Aliento Voices: A Piece of Home
By Gema Sanchez Gamez
Scrambling across the kitchen, I gather eggs, butter, and buttermilk to make cinnamon rolls. My recipe is already written next to me, so I move from the table to the kitchen, eyeing my notebook and collecting the dry ingredients. I’m not making a sound in an effort to not wake up my family. It's 12 a.m .and I should be in bed, I can’t get any sleep. It’s been a rough week for my dad, and I’m helping in the only way I know how to.
I bloom the yeast in water and sugar, and quietly thank God that it didn’t turn out like last time. As I beat the eggs, melted butter, oil, and sugar, I try to move away from my parent’s room to lower the noise of the hand mixer. To that mixture, I add the dry ingredients and start kneading the dough with my hands. I can’t help but feel like my grandma when she’d make tortillas de harina. I vigorously squish and gather the dough, remembering her technique, until it no longer sticks to my hands. I always surrender to the mood of the dough because my grandma says “La masa siente.” The dough feels when you’re upset, anxious, or angry.
After the dough has rested and doubled in size, I flour the countertop and start rolling out the dough with our makeshift rolling pin. A huge glass Corona bottle. Everything gets reused in our household. I carefully mix the melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon and spread it gently on the rectangle of dough. After rolling the dough and cutting it into one-inch pieces, I let them rise once again. After I cover up the dough, I listen to the silence of the house. Silence is always rare in a family as big as mine. My mom is the youngest of fifteen. Laughter and chatter have always been the soothing background noise of my life. Cooking and baking are my family’s love languages and making these cinnamon rolls in a way, makes me a part of the pack.
Once my cinnamon rolls were out of the oven and beautifully golden, I reached for the glass pan. Unfortunately, due to my sleep deprivation, I burned my fingers on the glass pan. I suppressed the yelp that would wake up my family and rushed for some ice. Although my fingers were burned, my cinnamon rolls were perfect. With heavy eyelids, I returned to my room and tried to make the most of the 5 hours I had given myself to sleep. At 6 a.m., I heard the kettle, letting me know my mom and dad were wide awake. I ran to the kitchen to surprise my dad. He was unable to contain his smile, which made my sleep deprivation worth it. I packed up the warm cinnamon roll and prayed that he would enjoy it.
“Adios Papa, que te vaya bien. Te quiero mucho.”
With the shut of his heavy lunchbox and the squeaking of the front door, my dad went off to work. I stood by the front door, in my uniform, ready for school, watching as he drove away to work. I recited a silent prayer that he’d come home safe, a habit born from the worries and uncertainties of having undocumented parents. Today, I was comforted by the fact that a small piece of home accompanied him. That pastry was my way of expressing my gratitude for the endless sacrifices he has made since he decided to move to the US. I hoped it would give him dignity at a job where he often feels suffocated and underappreciated due to his citizenship status. Although I’ve always struggled with navigating the gap between the two cultures, languages, ways of life, and citizenship statuses my entire life, home-cooked meals have always provided me with a sense of peace with my identity.
For this reason, baking is my way of preserving the identity and unity of our family, despite the constant erosion we experience every single day. Being surrounded by my incredibly creative parents, who are granite sculptors and self-proclaimed interior designers, has shown me the healing power of art. The vibrancy the artists in my life exude has anchored me in the moments in which I feel that everything is completely out of my control.
