Learning Spanish from a Tijuana Prostitute
I was a person living two lives. I had one life in Massachusetts and another in California. Whenever I'd return to Massachusetts to see my wife, things would continue exactly where they left off. It was as if no time had passed between leaving and returning. When I was in California, things would continue exactly where they left off in California. There was no intersection between the two lives. With one exception, all friendships between the two places were completely distinct. I was politically active on both coasts and my activism on both coasts focused on the same issues. It was sometimes confusing. I had to keep reminding myself that my friends in California did not know my friends in Massachusetts and my friends in Massachusetts did not know my friends in California. At night my dreams would sometimes mix the two in a surreal place where both coasts co-existed. In my dreams my friends knew each other but in reality they did not. This state of living in two distinct worlds continued for a period of two years.
Living two lives caused me to evolve along two courses. California is very different, culturally, than Massachusetts and in time the contradictions between the two modes of being began to pile up. I was not quite sure which me was the real me. In time I came to understand that both were the real me, running in parallel. I even wrote a paper about this in a philosophy class (here). My theory is that each of us has multiple identities which intersect and interact over time and this is why our lives sometimes lead to contradictions. There is no solid "I," only multiple "I's", each embedded in a context. It is no wonder that I became fascinated with Martin Heidegger during this time and his philosophy of "Dasein" (being there). I was so perplexed by all of this that I drove one night, into the desert, found an isolated spot off of the road, and camped the night with plans to put up a tarp for shade and read Being and Time in one sitting in the silence of the desert. I did just that. I spent an entire day sitting on a beach chair in the middle of Anza- Borrego reading Being and Time. When I was finished, my view of reality had changed (and I wrote this).
However, before this point I continued to struggle with my two identities. One evening, lonely and looking for something to do, I went with two Vietnamese friends to Tijuana. We sat in a bar on Revolution Avenue and proceeded to get drunk. I think I drank more than the other two. After a couple of hours I was in an altered state. Several prostitutes had come up to us over the course of the evening attempting to find work. Of course, we rejected them but I could not help but to feel sorry for these women. They were obviously desperate and had no other way to get by. As I drank, my inhibitions began to fade and I began to talk with one prostitute when she sat down next to me. I asked her if this was her only job. She seemed a bit off-put by the question. I asked her why she sold herself for a living. She was about my age but looked a little older, perhaps from the abuse. She looked at me and told me that she was from Sinaloa. She hated Tijuana and was only there because she had children and no man to help support them. She was saving up her money and planned on returning home.
Her English was not very good, but it was good enough to carry on the conversation. I had the urge to prove to her that she could earn money doing something else. I asked her if she had any other skills but she just laughed. I looked at her and made her an offer. I told her that I had wanted to learn Spanish for some time and that I would be willing to pay her an hourly rate to teach me Spanish during the day. She thought I was pulling a scam. I told her that I was serious and that I would be willing to start tomorrow. She looked at me in disbelief but told me that she would agree to meet me and see if I showed up. We arranged to meet in front of the same bar the next day, a Sunday, at 2:00 PM. I left with my friends and we walked back, across the border, to my car and returned to San Diego.
The next morning when I awoke I had a bit of a hang over and I was unsure whether my memory of that conversation was accurate. However, I had no intention of letting her down so I did the best to get over with my hangover quickly, went to an ATM and took out thirty dollars. I decided to pay her $15.00 per hour for Spanish lessons, as that is what I would expect to pay a tutor in San Diego. I drove down to the border, parked my car, and proceeded down the foot trail to the turnstile that marked the entrance to Mexico.
It was a beautiful sunny day. I thought myself a bit weird to be doing this, but I also felt that I was doing something good. I walked over the bridge crossing the Tijuana "river", a stench filled trench of gray-water making its way to the ocean. I walked across the plaza to a side street which took me to Revolution Avenue, crossed to the other side, took a left and found the bar. I was about 10 minutes early so I stood there and waited.
She arrived a few minutes late, which was earlier than I expected. She was dressed like any other woman. Unlike the night before, she had sunglasses on so no one would recognize her. At first I thought this was strange but the reality was that prostitutes are thought of by their pimps as property and the pimps expect a cut of their earnings. She was doing what she could to make sure her pimp did not know she had another source of income.
