A set of Rules¹ a proper Latina² must follow³, according to those who taught her.

1. You must help tidy up. After dinner, limpia los platos o ayuda a tu mamá a lavar los platos. The communal areas must be sparkling, smelling of Fabuloso y scented candles. Tu cama must be made every morning. There better not be clothes on the floor. Consider yourself a master duster, a wiz with rubber gloves and a mop. You don’t have to take out the garbage, though, because that’s a man’s chore. Be grateful.

2. You have to be home by 10 p.m. You will have a chaperone if you are going out with a boy (if we approve of said niño, claro). You must call us every hour so we know you are alive. No, it doesn’t matter that tu hermano can stay out however long he wants, en casa del carajo. He’s not as vulnerable or valuable as you. The world is terrifying, especially for a woman with your body, hair, and face. It’s for your own protection.

3. You must be devout to Christ. Pray every night and go to church every Sunday, like a good muñeca.

4. Keep yourself pure until marriage. Sex is sacred, and you don’t want to be sharing bits of your soul with no-name men, do you? This Rule is vital because if you defile yourself, no respectful man will want to marry you. You’ll be wasted goods. And you want lots of babies, claro?

5. Make sure to keep yourself clean. Scrub, shave, lotionize, moisturize, pluck, oil, douse yourself in perfume—anything to make sure you smell and look like a woman. No man wants a woman who isn’t completely bare.

6. When you are married, have lots of sex with tu esposo. Let him do anything he wants, whenever he wants. That is one of your main duties as a wife—serve and love tu marido. You want to keep him satisfied. This is how you keep him from cheating on you.

7. You have to know how to cook our food. Escúchame, this list is muy importante: arroz, frijoles negros y rojos, puerco asado, pollo, pescado, tostones, plátanos, ropa vieja, palomilla, arroz amarillo con pollo, arroz con huevo, fricasé de pollo, enchilado de camarones, picadillo, yucca, flan, tres leches—y, oye, mas café con espumita. Lo que sea que tu esposo quiera también. Got it?

8. Stay thin pero don’t lose your curves. That’s heritage.

9. If you have the means, consider being a stay-at-home mother. Tu esposo should provide todo lo que necesitas. If he can’t, maybe you didn’t follow the Rules correctly, because you got a dud. Besides, working so much can make you neglect all those niños you’re gonna have.

10. We’ve been talking about babies, pero have at least tres hijos. More nietos the better!!!

11. Never, ever say the word divorce.

12. Tu esposo necesita ser Latino. Pero, make sure he is the right Latino.⁴

13. You don’t need to tell tu marido everything. If you mess up, está bien, so long as he doesn’t know. He keeps secrets, so you can too. Don’t worry about every little thing—secrets can sometimes be healthy in a long-lasting marriage.

14. You need to find un hombre at an early age, so you can marry early and be fertile for longer. Max age is twenty-one, everything older is too old. Vieja.

15. Familia lo es todo.⁵ Many mujeres ignore these Rules or interpret them differently. Some follow them like a second set of Commandments. Pero, being a Latina is hard, so you may need more guidance. The following are examples. Hopefully, you’ll get a deeper understanding, mi vida:

A.
Tu mamá met tu papá when they were sixteen. It was the mid-60s. They both emigrated from your family’s home country and barely spoke Inglés. The attraction was instant. The understanding was mutual. The love was expected.

In math class, the only class that they found easy, they held hands under the table-desk. In between classes, tu padre would escort tu madre to her next class, even if it made him late. He needed to show the other men she was taken, and of course, he loved being near her. Her perfume was intoxicating. Her soft hands fit perfectly in his, and he loved to admire her long, natural nails—a different color each week. Her hair was perfectly curly, coconut-infused, and bouncing with each walk. He was smitten.

He wasn’t bad looking either. Tu mamá said he was rugged and sexy. Tan skin, deep dark eyes, and chiseled abs, with a jawline that could cut through a chastity belt. She felt things before she even knew what they were. She was warm and bright, stopping herself from biting his lip, messing up his gelled hair, and licking his face.⁶ But she always kept her composure and prayed for forgiveness whenever she wanted to rip tu padre’s clothes off.

After school, tu papá walked tu mamá to her house, and then they’d be supervised by tu abuelo while watching ¿Qué Pasa, USA? It’d go on like this for a while, a solid “dating” routine that they tried to maintain when it was time for tus hermanas and you. When tus padres were alone—which, besides school, was rare—tu papá tried to explore more than tu mamá’s soft hands and lips. He moved his hand from her cheek and tried to go for her bra. She’d slap his hand. He stroked her shoulder, then her back, and moved to her culo. She’d slap his hand. When he was feeling bold, he would try to go near her belt. She’d slap his hand. He eventually gave up trying to venture below the neckline.⁷ Tu mamá held out until her wedding day, while tu papá fucked las gringas in secret. He told them they were pretty and smiled with that machismo smile las gringas got all giddy around.

