SEASON 1 PART 8

As they headed outside, Malachi began having a flashback to an earlier part of his childhood with Juan. Juan was what we could say that Malachi loved with all in him. He was a few months older than Malachi and they befriended one another in the 3rd grade. They knew each other prior, but it was via the summer prior to the 3rd grade that the friendship began to form through their common love for the beach. Juan was of Guatemalan descent and grew up in a lower middle class family in a community not far from where Malachi currently lived. While Malachi was reminiscing, Quincy pulled up across the street.

“Did y’all have a good day”

“Got homework already, are they serious” a frustrated Aundrea immediately replied.

“How about you Malachi?”

“Homework, me and Aundrea have the same English class.”

Prior to going home, they stopped for ice cream.

“I put some meet on the grill, I figured we’d get a little ice cream on the first day of school”

“Thanks!” Aundrea exclaimed

“Now don’t expect this every day, now if y’all do well in school. We can make this our Friday routine until I start working.”

“How’s that going?”

“Well I didn’t get that job at the pharmacy, but I put in for a couple of government jobs, I’m also going to take some civil service exams, I got one Saturday actually”

When they got home, Malachi took a moment to breath before starting his homework. While he was doing his  homework, Aundrea was reading the guidelines for her book report. QJ was sitting in the den when Quincy walked in.

“Son, you hardly said anything in the truck, you okay?”

“I’m okay” QJ said “Nothin special happened, my real teacher is out of leave so we’ll meet her after 

Christmas. I REALLY would rather be playing a video game or basketball right now.”

“Well son, if you never went to school you’d be dumb all your life”

QJ asked about homeschooling. “Nice try son, but no, you’re not cut out to sit for that long at home, and I’m not cut out to handle that responsibility”

Meanwhile, Deja was talking with a publisher about how to begin her book on reconnecting with her Lake Area ties.

“So in order to really write this book, you need to think about what it was about SWLA that you cherished. What do you hope that readers will take away? What is YOUR goal?”

Deja had not been down there for a few years, however, she had fond memories. She had befriended two other women of Louisiana creole ancestry since graduating college. She thought about the stories that Helen told her about growing up in the Bayou State and how it was not uncommon for lighter Creole people to attempt passing off for white once they arrived to the Golden State. Her mother, could spot them immediately and growing up with a mother who  was proud of her heritage and taught them to be proud of it too, she could spot them as well

“I guess, I hope that this can be the beginning of raising awareness and encouraging more to be proud of their ancestry. I definitely want to talk about my memories going down to Louisiana. It was rare that my mom went down there, but she never denied being a woman of color nor did she teach us that it was something to be ashamed of.”

“You can talk about the ancestry of Creoles, also me as someone who’s fascinated with different cultures, I’ve always wanted to know the difference between a Creole and a Cajun.”

“Creoles have a combination of Black, French, and Native American ancestry while Cajuns are descended from the French settlers of Nova Scotia. I could also ask Yvonne and Clarissa about some of their memories. According to what I’ve read, the migration began as early as 1927, and then grew into a mass migration from the 1930s to the 1960s. They fled Louisiana for greater opportunities.”

Deja left the meeting with much to think about. She had an idea as to what to began all she needed was to put it into paper. As she drove home, she thought about what her motive was for the book? Being a historian, this was something that interested her. 

At the Martin household, QJ was playing a video game, when his father reminded him that he needed to have his homework completed prior. 

“None today” 

“Let me see your folder”

QJ went and got the folder

Quincy looked and said “okay so far none, but son if you get a letter about schools supplies, me or your mother needs to know, I need to buy pencils and paper for the classroom? Don’t these teachers have a budget? This is ridiculous!“ After his rant, he instructed QJ to get ready for dinner.

“Hey dad”

“What is it son?”

“Can I go to a sleepover in about two weeks?”

“Now, you know I don’t generally send y’all to stay with people that we don’t know”

“So I guess the answer is ‘no’?”

“son, go get washed up.” 

Deja walked in as the children were getting ready to eat. She washed her hand and put her bag up before joining the family for supper. Aundrea asked her how the meeting was

“Well, it was basically the publisher asking me what I wanted to write the book for”

“Well why do you, mom?”

