Jesusita en Chihuahua

4 min read

At this point, I start playing a short violin intro of “Jesusita en Chihuahua.” 

That was Jesusita en Chihuahua, a traditional Mexican Polka. I just played this song for my Abuelita, my great-grandmother. Her real name is Dolores, which translates to “sorrows.” She sits on her favorite rocking chair in the living room. She doesn’t get up that much anymore. She has a hearing aid and her glasses are big and thick, but she is small and fragile. Her long white hair is braided in the back. 

I learned this song when I was 13 years old. I play in a Mariachi band. You know, a mariachi,... the ones with the big sombreros and fat bellies. Anyway, I just started high school, and we’re one of the original youth bands here in El Paso, Texas. We’re not old enough to drive, but our managers take us to the “tocadas,” that’s what we call party gigs we play around town. We play at quinceañeras, birthdays, and weddings. Our rate is $100 per hour, but we are not paid. All the money goes to the managers, as they say they are saving it for us. My parents don’t like that we don’t get paid. On Mother’s Day, we start work in the morning and continue playing until the following day. My fingers hurt, and I’m tired from standing so long.

We visit my Abuelita every weekend. We cross the border from El Paso and come here to Ciudad Juárez. This is where I was born. I lived in the house right next door until I was three. I like to play with my brother and cousins in one of the upstairs bedrooms. My Abuelita’s room is off limits, so we go to my Aunt’s room and jump on her bed. She gets angry at us because we make her bed bumpy. My other aunt lives in the room across the patio in the back. I never go there because I’m afraid of the dog, Cisco. The TV is always on in the corner, and it always has novelas on Televisa. They have one of those old phones with a rotary dial. You put your finger on the number, turn clockwise until it stops, and then let go.

How does that work? I ask my Dad. I’m always curious about how things work, and I like to take things apart. I also like to read science books. I started reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Have you read that one? How about Cosmos, by Carl Sagan? 

I was 5 years old, sitting in the passenger seat, my dad driving, and he asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

“An astronaut.” And you know what my father said,  “You don’t have to be an astronaut if you want to study the stars, you can always be an astronomer.” I liked the sound of that. From then on, anytime anyone asks what I want to be when I grow up, I say, “I want to be an astronomer.” 

When I got to the sixth grade, I had to choose an instrument to play at school. I could go to the band or to the orchestra, but all the cool kids are in the band. My cousin Angie, whose real name is Angelica, is in the orchestra, and she wants me to play the violin, but I think the violin is only for girls. I like the saxophone, but that's not an option, so I chose the trumpet. My cousin keeps insisting that I join the orchestra. Finally, on the first day of rehearsals, instead of going to band, I went to the orchestra. That was one of the best decisions of my life. This is the violin I played back then, and I’m still playing it now. It was made in West Germany in 1986; you could see the label inside if you don’t believe me.

After graduating from high school, I had to decide what to do. Would I become a musician or an astronomer? My 6th-grade teacher once said, "When you’re deciding what to do, you have to consider 2 things. The first thing is: will you enjoy what you do? The second thing: are you good at it?" The first question was easy; I enjoyed both things. The second question was a little harder. How do you know if you are good at something? Well, after many years of playing the violin and many hours of practicing, the time came to audition for the State orchestra. I was already first chair in my high school, and third chair at the city youth symphony. I went to the studio to record a tape and sent it to Austin for review. This is the arpeggio that I played….. 

Here I performed a 15-second example of an arpeggio in G 

A few weeks later, the results were in. Out of 343 applications, I was number 341, almost last. That’s when I knew that despite all my hard work, there were others better than me, and I was not as good as I thought.

Fortunately, I had another option. I was accepted to M.I.T. The path was clear, and I came to Boston. It turns out that many scientists and engineers have an affinity for music. We like that music has patterns, and scientists like solving problems and finding patterns. In fact, one of my heroes growing up was Albert Einstein, and he played the violin too, except he played it better.

Eventually, I graduated as a mechanical engineer from M.I.T. I still play my violin as a hobby whenever I need to take a break. I am very happy working as an engineer, and if I could turn back time, I would serenade my Abuelita again and then come here to Boston, to this museum of science next to M.I.T., with all of you here at the center of innovation.