often did the same to Ernesto’s children, a good friend (and lover) of my mother.
The girls weren’t cruel; they weren’t bothered by the fact that I came from the other side of the world, or that I was shy and quiet, or that I was overweight. Especially Lisa, my childhood love. She was the daughter of a friend of my mother. She had blonde hair, mischievous eyes, and a gentle and playful smile; she never made fun of the way I spoke or thought I was stupid.
When we saw the fires in the mountains surrounding San José, I told her they were caused by the Indians coming to liberate Los Yoses. I convinced her not to join them because, in the new Indian-Jewish republic, no child would be forced to learn Hebrew, that strange language written backwards.
I look at my photos at six and seven years old and see that I was striking. I had my mother’s black eyes and her huge eyelashes. Those who see these photographs agree that I must have been the cutest little Polaco8 at that time. However, I felt grotesque and despicable.
8 Polaco is a pejorative term in Costa Rica for Jews since the first Jews in the 20th Century came from Poland. But the name was later used to mean all Jews and it was used to differentiate them from “real”
Costa Ricans who were Christians. The term is close to the use of
“Kike” in the United States.