Trading Places and Perspectives

Last Wednesday was a day of easy choices for the Gomez family of El Monte. Jose and Socorro Gomez, who came from Mexico the year Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy, hated the man from Yorba Linda.

Nonetheless, they headed to Orange County to be outside the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace during the nationally televised funeral service. They wanted to pay their final respects to the 37th President of the United States.

“I disliked Nixon very much but my husband and I went because it was a historic time,” Socorro Gomez said in Spanish. “I’m glad we went.”

Their son, Jaime, 22, who was born in the U.S., has little patience for his parents’ homeland or its politics. He doesn’t even speak Spanish.

Yet he passed on the trip to the funeral. Instead, Jaime was in L.A.’s Pico-Union district to see Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, an opposition leader who came to L.A. to push his candidacy to be Mexico’s next president.

“I really don’t care for Mexican politics,” her son said in English. “But Cardenas could be the next president of Mexico and I wanted to see the man for myself.”

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I was surprised when I learned of the family’s activities last week.

I would have thought that the son, who enjoys American history, would want to be in Yorba Linda since he thinks Nixon is the most important statesman of the second half of the 20th Century.

At the same time, his parents, who have remained Mexican citizens despite living in this country for nearly 35 years, would want to hear Cardenas’ message. Corruption is rampant south of the border and Cardenas’ plan to allow Mexicans living abroad the right to vote should help expatriates such as Jose Gomez and his wife who still have strong ties to Mexico.

But I was wrong.

They ended up at different places, and they weren’t surprised at all by their decisions.

“When Mr. Nixon had died, we talked about him,” said Jose Gomez, 63, who hails from the Mexican state of Sonora. “I think he was prejudiced against Mexico and the Mexican people, but we immediately decided to get into our van and drive to Yorba Linda for the funeral. I couldn’t go the night before to see the casket.”

When Jaime got home from work Tuesday afternoon, he had planned to surprise his parents by suggesting that they all go to the Cardenas rally in Los Angeles, which had been advertised in the Spanish-language media. “I thought my parents would be interested,” he said.

When Jose and Socorro announced that they were headed to Yorba Linda, Jaime decided to go to L.A. on his own.

“I never gave the Nixon funeral a thought,” he recalled. “So there I was at the Cardenas thing, the only Mexican who couldn’t speak a word of Spanish in the place and I loved it.”

Jose Gomez said the thought of being present at a historic event gave him the chills.

“History is a funny thing,” he said. “We do things every day that are historic but we don’t think of them that way. But we remember them and tell others of our experiences. My parents used to talk of seeing famous people during the (1910) Mexican revolution. My father saw Pancho Villa. I have never seen anyone famous or been to anyplace special, except for maybe Disneyland and Mexico City.

“As we got closer to Yorba Linda, I realized I was doing something fundamentally different on that day. A nation was mourning and I wanted to mourn, too . . . and I didn’t even like the man.”

Still, Jaime was grateful he didn’t accompany his parents.

“I’ll remember this day because I wasn’t in Yorba Linda,” he said. “I keep hearing these are important times in Mexico, but I didn’t understand what it meant until I got to the rally. They talked about democracy, of helping Mexicans who live here.

“I remember wondering what my parents were thinking and doing as I stood outside (of a church meeting hall) waiting for Cardenas to show up.”

When the family reunited at home that night, they stayed up past midnight regaling each other with memories and thoughts of the day’s events.

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For me, it was an easy choice. I remembered Watergate and decided I would be better off at the Cardenas rally. That’s where I met Jaime.

There were other choices that the family made that day.

Jose and Socorro Gomez have decided to seek U.S. citizenship because Nixon’s funeral showed them that they have a lot more in common with the U.S. than with Mexico. They also think Nixon would approve of their decision.

For his part, Jaime has decided to learn Spanish.

“Last Wednesday showed me that Mexico is alive and meaningful to me,” he said.