We crossed the street and found a restaurant. Sitting across from each other there was a moment of silence as we tried to figure out how to begin. I smiled and told her that I really did want to learn Spanish (which was the truth) and that my interest was not romantic (which was also the truth). I explained to her that I was married and loved my wife. I was not meeting her for any reason other than to learn to Spanish. I made it clear that we would meet only during the day and that we would conduct our Spanish sessions in restaurants. This was my way of making sure she knew I was above board and my way of making sure nothing else would ever develop between us. She introduced herself as Rosie, pulled out some pictures of her children and showed them to me. Things got off to a good start.
I began to point to different items on the table, asking her what the word for the item was in Spanish. We went over every item on the table many times. I learned their names and she corrected my pronunciation. The waitress knew she was a prostitute and had a hard time making sense of what was going on. She came over and started a conversation with Rosie. Rosie smiled, and explained that I was her student. The waitress was amused. However, she seemed to think it was a cool idea.
After an hour in the restaurant, we strolled around Revolution Avenue and she would point to things and teach me how to pronounce their names in Spanish. She seemed truly proud of herself. After all, she was sharing knowledge with someone and this is something I think she never did before. We agreed to meet each Sunday at 2:00. In order to avoid the attention of those seeking to control her, she gave me her address and told me where her apartment was. I told her that I would pay her $15.00 per hour. It was more than she expected. She was happy. We would meet there each week and then walk to another location for Spanish lessons.
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Metamorphosis
The next week, with some trouble, I found Rosie's apartment. If my memory serves me correctly, it was on Avenida de los Heroes. It was a green, plain building with small apartments on the left side of the road, when one turned right from Revolution. I entered the dark hallway, found her door and knocked on it. No one answered. I waited for about 20 minutes and no one came. I knocked again and still there was no answer. I was a little upset and since my Spanish, at that time, was poor, I had trouble figuring out what note to leave (yes, I carried a notebook, after all, I was learning Spanish). Remembering a song by Ana Gabriel, I wrote the words the I knew that most closely resembled what I wanted to say. Even if incorrect, I figured that she would understand. So I wrote upon the note, "Como Olvidar, Steve" and left it under her door.
I went back to Revolution Avenue, wandered about for a while and decided to give it one more shot. I returned to her apartment an hour later, knocked on the door and this time she was there. She opened the door a crack, looked out and saw me and then opened the door widely. Her eye was black. A client had beaten her the night before and she had just returned from a pharmacy with some items to take care of the bruises. She told me she understood my note and offered to continue with the lessons. I asked whether she felt well enough to do so. She told me that this was not uncommon and she had gotten used to it. She really needed the money and would be happy to continue our lessons that day. So, once again with the sunglasses, she and I walked to another restaurant. We continued.
On the way she talked with me as well as she could about her life as a prostitute. I was very interested in her experiences and she was looking for someone to talk with. She explained to me that the police often harass prostitutes, demand free sex and cover up for the crimes that many clients commit against prostitutes. She also explained that she really got to keep very little of the money she earned. The greater share went to her pimp who also owned the bar. It was very important that he never learn that she was earning money on the side teaching Spanish. Her greatest desire was to get out of Tijuana and return to Sinaloa as quickly as possible.
We found a restaurant and began again. I brought a book I found for teaching Spanish. She could read but not very well. The book was not very useful. We continued, then, with conversational Spanish. She taught me how to introduce myself, how to ask for things in a restaurant, how to greet someone and so on. We reviewed what she had taught me the week before. She worked hard on my pronunciation and I was happy that this exchange was working out.
Most of all, I was happy with the gleam in her eyes. She seemed to really like what we were doing. As we left the restaurant, she asked me to accompany her to various stores in order to provide her with some level of protection. I accepted and we chatted as best we could. Upon running into a friend, Rosie introduced me and with a very proud look on her face she said, "This is Steve, he is my student." I felt a bit of a tear in my eye when I heard this. I doubt the same story could be replayed between a different Gringo and a different Tijuana prostitute. Somehow, this mutually beneficial relationship was meant to be.
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A Gringo Murders Rosie's Friend...
