunned and yelled, so? I love you anyway, your mom is just crazy. I was shocked with grief. My dad, who I never connected with, still loved me. But my mom was still screaming at my sister, tú lo sabias? Finally, she picked back up the phone and cried, tu eres una puta lesbiana y no te quiero ver nunca más, before hanging up. I collapsed into my tiny bedroom and screamed. My friends who were just outside my door burst in and held me. The tears ran in streams down my neck, blood-red with the rejection of my mother. Suddenly, I was in a car, still crying, my friend breaking the gas pedal to get me to the only place that felt safe. To Andreina. When I arrived, I broke down into her arms and poured myself onto the cold tile floor of the computer hall. I cried until my knees were weak. I cried for my strength. I cried for my loss.
Living a full life meant being honest to those who loved me. Being open to my parents was a huge step because it meant I could take control of my life. It was an acceptance of my being. I did not want to lie because that was depriving my sense of self, which was connected to loving myself fully and felt impossible as someone who faced abuse. I promised myself the space to feel all my emotions and live guilt-free.
It has been five years since that night. Occasionally, I am filled with moments of joy at choosing a life free from mami’s glare. Other times, my heart sinks with envy for others’ relationships with their mothers. I fear never speaking to her, never bringing my partner over for noche buena, missing the yearly family barbeque at Crotona Park, or never having my children meet their abuela. The world does not prepare you for the loss of a living parent. I thought things would be different. She was part of a generation that began conversations of revolutionary change. Mami was a fangirl of the multitalented Nuyorican salsero, Willie Colón who released a revolutionary song in 1989 entitled “El Gran Varon.” I thought her love for that song was a recognition of accepting people as they come, a clear step toward a progressive household. She sang the solemn lyrics, commenting on the need to love and accept children. Though, seemingly, this does not apply to her life. The America we grew up in was only a mere glimpse of the vast possibilities. The thin vein that encased our experience as Dominicans in New York watered-down opportunity for learning and growth.
My mami's rejection has not dampened the future. Our relationship will never be the same. Attending college came with more than a degree. It came with rethinking lessons taught by my parents. It came with rejecting the covert, misogynistic performance of my role as a woman that contradicted the development of self. Mami’s expectation of her children pursuing a college degree did not come with a growing consciousness of identity. As a dominicana, questioning one's culture and challenging family matters is a form of rejecting la familia, and family is sacred. However, dismantling internalized racism, misogyny, and homophobia supports individual liberation to break the cycle. Although my grief strikes at unexpected moments, I am redefining what it means to be a daughter and, ultimately, a good mother. I am relearning how to connect with my family without having my mom in my life. Ultimately, I have grown to accept my decisions because they have helped improve the damaged, traumatized, judgmental parts of myself.
In many ways, the loss of Mami has opened new possibilities in the ways I define and show love. It has helped shape a network of support unlike what I experienced growing up where pain was belittled, tears were weak, and anger placed us in a chokehold. It has empowered me to seek therapy and work through my recent diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder and clinical depression. Losing my mami comes with choosing happiness as part of a proud, wholesome community that honors, cherishes, and loves me just as I am and continue to become.
-Cynthia Román
Cynthia Román Cabrera is a Dominican and Puerto Rican native Bronx, New Yorker. She employs poetry to explore identity, cityscapes, culture and generational trauma. Her work involves her community to foster personal growth, vulnerability, and communal accountability. As someone who has lived in various marginalized communities, her poetry reflects the impact of larger systems meant to cause harm. Her experiences as a scholar, broke girl, comelona, reader, advocate, and queer person in love help shape and transform her work.