Seven Quick Takes-- Selena, Quinceaneras, and Tacos

A  life sized statue on an altura at the local Dia de los Muertos festival in Corpus Christi TX

I'm joining the "Seven Quick Takes" posts over at This Ain't the Lycium by Kelly Mantoan. Check out her blog, she's been writing a lot longer than I have, and her writing is awesome. :)

The area of Texas where I live is situated almost exactly two hours east and thee hours north from the Mexican border, and on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. Far enough from Mexico to be very American, but close enough that the influence is inescapable.

As a result, the culture here is very much its own thing. Here's seven unique quirks of life where I live.

1.) I live near the only city in the United States, and possibly the world, named after the Eucharist. 

Corpus Christi Cathedral, copyright Corpus Christi Caller Times

A few hundred years ago, a Spanish explorer by the name of Alanzo Alverez de Pineda discovered a bay on what is now the coast of Texas of the feast of Corpus Christi. The bay eventually gained a port that spawned a city, and we now have the city of Corpus Christi TX.

Still and quote from The Cherokee Kid

This leads to seeing signs like, "The Jewish Community Center of Corpus Christi" and unfortunate mental images like the ones summoned by 'Korpus Krispy' ad campaign adopted by the local Krispy Kreme doughnut shops.

I mean...a crispy corpus (body)? Did anyone actually think that through?

Seriously, this is all I can think of when I hear that. 

The area was initially settled in the 1700s by Catholic missionaries from Spain (you can still see the ruins of an old mission in Refugio, a small town about 45 minutes away from the city), and still retains a lot of Catholic culture and identity. Tons of Catholic churches everywhere with a wide variety of mass times (one even has mass at 7pm Sunday evenings).


2.) ANYTHING for Selenas...

If you don't know who Selena is, you're almost definitely not from Corpus. Even if you're whiter than paper, you know who she is and can sing at least a line or two of one of her songs.

Selena Quintanilla was a Tejano music star who lived in Corpus and was murdered by her fan club manager in 1995. Among fans, she was, and remains, a huge deal. Her fan base remains strong not only in South Texas, but also in several Latin American countries-- I know people in their teens and twenties from Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize who listen to her music and idolize her. There's a memorial with her statue in downtown Corpus that's often festooned with white roses (her favorite flower) during holidays, and there's a festival downtown called Fiesta de la Flor in her honor every year.

If you want to understand South Texas, watching a few of her (very campy) music videos and watching the movie Selena (starring Jennifer Lopez) is a pretty decent place to start. (It's practically mandatory viewing in our high school Spanish classes).

3.) BBQ Fundraisers

Does your parish need a new hall?

Fire up the smokers and sell some BBQ.

Want to do a fundraiser to help pay for a family member's funeral, breast cancer treatments, or to help someone recover from a house fire?

BBQ fundraiser. Start smoking that brisket or those chicken leg quarters. Heck, do both.

Need to raise money for your little league team or scout troop?

I know of a place you can get some mesquite wood for your smoker.

Pretty much every Saturday, you can find one of these happening somewhere in town for some worthy cause. And the food is usually REALLY good too-- almost always smoked (as opposed to grilled) and served with beans, Spanish rice, a couple slices of bread, and some pickles and onion.


4.) Spanish is Spoken Everywhere- but Not by Everyone You'd Think

It's fairly common to overhear a spirited conversation in Spanish at the grocery store, in the back of church, at the post office, in line at the DMV, or pretty much any public place. The population of South Texas is majority Hispanic and was once part of Mexico, so there's been Spanish spoken here since the first Spanish Padres came and started teaching it to the Native Americans. There are people here who have immigrated from Mexico, but the majority have always lived here, and their ancestors have lived here since before America was discovered by the Europeans.

Despite the Latin American cultural influence, this part of Texas is still very much part of America. Weirdly enough, many people who look like they should be fluent Spanish speakers can't speak any Spanish at all. My husband is a very white high school teacher at a school where 80% of the students enrolled are of Hispanic heritage. Yet he can speak more Spanish than most (though by no means all) of them. Down here, just because someone has brown skin, black hair, and has a last name like Peña doesn't mean they speak fluent, or even any, Spanish.

5.) Tacos. Raspas. Fruit Cups. Fajitas.  TACOS. 

Now, before I say any more, I need to clarify something. South Texas does NOT have Mexican food.

We have Tex-Mex.

It is its own regional culinary style, with its own traditions, recipes, and ingredients. There may be some overlap (for example, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the candies and desserts popular here are imported from or commonly found in Mexico), but there's a lot that's unique to Texas.

Tacos are THE breakfast food here, and everyone eats them.

Now, when I say tacos, I don't mean this--

In South Texas, a taco generally means this--

A flour tortilla wrapped around eggs with beans, bacon, chorizo, or potatoes (or all of the above if you're feeling really hungry), often eaten with salsa or pico de gallo. They are AMAZING, and I am drooling even just writing about them. There are also dinner tacos, which are filled with fajitas or with carne guisada (a thick, spicy beef stew).