Tu padre liked to tell stories about his exhibitions before he “met” tu mamá. He’d go up to an American and flash that smile and it was like their panties magically flew off.⁸ When he was animating the story for tus hermanos, you’d see him replicate that smile—but you thought he just looked hungry. You could tell he liked feeling wanted, remembering these times in his youth where he looked like a young Antonio Banderas. Where he could sleep with girls whose parents would probably shoot him on sight if they knew.

You knew he liked to feel wanted, because you thought you looked and felt the same when you told your stories.

Maybe it was inherited, to feel wanted.

Pero, it’s important to note that tu padre was loyal the minute he said “I do” to tu mamá, and that counted for something. They were both freshly nineteen on their wedding night. Tu mamá lay down in white and let him do whatever he wanted to do with her since the first day he saw her—even when it hurt. She kept him satisfied and happy because she gave all of herself to him without complaint.⁹ She had lots of babies. She took care of all of you, dedicating her whole life to raising her children. When you all graduated high school and thought about college, she begged you all not to leave. Some of you did, some of you didn’t.¹⁰ She favored the ones that left, but she was closer to the ones that stayed. You watched her become bored: knitting and cleaning, sewing and cleaning, cooking and cleaning, crying and cleaning.

You wanted to save her.

Tu papá¹¹ worked until he became a ghost in his own house. He was an accountant, handling trust-fund-babies-named-Tristen’s money, and wondering how people can be this comfortable just from being born. He survived off of his stories until he retired.

Tu mamá didn’t care that tu papá barely looked at her anymore. You think she was happier that way.¹²

Both de tus padres taught these Rules, sometimes explicitly and sometimes subtly.
They grew old together. Died together. They had a happy marriage most of the time. They were too intertwined and dependent to know the difference. Living and growing from one another like it was normal to meld into a lump of a being. They knew one another’s thoughts and emotions without being in the same room. Hungry when the other person was hungry, sad when the other person was sad, sick when the other person was sick—they even looked alike. They were each other’s first and only love.

They were the example for how you y tus hermanos were supposed to live.

B.

Tu hermana mayor was rebellious. You shared a room and you watched her sneak out and you didn’t say anything because she was tu mejor amiga and it was unfair tus hermanos don’t got any of these stupid Rules. You watched her drink during slumber parties with friends until she couldn’t remember the things she said. She sometimes smelled funky with red, swollen eyes and acted even more stupid and silly than usual.

You admired her.

You admired her ability to hide mouth-shaped bruises on her neck, patting down tan concealer with translucent powder and then compact powder. She defied Rule #4 with ease, fucking men while keeping them wrapped around her chonga-red acrylic nail. They still loved her after and you didn’t think that was possible until you saw the way they looked at her when they gave her flowers at her window (so tus padres won’t see, claro que sí). Tu hermana was a sassy hippie under the man.¹³ Of course, they disapproved of the boys they actually knew about. Not the right kind of niño. When they picked her up on dates, tu padre would say, ella tiene suerte de no tener acompañante¹⁴ like they did back in the day.

He thought he was not strict.

She got pregnant. It was the 80s. Claro, she couldn’t and didn’t want to keep it, so she did the things most girls did when they couldn’t tell their padres anything. You watched tu hermana be a shell of a human for the rest of her high school career, not relying on a single soul for support. She only told you about how she missed her period, about the positive tests, about when it was “fixed.” But she didn’t tell you how she got rid of it. She used to talk to you about everything. She was sick for days and you thought she was going to die. She told your parents it was a bad flu, and they talked about taking her to the hospital, but she begged them not to. When they’d leave the room, she told you she’d rather die than they find out.

But with days of rest and enough liquids to drown a fish, she got better. But her friends stopped coming over. She stopped going out. The dating stopped, and instead, she settled for the chico that matched tu cultura and had a promising future. Tus padres loved him.

She got married at twenty, and repeated A for the rest of her life.

C.

Tu tía, tu mamá’s hermana, took too long to get a divorce, even when you saw the bruises on her arms and face. Tu tiá got married to this older white man when she was eighteen. He was twenty-seven. She wanted to be free from sus padres’ Rules and knew marriage was the one way to get out of tus abuelos’ house, so she said yes when he proposed, even though it was some random gringo. Tus abuelos disapproved, claro que sí, porqué, some gringo? But he had a nice job and she was stubborn. He treated her well for a while, but they only dated for six months before they got hitched. She waited until marriage too, hence the American’s rush to the altar. The beatings didn’t start until she was pregnant with tu prima.