“I want to educate on the fact that a significant population of blacks in Los Angeles have ties to 

Louisiana. Also, when people think of creole, they normally think of the east side of Louisiana, however, there’s a sizeable population of creole peoples living in Southwestern portion of the state.”

“Right…..”

“I know it’s boring to you now but I hope that you’ll value this one day”

“It’s not that it’s boring, but it’s just that you rarely talked about this stuff in detail when we were growing up, but I must say I do like that I can recognize and pronounce those “eaux” names while my friends completely butcher them”

It wasn’t so much that the topic bored Aundrea, but she was not as interested in it as Malachi was.

Switching the conversation to school, Deja asked the kids how their first day of school was. QJ said his was long. “Ditto” Aundrea said.

QJ then brought up the fact that he had been invited to a sleepover

“Already?” Deja replied

Aundrea intervened by stating that her and Malachi didn’t get to go to sleepovers in the 3rd grade.

“Stay out of this!” QJ snapped.

Malachi sat quiet until Deja specifically asked him how his day was.

“Well once I know where I’m going it’ll be better. I’m also thinking about trying out for the track team.”

“Excellent! I hope you make it.” Quincy responded

After eating and showering, they began winding down. Malachi was seen writing in his journal-he stayed up for about an hour before calling it a night.

The next morning in math class, Malachi was listening to a lecture of equations. While the lecture was going on there was a guy glancing up at Malachi. They were assigned 3 workbook pages and a set of practice problems in the text. Prior to leaving the teacher informed them that there would be a quiz the following week resulting in a groan from the class. 

Meanwhile QJ was in the middle of a social studies lesson when the teacher decided to have the classmates partner up in pairs for an activity. QJ noticed his friend Ezra. The bell rang for recess when Ezra followed him outside. 

“So man, how was your summer? Anything good?” Ezra being a tad bit more timid than QJ he had a little trouble making friends. QJ was one of the few friends that Ezra had.They met through a day camp two summers ago and sporadically played basketball with since. 

“Yea man, summer was nice, hella pissed that it had to end so soon“

“my dad tells me stories of how summer used to be three months and they shortened them because we were being dumbed down”

The bell rang and they resumed class, “Hey man, I’ll talk with you after school?” Later that day Deja was on a break between classes when she called Yvonne.

“Sis, do you have any memories of Lake Charles as a child that I don’t?”

“Well, I remember going to Toledo and Sam Houston Park. I’ve met some of our cousins, I’m still in contact with them.”

“Did mom ever go down?”

“Well, she went a couple of times that I can remember before you were born, but she was always uneasy.”

Yvonne then went into one of her favorite past times:

“As kids, aunt Anna used to bring us to K&B and I used to love their ice cream on summer days. In the summer me and some of our cousins would set up like a fun day with water balloons, water guns, and the like. It was cheap entertainment. You know our Aunt didn’t have a lot of money. I also remember when Aunt Bessie would cook Sunday dinner. She lived off of Broad Street not far from Downtown LC. She’d get up at 5 am to start and in time to get to the 8AM church service. Me, Clarissa, James, and Aunt Anna would go to a 10AM service and then when we’d get out of church, food was already cooked-Friend chicken, mashed potatoes, butter beans. She cooked that often. Other times she smothered gravy steaks with rice and green beans. She made the best homemade rolls and she always had some sort of cake with her meal.”

She continued:

“Me and Clarissa were like 13 at the time, I remember Freedom Day, rather than the traditional Juneteenth dinner, we had a huge crawfish boil with just about every other dish one could imagine. Shrimp creole, crawfish etouffee, crawfish fettucine, fish coubion, fried catfish, barbecue, rice dressing or what we call dirty rice here in Cali. Uncle Pete had a place out in Dequincy, north of Sulphur. We danced to zydeco, ate, played games, but soooo much food! We ate like pigs! Spend much of the night in the bathroom but it was well worth it. Music, food, church, are a way to describe the forefront of Creole culture, better yet, Louisiana culture. The southern part of the state anyway.”

to be continued with episode 9