As a side note, a strange local food quirk is that people are obsessed with sour dill pickles, especially during hot weather. A big sour pickle with your popcorn when you go to the movie theater is a must. Pickle raspas ('snow cones' in Spanish) are very popular during the summer. One of the biggest sellers at our local high school's football game concession stand are 'pickle pops', or pickle juice frozen in small condiment containers and sold for 50 cents each.

I could go on about the food here for hours, but as this is a quick takes post, I should probably just leave it at that.

6.) Brand Loyalty Bordering on Fanatical 

There are two brands that command the unwavering loyalty of everyone who lives in South Texas, and we will defend them to the death (seriously, it's a little ridiculous).

The first is Whataburger, a hamburger restaurant. The food there is good, they cook everything to order and pride themselves on quality, but the loyalty goes beyond that. Even though the company has restaurants all over the southern half of the country, it was founded here in Corpus, and people see it as an integral part of the landscape and part of their local heritage. I have heard of people having their engagement photo shoot in a Whataburger. There are T-shirts, Christmas ornaments based on the special order stickers, and those re-usable shopping bags that you can buy. People have Whataburger tattoos.

 This satire article from The Onion is actually pretty stinkin' accurate. (And here's the local reaction to it, which kind of just goes to prove the point).

The second brand loyalty that we will defend to the death is HEB, a local grocery store chain found only in Texas and Mexico and based out of San Antonio.

It really, really is. 

They have a near monopoly on the grocery market in Corpus (the only major competitors are Wal-Mart and Sam's Club), but it's well earned. The store brand items are as good or better than the name brands. They have a reputation of treating their customers well, but perhaps more importantly, they also have a reputation of treating all their employees well. They also do a TON for the local community-- participating in local parades, hosting holiday events and school supply drives, and, in our area, hosting a huge free holiday dinner at the local event center free of charge to anyone who wants to come.

And the prices are actually pretty decent too (compared to Wal-Mart's and the prices at the stores I've seen in San Antonio).

Not my meme, found this online. 

After hurricane Harvey, HEB gave a ton to the community by sending out mobile kitchens to serve the cleanup crews and people still in the area, being the first grocery chain to re-open stores in the Houston area after the storm (a pretty big deal-- most people don't keep a lot of food in their houses, and people were beginning to get desperate), and selling their food darn near at cost in the hardest hit areas (a loaf of bread went on sale for 10 cents each). If that wasn't enough, they then proceeded to send two trucks full of supplies to Florida (a state where they don't have any stores) after hurricane Irma.

So Texans are very loyal to HEB, especially in south and east Texas, because the company evidently feels a responsibility to their communities rather than just seeing them as a cash cow. They understand that they're in a relationship with the communities that they sell to, and that comes through in spades both ways.

Actually a pretty good business model, if you ask me.

7.) "Subtle" is Nonexistent 

People here don't do pastels or subtlety. Clothing fashions down here are brightly colored and BIG... toddlers with neon hair bows near the size of their heads (actually a huge business down here, there are entire shops that sell only ribbon for making bows and mums to wear at homecoming football games), men with cowboy boots and belt buckles as big as smart phones, and women with huge, brightly colored chunky jewelry and brightly colored blouses. Christmas decorations are almost NEVER elegant, understated affairs-- the rule of the day is the more brightly colored lights, the better. If you can add an animontronic Santa, speakers playing Christmas carols, or create a life sized nativity in your yard complete with live animals, so much the better.

No where else is this complete absence of subtlety better seen than in the average quinceanera.

Looks like a wedding-- but isn't.  

When a Latina girl turns 15, it's traditional for her family to throw her a quinceanera as a right of passage. After a quinceanera, a girl is no longer a little girl, but has begun to be a woman. 

There's a mass with traditional prayers and blessings (including presenting roses to a statue of Our Lady and asking her intercession) followed by a HUGE party that rivals a wedding reception (complete with a huge hall, a big cake, and dancing headed by a band or a DJ. Sometimes there's a mariachi band there too). In fact, many families will tell their daughters that they will either pay for a quinceanera OR their wedding, but not both. Families will commonly ask people important in the girl's life to be sponsors, or padrinos and pay for parts of the ceremony and reception. 

Anglo girls probably won't have a quinceanera, but they will definitely attend several, and will probably serve as a dama (an attendant similar to a bridesmaid, complete with the matching dresses and walking down the aisle) at least once. It's a huge, HUGE part of being a high school student here. 

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Gosh, it was actually really hard to keep this list to just seven things. I didn't even get to Dia de Los Muertos (the local observation of All Soul's Day--- HUGE deal), Buc Days, Baseball (rivals football down here, oddly enough), or the beach life down here. Or the fact that family is treasured here-- I've never, EVER gotten a dirty look while dealing with a rowdy kid, and I've actually had waitresses in restaurants jump in to help while I was dealing with a baby and a toddler.

South Texas is very much my home. It has its problems, but the culture and the passion of the people here for their families, and just for living life in general, makes it one of the best places in the world to live.


Be sure to check out the other quick takes for this week on Kelly's blog. :)