She and su esposo would babysit you y tu baby bro when no one else could watch you. Even though you didn’t know what was really happening until you got older, they still made you play in the other room as they blasted Brady Bunch for you and the baby. You could still hear them yelling. You tried to focus on your baby hermano, watching him play with his toys and failing to stand up by himself. You were jealous of him already, knowing he got it made and he couldn’t even walk yet.¹⁵ You remember her coming to check on you, waddling and squatting down with her pregnant belly that held tu prima. Her lip was crusted con sangre and bruised and you didn’t know why. She had tears in her eyes, and even though you were young, you felt like you should be the one checking up on her.

When tu prima was born, you were obsessed with her. You called her muñeca, carrying her around and telling everyone it was your child, not hers. Of course, tu tía forced a laugh, because you were cute and in love with your new toy. But there was a sadness in her laugh you didn’t understand then. One time, when tu tía was babysitting, you carried tu prima. You held her close, kissed her forehead, said how you’d give up the world for her. Your tía dropped the laundry she was carrying and collapsed to the ground. She breathed heavily, ripping off her jacket like it was on fire, and when it was finally off she looked like she was suffocating. Her arms were purple. You put the baby down and held her like you will later hold tu hija.

You still think you were the one who made her cry.¹⁶

When people explained the timeline later in your adulthood, you learned it was around the time the beatings became so frequent that she stopped trying to cover it up with makeup. You still think about the laundry spilling on the floor. The way tu prima cried in unison con su madre.

As you got older, el gringo—su esposo—never hit tu tía in front of tu prima. Pero tu prima told you when you were both grown that she heard the sound of hands slapping flesh—a pound that kept coming until it sounded like he was punching the carne that was for dinner. You also learned that tu prima asked tu tía to leave when she was a teenager. It took a few months, but after the hospital visit, it was needed.

When tu tía’s divorce was finalized, everyone blamed it on the fact he was a gringo. She hasn’t married since. She felt like she fucked up the Rules too much to try again.¹⁷

D.

Tu prima (tu tía’s hija) from the jump was a career woman. It was the 90s. She didn’t bring a baby on career day like most of us did, but she wore a suit that she stole from mi hermana when she had her secretary job before the kids. At the age of eight, she proudly announced she wanted to be a lawyer. Mi familia would just laugh, saying que linda, mi preciosa, thinking such a big career sounded so silly from a little girl’s mouth that it must have been a joke. You remember her yelling, Why is that so funny? When it kept happening with age, she eventually stopped telling them.

When sus padres shut the door and told her to go outside and play, she read books. She timed herself when she read, teaching herself to speed-read en Español y Inglés. When she was in high school, she was a hermit. She studied, was on student council, president of the Spanish and debate club, and was already expected to be valedictorian. Tu familia wondered why she cared so much about school and why she didn’t talk to boys. They asked questions about her crushes, which she’d respond with, I don’t have time for that. They made speculations, telling her if she doesn’t find a man soon, people will talk. You remember being confused—talk about what? When she’d leave the room, they’d tell you, What if she liked women? You were confused, because you didn’t know that was an option, and now you had to rethink a few things.¹⁸

The talks went on like this every time your precious muñeca came into the room. She started to resent the family.¹⁹

She closed herself off more to the family when the bruises on her mom’s arms kept getting ignored. She was tired of being the only one who noticed or cared.

Tu prima did get valedictorian and did get a full ride to Penn State, which was quickly shut down by tus abuelos (and practically the rest of the family). You remember how they told her she couldn’t leave your home state, how it was too far, and unsafe for a mujer to be alone like that, and how she could just as easily go to a state school nearby. The rest of us would have complied, but tu prima yelled.

I’m going, and I don’t need your permission.

You don’t need our permission? You sound like your American friends.

You talk about how leaving isn’t safe, but you think living here is safe? She was unsafe and stayed in the same spot her whole life.

Tu prima talked about the hospital visit, and how she begged su madre to leave her father. She was the first one to openly address the divorce.²⁰ Everyone was silent by then, watching her walk to her room and slam the door.

Tu prima went on to graduate summa cum laude from Penn State. She came home for the holidays, explaining that yes, she has a boyfriend, and no, she doesn’t want to get married. She eventually stopped coming to Thanksgiving, and then eventually Christmas. She kept to the occasional phone call and visit. Tu familia watched her immediately transition into Harvard Law. Instead of asking about the coursework or congratulating her, they just talked about the cold: Ay, pero va a hacer frío, aren’t you worried?

