JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ
“Populares” Gamesa Cookies
Growing up, my mom never really mentioned we were poor. She also didn’t always mention she grew up poorer, in México. Most of my memories of her revolve around her singing church songs in the kitchen, in both English and Spanish, as she prepared pancakes or bean-and-cheese burritos or quesadillas. Or when she would yell at us, of course, this time always in Spanish, to quit saying bad words or quit being “huevones” and clean-up around the house.
Now, a grown man, I’m at my mother’s kitchen table and she walks in from the 99-Cent store. She has groceries with her, per usual, but she makes a point to show me a box of Mexican cookies called, “Populares,” from the brand, Gamesa. She tells me when she was a little girl in México, her siblings would get super excited when my Abuelos brought them the cookies home for a special snack. She said they would share half a cookie with each sibling so everyone could have a taste. I open the box and examine the cookies. They look like the most basic, sugarless cookie that no American child would ever lust for. I tell my mom that it is a “great story” with a straight face, but inside I realize how deep the story really is.
Every time I feel sorry for myself, in fact, I try to think of the Gamesa “Populares” cookies. I think of how mom always buys a big box now, just because she can afford it. I think of how tasteless those cookies are and how coveted they were to my beloved ancestors. Cookies, I ponder, who would’ve thought? Who would’ve thought life could be so unfair?
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Conduit, Crazyhorse, Georgia Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, The Journal, Los Angeles Review, The Missouri Review, Northwest Review, Poetry, Southeast Review, The Southern Review, Witness Magazine, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading Anthology 2011. He teaches creative writing online and edits for Frontier Poetry. He has a forthcoming collection, “Bad Mexican, Bad American,” with Acre Books in 2024.