PERSONAL NARRATIVE

The Lemon Story

The Soaring Teapot, 2005, Patssi Valdez. Acrylic on canvas, private collection.

Critical Viewing: Theme How does the artwork reflect what a person might feel like when learning a new language?

When I was about four, or maybe five, my parents bought a new house in what would later become a small suburb of Nogales, Arizona, on the border of Mexico, some four miles outside town. My father was born in Mexico, on the border of Guatemala, and my mother was born in England. From the very beginning of my life I had many languages.

We often drove out to watch the house being built. My mother got to make a number of choices regarding details, among which was the color of various rooms.

My mother was asked by the Mexican workers what color she wanted the kitchen to be painted. They spoke very little English, so she said limón. She said it both because she wanted the kitchen to be yellow and because she wanted to start learning Spanish. The workers nodded yes. But when we came back the next day, the kitchen was painted bright green, like a small jungle. Mexican limones, my mother found out, are small and green, that color exactly, no mistake.

The workers, seeing that my mother was upset, offered to paint it again, right away. My mother said, No, no thank-you. It’s fine.

And that’s the color that wall stayed for the next fourteen years. She said it was a reminder to us all that there was a great deal to learn in the world. You might laugh at first, but after fourteen years you start to think about it.