You stayed in touch even when there was distance, because after all, you were her honorary mother. Your conversations on the phone always ended the same way: she told you how much she loved you, but for the sake of her mental well-being, couldn’t be around your family anymore. You told her you understood, even when it hurt.

She had a firm and was a successful divorce lawyer, unmarried, and childless.²¹

Tu muñeca was happy, traveling around the world with her boyfriend.²²

Tu familia blamed it on the divorce.

E.

Tu other prima²³ was doing everything right. She found a half-gringo, half-Latino boy at age sixteen. Tu familia accepted him because he looked Latino enough and he knew the language and customs. She was in her church’s youth group, followed curfew, and helped las viejas of the family cook and clean. Her Español was impeccable. And although she was popular, she didn’t feel the need to act like her gringa friends. She wore hoops, did her nails long and french, slicked her hair back and embraced lipliner.²⁴ It was the early 2000s.

Although you were so much older, you couldn’t help but admire her. You used to burn your hair straightening it to blend in, and starve yourself to allow for the rising trend of low-rise jeans. But she didn’t, and did it with ease. You blamed it on the fact she was pretty, and how pretty people could get away with ignoring trends and being themselves.

And although she had this confidence, walking into every room and throwing her body everywhere like each space was made for her, she was dying inside. You didn’t know that she was doing everything right even though everything felt wrong. You didn’t know she used to go home after parties and cry for hours when nothing warranted this reaction. You didn’t know that she used to skip meals after church and refuse to go to confession. You didn’t know that self-harm was her only way to make Catholic school bearable and how she trained herself to shut off her emotions during sermons.

You didn’t know this until she confided in you, and you think the only reason she did was because of your failure as a daughter.

She told you about how every day she felt like she was living in Jell-O, going through the motions slowly and carefully, focusing on not suffocating on red goo. She kept repeating: my life hasn’t changed meeting him. Nothing got better the way they said it would. Her winged eyeliner smudged and her mascara clumped as she rubbed her eyes, forcing the tears to stay put. She said she felt empty.

You did too.

After the talk, you noticed she started staying out late, and sus padres said they didn’t mind because she was a good kid and they trusted her. You offered her wine when she came over to la casa you were sharing con tu novio at the time. You handed her a Merlot, knowing she’d probably decline like always, but she drank until she fell asleep on the couch. You watched her turn more and more American by the month, straightening her hair like you, wearing low-rise jeans that didn’t fit her bum, and going to clubs that you didn’t recognize with new friends you didn’t know.

One night, she came to tu casa hammered, begging you to let her stay the night. You held her as she cried, and each time you asked ¿mi amor, qué pasó? She shook her head, letting snot whip off her face. By the fifteenth mi amor, she caved. She was in love with someone who you knew that tu familia would not approve of, so you cried with her, and rocked her to sleep. Tu novio was pissed off because you were focusing on her and not him. But you ignored him and silently prayed for her safety.

The next day, she ended things with the half-and-half boy. It was necessary, but she spiraled.

She drank more, smoked more, and you begged her to breathe. She separated herself from you, thinking you judged her when you only wanted her to be okay. You watched her silently struggle at family parties, slipping away to smoke a cigarette so she could muscle through the evening. It was around the time tu novio and you broke up when you invited her to dinner, and told her about how you like boys and girls. She looked relieved, and you thought she felt what you were feeling when she first came out to you. She looked like she finally felt safe, and that’s how you felt too.

In a few months, without warning, she came to Thanksgiving with her girlfriend. She didn’t prepare anyone for it.

She was glowing.²⁵

Tu familia was polite, because it was new times after all, but the prayer at the dinner table was pointed. Praying for everyone’s purity, safety, and relationship with God. Tu prima laughed and you couldn’t help but snicker too, sitting there, hiding your small baby bump. La familia looked at you both with disgust and anger, saying to be careful with blasphemy. The rest of the dinner was uncomfortably quiet besides tu prima, su novia, and you, laughing and sharing stories about nothing. In the silence, tu prima and you built upon inside jokes from months ago, building and building until there was a barrier that kept you both protected from their looks. It made it bearable.

By the end of the Thanksgiving dinner, the one that’s traditionally loud and filled with bickering, everyone went their separate ways to play dominos. You heard hushed whispers behind the clash of domino pieces. Viejas washed dishes, pounding platos together, asking how could she be so “selfish” and ignore the Rules so blatantly. Su prima’s madre went straight to her room to pray the rosary, one hand clutching the beads, the other tan, veiny hand cemented on the open bible. Su padre wouldn’t look at her.