We continued meeting for a couple of months. In many ways, we became friends, but I also maintained some distance. I wanted the relationship to be exactly what it was, a teacher/student relationship. There were many reasons for wanting no change, the most important of which was that one of my missions was to teach Rosie that she could be more than an object for someone's pleasure or abuse. Of course, another important reason was that I was married. This later reason had been eroding in importance for some time as I resented the absence of my wife and began to believe that we would not find ourselves together once again on a permanent basis. Nevertheless, I never developed a romantic interest in Rosie.
If the life of a prostitute is much worse than most people realize, then the life of a border prostitute is much worse than most people can possibly imagine. Americans have a notion of the border that is both very asymmetric and untrue. We imagine and even believe that border crime is unidirectional: that Americans are the victims and Mexicans are the criminals. The media and the US Government do all they can to promote this false conception of reality. The truth is that Mexicans are brutalized by their border relationship with the US far more dramatically than the reverse. Some of this abuse is legal and some of it is illegal. I could go on endlessly about the injustices that Mexicans face living in a world where far wealthier people wander in and out treating the permanent residents of Mexico like trash, but there are even more serious issues. If it had not been for my friendship with Rosie, I would never have discovered what really does go on in Tijuana.
I found Rosie in mourning one day. A friend of hers had been murdered the night before by a US serviceman from San Diego who had come down to Tijuana for an evening of whoring. His thrill was to choke a prostitute to death while screwing her. He had left the hotel before anyone knew she was dead. The police were slow to act and the US serviceman had made it back to the United States before anyone could stop him. His name was unknown and all they had was a vague description.
Rosie told me that this happened frequently. American soldiers would come to town, get rowdy and commit crimes. Usually they were never caught. Moreover, more often than not, the police in Tijuana simply didn't care.
We didn't have a lesson that day. I left her to be consoled by her friends. I left feeling very angry and I began to see Americans in Tijuana in a different light. Who could know whether the guy in the bar next to you was on a mission to murder someone with impunity?
Future to visits Mexico only increased my disgust for American tourists. I began to see their visits as arrogant acts of rape against another people. Yes, most Americans visit Mexico with good intentions, but many seem to believe that they are immune from the law and immune from the customs of Mexico. Mexico, for many Americans, is seen as toilet - a place to shit and forget about having shitted. I see Mexico differently. It is no wonder that of all Latin Americans, Mexicans have the least favorable impression of us.
Knowing Rosie forever changed my attitude about prostitution. As an anarchist, I believe a person has the right to do as she or he chooses with her or his body. However, most prostitutes are desperate people involved in exploitive relationships with little hope of changing their situation. The question then must be, are they really free to choose?
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Rosie Takes a Bus Home...
We continued our student/teacher relationship for several months. One incident during those months will play an important role in another story that will intersect this one. However, understanding that event requires the context of another story and so I move that chapter to its proper place.
At the end of one of our lessons, Rosie invited me to dinner. This was the first time she had invited me to anything. She asked me to come the next week and gave me the address of a friend of hers. She told me she wanted to cook me dinner and would be inviting some friends. Since her apartment was small, she would need to use a friend's apartment instead. I asked her what the occasion was and she told me that she would soon be returning to Sinaloa and that she wanted to invite me to dinner to thank me.
I came to her friend's apartment the next week and was greeted by Rosie and two friends. Rosie prepared a wonderful meal of shrimp, rice and tomatoes. It was outstanding and we had a wonderful time talking. At the end she looked at me and said, "I want to thank you for helping me leave Tijuana. The money I earned from teaching you has allowed me to return much earlier than I planned. Because of your help I will see my children soon."
I do not know whether teaching someone had any long term effect on Rosie's life. That was the last time I saw her. Just to find out if she really did leave, I came by a few weeks later and she was gone. I sometimes wonder whether Rosie would have survived much longer in Tijuana. As I will explain in another story, it is a wonder I survived Tijuana. Whether or not our relationship had any permanent effect on Rosie's career, I will never know. However, knowing Rosie changed my life forever. In the end, I believe it changed it for the better.
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Copyright © 2004-2008, Stephen DeVoy. All rights reserved. No permission to reproduce is granted without explicit permission, in writing, of the author.
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