Belly dancing was a big thing at our local YMCA in the mid-1970s, as big as Zumba is now, the thing to do. Mama started out taking lessons for fun but fell in love with it and joined a troupe that did performances and seminars. I’d watch Mama practice back then the same way Gia watches me now, utterly captivated by the rhythm of the tablas and drums, eyes big with the imagined story told by the dance, hands instinctively tracing the movements in the air. Eventually I couldn’t resist; I had to get up and move behind her, the way Gia moves behind me, making a tiny shadow on the wall next to mine.
“Would you like to dance with me at the officers’ wives luncheon?” Mama asked, and she didn’t have to ask twice. I was so on board with that. I had every beat of the music memorized, and I had a natural affinity for the moves. The choreography was ever evolving, which is one thing I love about this art form. To dance like this gives you freedom to express yourself, but it means you have to be in the present—all of which made belly dance the perfect training ground for the work I would later do as a member of the New Power Generation.
All the other ladies were impressed that I could seriously dance. They had to give Mama her props, and she was a stage mom who ate that up. Mama made me a little costume that matched hers—a floaty dream of colorful chiffon, spangled with a galaxy of sequins and dripping with paillettes—but for me, the greatest thing about it was that I got to wear lip gloss. Please understand, people: in my five-year-old mind, lip gloss was the magic elixir that transformed a mortal being into something magical, the most beautiful creature imaginable. My desire for lip gloss was so intense, I’d actually attempted to steal a tube of ChapStick one day at the PX, prompting Mama to call for a security officer, who lectured me into terrified tears. In everyday life, lip gloss was forbidden. Dad had banned it on the premise that it might make me kiss boys. So this was my opportunity. For lip gloss, I would do anything.
Almost anything. Anything but this, as it turned out. Standing backstage, I peeked out at the audience and was overwhelmed by a stomach punch of stage fright that caught poor Mama completely off guard.
“Mayte, that’s our music,” she hissed in a whisper. “We’re on!”
I just shook my head, unable to even form the words, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
I stood frozen behind the curtains while she put on a fake smile and went out to wow the officers’ wives on her own. Some kind lady took my hand, led me to a table, and fed me mini doughnuts and milk while Mama did our mother-daughter dance all by herself, glancing my way every once in a while to shoot me the look.
When a Puerto Rican mama shoots you the look, you feel it like a javelin. There was no question in my mind that when she got off that stage, I’d never enjoy another moment of peace, love, or lip gloss for the rest of my life. I sat there stuffing those mini doughnuts into my mouth like they were my last meal. And they were, for a while. My mom didn’t talk to me or feed me for a week. Dad had to take over, and though he fed and cared for me with patience and sympathy, I was crushed—not because she was punishing me, but because I knew I’d humiliated her. I swore to Mama and to myself that if she ever gave me another chance, I would go through with it, and when given another chance, I did.
And I’m glad. The moment I started dancing, the tidal wave of stage fright went out and a tidal wave of euphoria came in, sweeping me through the performance, filling me with an energy I had no name for. I was quickly addicted to the powerful bliss I felt onstage. Mama and I started getting invitations to dance at restaurants and parties. We started getting a little bit famous around town. When I was seven, a syndicated news show called PM Magazine came and did a story about us, which was amazing, but I was starting to get a sense of myself as a dancer—as an artist—and it had nothing to do with being paid or noticed.
After we’d been performing together for a while, I told Mama, “I want to dance by myself. I don’t want people to think I’m just copying you.” The truth is, I wanted people to notice her when she was dancing, and when I was there, a lot of the attention was directed my way. I wanted Mama to have her hard-earned moment in the spotlight.
Dance was my refuge, as life at both school and home became more complicated. Back then, you didn’t see a lot of little Latina girls in a North Carolina elementary school. Kids used to ask me, “Are you white or are you black?”
“Neither,” I’d say. “I’m Puerto Rican.”
They’d wrinkle their noses and ask, “What’s that?”
I tried to tell them about my grandmothers on a beautiful island that is, yes, part of the United States, but no, not a state exactly, and no, it’s not the same as Mexico. The white kids didn’t accept me because I wasn’t white enough, and the black kids didn’t accept me because I had “good hair.” After school, I was always running away from somebody, making a beeline for the bus, doing my best to avoid getting beat up.