Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Anita DeLucio-Brock,
Grandma and Me at the Flea / Los Meros Meros Remateros.
Children's Book Press, 2002.

In Grandma and Me at the Flea, young Juanito accompanies his grandmother to the remate, a California flea market where their neighbors sell everything from fresh produce to secondhand toys. The remate is both a lot of fun and a necessary ritual for the people who set up shop there on Sunday mornings.

As he did in Calling the Doves, poet Juan Felipe Herrera offers up a slice of autobiography in an inviting bilingual picture book. Anita DeLucio-Brock's colorful illustrations, inspired by Mexican folk art, are well suited to the story. In a short note preceding the story, Herrera describes the flea markets of his youth as “earthy makeshift stores under big skies.” Juanito's parents, like many in the Mexican American community he is growing up in, are farmworkers. At the time of this story they've gone north to pick apples, leaving Juanito in the care of his grandmother. They have left her a store of clothing —“a little worn, but shiny clean”— to sell at the remate to help meet expenses.

Juanito's Grandma is a lively woman. The side of the van she and Juanito head off in is brighly decorated. Though it's five o'clock in the morning when they leave, in Juanito's account, she is cheerful: “A real rematero makes time for songs!' she says in her husky voice, and winks at me. We sing as we drive off into the frosty morning light.”

As the story proceeds, it becomes clear that Grandma is also an integral member of the community — in fact, she embodies the generosity and sopport that bind it together. People's needs are pronounced, and giving is unrestrained. A man selling wool zarapes gives Juanito a blanket with a vibrant peacock design on it, explaining that he's grateful for the massage Grandma gave his sister when she hurt her back picking melons. Grandma gives Juanito a letter to deliver to a man selling hardware. As a favor she has written to the man's landlord — in English, a struggle for him — to ask for help fixing his storm-damaged roof. She gives Juanito healing herbs to pass on to Señora Vela, who suffers from headaches. Señora Vela gives Juanito a sampling of her spicy chilis in return. The jewelry man gives Juanito a copper bracelet for Grandma, to help her rheumatism when the weather gets cold. He recalls how Grandma helped him send money orders home to Mexico when he had just come to this country.

The problems answered by thoughtful gestures and gifts at Herrera's flea market are those of people working hard but still living in poverty. Children watching Mexican soap operas on television are at the market to sell broken toys (their sign shows the price reduced to “6 for $1”). But in this community, as in others, what makes the difference is hope. Fittingly, the remate is held on the former grounds of the Esperanza Gardens Drive-In Theater. And Esperanza — the Spanish word for hope — is Grandma's given name.

Martha Davis Beck

Winter 2002 - 2003