"American?"
"No, Gringo," said Gabriele.
Hilda laughed. "Your Spanish is excellent, as it is my English," said the woman in the world language that had been tossed from American hands out onto the denizens of the world like a net so as to pull all in one direction. She spoke in English because, although Gabriele's Spanish was functional, her vocabulary was callow with a thick American accent.
Gabriele introduced herself as Gabriela and the Mexican lady introduced herself as Hilda…de da la de Estrella. The whole name flashed before Gabriele like a Japanese bullet train (or Shinkansen). She couldn't catch much of it.
"Mucho gusto," said Gabriela.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Hilda.
"You are the first person in T.J. to speak to me in English.
"They don't know it very well. Most of them are poor so they don't go to universities none and English isn't taught so often in high schools—not well and nobody wants to learn it none. They want to know it and not know it. They don't want to lose their ways. Culture is language and they don't want Spanish to collapse like a pi-ata. In their ideas of things, the Gringos took away enough of their land—they don't want the culture to go—out would go mariachi, bull fights, Juarez Day with children in Indian feathers, Cinco de Mayo celebrations, and traditional Mexican ballads. In would come George Bush Jr. signs and the American navy ships. It is a choice like the people in Paris, France." Gabriele didn't think that there was much of a similarity between the urbane Parisians and the dust city dwellers of Tijuana but what did she know? There might be some truth to it so she kept her opinion sealed.
Hilda explained the education which allowed for her fluency in a second language. Her father, a poorly paid public defender, didn't have the money to send the youngest to college so he paid for her to study at a language school.
"Did you resent your sister getting what you couldn't have?"