Miami: SED Ediciones. 2024. 208 pages.
At one moment, in La vida papaya en Nueva York, writer Ulises Gonzales recalls the chorus of a jingle: “venga, venga el sabor de Inca Kola, que da la hora en todo el Perú, la hora Inca Kola…” [come, come, the flavor of Insta Kola, which sets the time throughout Peru, Inca Kola time…]. The song, tightly tied to that product, a dubious gum-flavored potion bought by a multinational company, takes him to his native Lima and an early childhood that has disappeared.
In that nostalgic journey there is a wide repertoire of stories that echo others experienced on US soil. Soon after we start reading this book of personal chronicles and essays, it becomes clear that Lima represents the past as much as so many other streets in the city of New York do: the person remembering is now a mature man—Gonzales arrived in the US in November of 2000—someone who, he confesses, writes to understand, “to see everything clearer.”
What is he able to see clearer? On the one hand, the testimony of a noble sentimental education stimulated by the myth of an ever-transforming city, even though we can deduce that the countercultural splendor faded decades before; on the other hand, the power of a creative life.
These nonfictional texts read like a novel where the main character, together with a wide group of different characters, traverses different realities. In this case, the representation of his country is associated with a sector of the population that works unabatedly to pay for private schools and health insurance, and that devotes a great part of their time to battling against a system that is meant to expel them:
Se me ocurre que la clase social peruana no sólo explica montos de dinero en las cuentas, sino más bien las posibilidades de mantenerse a flote: las oportunidades, la educación, las palancas para abrir puertas y conseguir trabajos, cierta facilidad en el plano social para ocupar puestos públicos y para gobernar. […] “Clase media”, en el mundo, puede referirse a tantas cosas. Depende del país, de la ciudad, incluso del barrio. En el Perú, ese término también abarca a sobrevivientes, a quienes, casi sin dinero, se agarran con las uñas a ciertas condiciones de vida.
[It occurs to me that Peruvian social class does not just explain the amount of money in accounts. Above all, it explains possibilities of staying afloat: opportunities, education, the leverage to open doors and get jobs, relative ease at the social level of attaining public offices and governing. […] “Middle class”, in the world, can refer to so many things. It depends on the country, the city, even the neighborhood. In Peru, that term also includes survivors, who, almost out of money, cling on to certain living conditions for dear life.]
In contrast, the myth of a United States where everything is possible emerges. New York is always a promise that only asks for a different type of sacrifice in return: one carrying a lot of tangible hope. Even though he had some texts published in Lima, Ulises Gonzales became a writer in foreign land. Whether we like it or not, this reality aligns with the narrative of the American dream.
“Each of these collected texts is a stimulating footprint of the traveler who, in existential wandering, leaves in his trail a portrait of the era befalling him”
However, in the adventure of hurdles and achievements there is no room for vanity. The only possible response to tough years is to pull through:
Mi primer trabajo consistía en abrir la tranca eléctrica de un estacionamiento, en un edificio de consultorios médicos en White Plains. Después me contrató Andrew, un gordo bueno de apellido italiano, al que se le caían los pantalones cuando corría a estacionar los autos y se le veía el poto. Trabajé para él hasta el 2015, estacionando carros, metido en una pequeña caseta dentro del club de golf más antiguo de los Estados Unidos. Los viernes empezaba a trabajar a las 8 de la mañana. Me levantaba en Brooklyn a las 4 para poder tomar el metro y luego el tren de cercanías que me llevaba a White Plains. Desde White Plains tomaba un autobús hasta Elmsford, a la esquina de White Plains Road con la Interestatal 287. Desde ahí caminaba 15 minutos hasta el club de golf.
[My first job consisted of opening the automatic security gates at a parking lot located in a building housing doctors’ offices in White Plains. After that, I was hired by Andrew, a kind, chubby man with an Italian last name, whose pants would drop showing his butt when he was running to park cars. I worked with him until 2015, parking cars, confined to a small little house inside the oldest gulf club in the United States. On Fridays, I would start working at 8am. I would wake up at 4am in Brooklyn to be able to take the metro and local trains getting me to White Plains. From White Plains, I would take a bus to Elmsford, at the corner of White Plains Road and Interstate 287. From there, I would walk 15 minutes to get to the golf club.]
La vida papaya en Nueva York has a style that reasserts itself in the retelling of everything, which sets its own rhythm, serene and reflective, probably ideal in a city delineated by intimate experiences: “Fui un tipo muy inseguro hasta que nacieron mis hijos. Ellos me hicieron mejor persona” [I was a very insecure guy until my kids were born. They made me a better person].
Each of these collected texts is a stimulating footprint of the traveler who, in existential wandering, leaves in his trail a portrait of the era befalling him. Spanish writer Sara Cordón reflects: “Para Ulises Gonzales, New York no es la estereotípica gran manzana, sino una fruta desmesurada, carnosa, hispana. Una ciudad compleja y hostil a la que consigue sacar el jugo, haciéndola más leve, más deliciosa y disfrutable: más papaya” [For Ulises Gonzales, New York is not the stereotypical Big Apple. It is an excessive, fleshy, Hispanic fruit. It is a complex and hostile city out of which he manages to get the most, making it lighter, more delicious and enjoyable: more papaya].
Translated by Adriana Vega