They didn’t see the transformation that you saw, how her style completely changed, mirroring her personality rather than a role. They didn’t see that her smile looked new, something you didn’t notice she was faking this whole time. They didn’t notice that she looked like she was floating—how her confidence now wasn’t commanding a space to fit her body but rather just letting her curves flow in and out of spaces. You loved seeing her whole.

Pero, after that night, like your other prima, she separated herself from your family and went on to marry a nice woman. Pero, unlike your other prima, no one complained about seeing her again. She was happier than anyone en tu familia who chose A.

You still saw her almost every weekend. You didn’t tell anyone how much you wanted her life. Instead, you suffocated under laundry and baby vomit and shit while she smiled at her beautiful wife and traveled and studied and lived her life the way she wanted to.
You were jealous.²⁶

F.

You grew up with your knees hurting from hours of kneeling. You had the rosary memorized for as long as you can remember. You can still recite Bible passages like poetry.

You were a good girl, following the Rules and being so terrified to break them that you watched others in awe and admiration when they did. They seemed so fearless, ignoring the possibility of hellfire—and padres. But as you got older, you began to feel restless. Boys never looked at you and girls only told you how to change yourself so you could be prettier—straighten your hair, lose some weight, wear less/more make up. You thought they were pretty, and you wanted to be them and be with them all at the time, so you listened, and hoped for the best, but became invisible instead. Years of staying home with tus padres, watching tu familia live, and being damn close to sainthood made you stuck.

So when you met a cute Latino that actually noticed you, you went for it. Not only that, but he seemed promising. Él habla Español, tiene la misma cultura y trabaja duro, so you let him kiss you. Your first kiss at seventeen. He treated you nice, gave you dresses and bought you curly cream that su hermana used and made you into his very own muñeca linda. You felt pretty, so you let him keep going, and eventually, you became the prettiest you ever were. Boys and girls started to notice you, but you were his. You dated three years before you decided to let him deflower you. The two of you were inseparable and he practically made you, so you figured you’re gonna get married anyway, so what’s the problem?

His temper started to get out of hand a month after you opened your legs for him. You told yourself it wasn’t correlated, but your stomach ached. He no longer opened the car door for you, stopped calling you pretty, and acted like listening to you was a chore. You thought that he’d still love you after, but he only got comfortable treating you the way he always wanted to treat you. You didn’t know this until you realized it was easy for him to raise his voice any chance he could. When he started to do what he wanted to you without warning, when he grabbed your wrist so tight it left purple and pink polka dots on your tan skin, and you knew this was the man you forever chained yourself to. Each time he opened your legs, you planned your wedding, convincing and manifesting that this was worth it, that the Rules, your family—they were all wrong. You two could make this work. He moved in with you because you bought a house by yourself. He called it a big step. A part of you now thinks he just didn’t want to pay rent.

You cooked for him. Cleaned for him. Catered to him. But it wasn’t enough. There were no rings, and tu familia looked at you with shame. How could you be living with a boy? At your age? You should be married! Tu mamá’s voice echoed in his movements, why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?

He kept using you, even when you begged him not to. You didn’t know what that meant, because no one taught you what it meant. You thought of Rule #4 and thought if you were together then that meant it was okay. You know now it wasn’t okay.

You wondered why you were the one being punished. Why could everyone around you bend and break the Rules and still be loved, and you somehow couldn’t. You did everything right besides Rule #4, and it hurt to think they were right about something you knew they were so deeply wrong about. Was it you? Were you that unlovable? Was God punishing you?

Are you your tía?

Tu papá knocked tu novio out when he saw him get rough with you. Fue en una fiesta—big dramatic shit. You caught him cheating and told him to leave. You were already nearing thirty by then, but that didn’t matter to tu papá. You’ll always be his little muñeca linda.

You didn’t tell tu papá you were pregnant with that puto’s baby. You didn’t tell the puto, either. Hell, you didn’t tell anyone, actually, and you wore oversized sweaters in eighty-degree weather and sweaters on top of cardigans in early spring, and then you bought big-ass carteras and crossed your arms a lot. You didn’t tell anyone why you stopped going to Mass or why you weren’t seeing the family as much. But that could only happen so long, y tu familia was so up in your shit that they showed up to tu casa unannounced to demand why you’re being so weird and they saw the nursery, the ultrasound taped to the fridge, and your big belly.²⁷ Your baby kicked, clawed, and pounded—angry at their reaction to her existence.

If you hadn’t already guessed, you’re not a great example of what a Latina woman should be. Refer back to A.