Don Lolo was not his real father.
As soon as his mother admitted this to him, Pop and his brother Chico (who actually is Don Loloâs son, and has the short stature and big ears to prove it) had set off on a trip into the mountains to find the man who used to live next door to them. And they succeeded. Pop said it was amazingâthe guy was six foot two, with my dadâs same hair, same face, same green eyes. âChico couldnât believe itâhe looks exactly like me!â Pop crowed. âHeâs ninety-six now, but heâs all put together. He looks real good.â The manâs name was Luis Cortez, and when Pop explained who he was and asked Mr. Cortez if perhaps he was his real father, the old man smiled and nodded.
It was touching how excited and happy my father sounded about all of thisâalmost proud. When I pointed out to him that this meant that technically he was a Cortez, not a Soto, he started laughing. Of course, this also means that we should all be named Cortez, not Sotoâincluding my mother. As if I wasnât already confused enough about my identityâ¦
F OR YEARS I have struggled with a feeling of anxiety about falling between the cracks when it comes to the big traditional categories in life. On the reservation as a child I was a half Puerto Rican among pure Navajos; and on the reservation as a grown man I am an outsider from New York. As a teenager in New York I was a half Navajo, half Latino in the predominantly white world of Balanchineâs ballets, and a neophyte in a high society of worldly sophisticates. But my confusion about my mix of cultures and heritages and life experiences, and the loneliness and feelings of displacement that have sometimes weighed me down over the years, seems to be growing less oppressive the more I learn. I suppose in an age when our forty-fourth president, Barack Hussein Obama, can casually refer to himself as a âmutt,â we may even begin to find reasons to celebrate blended blood.
There have been moments in my dance career when people have pointed to my humble beginnings and saluted me as someone who has accomplished a great deal against great odds. This seems ludicrous to me now as I consider my mother and father and the unusual arc of their lives. It seems to me they accomplished much more against much greater odds. I have a new admiration for them, and I am beginning to understand how much I owe them. They may not have started with much, but they sure did their very best, and they sure gave me everything they couldâwhich turns out to have been quite a lot.
A few months after he had discovered the truth about his own father, I invited my father to join me in Santa Fe for a weeklong stint I was doing as a guest teacher and choreographer for a modern dance troupe called Moving People Dance. It was the first time we had seen each other since Momâs death, and my goal was to take some of the sadness out of Popâs face. We stayed together at the apartment where my hosts were putting me up, in a community for retired gay people called Rainbow Vision. (Was there a hidden message here?) I cooked his favorite foods for him all week, and he drove me back and forth to my dance classes, the way he always used to when I was a kid. It almost felt like old timesâalthough I did notice Pop had developed a new habit while driving, of reading signs out loud as he passed them. Once when he wasnât thinking, he automatically started driving us to the A-1 Storage facility where he and Mom used to live and work, instead of to our Rainbow Vision apartment. When I called him a homing pigeon, he said he was more like a faithful old dog that had been left downtown and was trying to find his way home.
Overall it was a quiet and healing week for both of us, and when my teaching duties were over we drove to Eagle Nest to see the house I had started building for Mom before she died. To distract us both from the sadness of
As soon as his mother admitted this to him, Pop and his brother Chico (who actually is Don Loloâs son, and has the short stature and big ears to prove it) had set off on a trip into the mountains to find the man who used to live next door to them. And they succeeded. Pop said it was amazingâthe guy was six foot two, with my dadâs same hair, same face, same green eyes. âChico couldnât believe itâhe looks exactly like me!â Pop crowed. âHeâs ninety-six now, but heâs all put together. He looks real good.â The manâs name was Luis Cortez, and when Pop explained who he was and asked Mr. Cortez if perhaps he was his real father, the old man smiled and nodded.
It was touching how excited and happy my father sounded about all of thisâalmost proud. When I pointed out to him that this meant that technically he was a Cortez, not a Soto, he started laughing. Of course, this also means that we should all be named Cortez, not Sotoâincluding my mother. As if I wasnât already confused enough about my identityâ¦
F OR YEARS I have struggled with a feeling of anxiety about falling between the cracks when it comes to the big traditional categories in life. On the reservation as a child I was a half Puerto Rican among pure Navajos; and on the reservation as a grown man I am an outsider from New York. As a teenager in New York I was a half Navajo, half Latino in the predominantly white world of Balanchineâs ballets, and a neophyte in a high society of worldly sophisticates. But my confusion about my mix of cultures and heritages and life experiences, and the loneliness and feelings of displacement that have sometimes weighed me down over the years, seems to be growing less oppressive the more I learn. I suppose in an age when our forty-fourth president, Barack Hussein Obama, can casually refer to himself as a âmutt,â we may even begin to find reasons to celebrate blended blood.
There have been moments in my dance career when people have pointed to my humble beginnings and saluted me as someone who has accomplished a great deal against great odds. This seems ludicrous to me now as I consider my mother and father and the unusual arc of their lives. It seems to me they accomplished much more against much greater odds. I have a new admiration for them, and I am beginning to understand how much I owe them. They may not have started with much, but they sure did their very best, and they sure gave me everything they couldâwhich turns out to have been quite a lot.
A few months after he had discovered the truth about his own father, I invited my father to join me in Santa Fe for a weeklong stint I was doing as a guest teacher and choreographer for a modern dance troupe called Moving People Dance. It was the first time we had seen each other since Momâs death, and my goal was to take some of the sadness out of Popâs face. We stayed together at the apartment where my hosts were putting me up, in a community for retired gay people called Rainbow Vision. (Was there a hidden message here?) I cooked his favorite foods for him all week, and he drove me back and forth to my dance classes, the way he always used to when I was a kid. It almost felt like old timesâalthough I did notice Pop had developed a new habit while driving, of reading signs out loud as he passed them. Once when he wasnât thinking, he automatically started driving us to the A-1 Storage facility where he and Mom used to live and work, instead of to our Rainbow Vision apartment. When I called him a homing pigeon, he said he was more like a faithful old dog that had been left downtown and was trying to find his way home.
Overall it was a quiet and healing week for both of us, and when my teaching duties were over we drove to Eagle Nest to see the house I had started building for Mom before she died. To distract us both from the sadness of
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