| Part 1 of 2 I had seen Armando Contreras several times before at La Hacienda, the Mexican restaurant on S. Park Street. Armando wasn't hard to miss. He was the man with an almost cherubic face, usually escorted by a beautiful woman. But Armando's body has been ravaged by muscular dystrophy. He needs a wheelchair to get around. He must rely upon others to get him water. There is an old saying that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Sometimes, the cover blocks the view to the wonderfully scripted pages inside. There are things I never would have known about Armando. I never would have really met him if it weren't for a mutual friend who insisted that I meet Armando. Brenda Gonzalez, who supervises interpreter services for Dean Health System, raves about Armando. Gonzalez danced with Ballet Folklorico Mexico de Los Hermanos Avila during the early 1990s. And she was fully aware of the contribution that Armando made to Ballet Folklorico's rise to national prominence as a traditional Mexican dance troupe. Armando had been a creative force with Ballet Folklorico -- doing choreography for the group and designing and sewing its costumes -- helping Jesus Avila fulfill his vision of what Ballet Folklorico could -- and did -- become. Armando's story is almost symbolic of the lives of many Mexicans who have come to this country during the past 50 years. It is a story of succeeding despite all odds. It is a story of hardship and pain. It is a story of excellence. Armando was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and lived a pretty normal life during his early childhood. He showed a proclivity for cultural activities at an early age. "I became involved in cultural activities through my school in Guadalajara," Armando said. "Just like sports here, we have dance groups in Mexico in elementary and middle schools to learn the basic national or traditional dances either before the Spaniards came or the ones after. We had performances for Mothers Day. When I was five years, I did my first Azteca. I found out later it really wasn't an Azteca. They just told us it was. We had few resources. Mothers got together and sewed the children's costumes with the teachers. The music they used for the Azteca was actually Incan. The teacher knew it was an indigenous dance. A ot of traditional music was handed down through the family. And still, there are a lot of paintings that show the dances. There is still a lot of information out there." Like many fathers during those times, Armando's went to the United States -- Chicago to be exact -- to find work. His parents had lived in the United States before. They lived in Texas as a part of the Braceros Program in the 1950s. Armando's three older siblings were born in Texas. He took four of the older children with him and left Armando's mother, Armando, and his four younger siblings behind in Guadalajara. Armando's parents had a disagreement about the rest of the family moving to Chicago. His mom wanted to reunite the family. His father wanted to leave things the way they were. Armando's mom was a strong-willed woman who was determined to reunite the family. Although she had applied for the rest of the family to enter the U.S. in 1969 and they were granted their legal status in 1971 hey didn't move to Chicago until 1973because of his father's opposition. His mother decided to make the move. "We came up to Chicago supposedly for the summer," Armando said. "That's what my mother told us. We were just taking a vacation to come and visit my father and my sisters. They were already here working. When they first told us we were going to move to Chicago, nobody wanted to go. We were kids and we enjoyed being with our family and friends. And we were going to go to another country where we didn't speak the language? That's pretty scary." Things didn't work out the way that Armando's mom had envisioned the reunion. "My father left before we even got to Chicago," Armando said. "He didn't want to know anything about us. I sent him a couple of Father's Day cards and they were returned to me. My brother knew where to find him. I felt like he didn't want us." Armando's mom was now in Chicago, a single parent with nine children living in the middle of Chicago's barrio. "We lived in a three- bedroom apartment," Armando recalled. "At one time, there were 15 of us living there together. It's funny that in Mexico, the house that we lived in was pretty big. So when we moved to Chicago, we saw the three-story building in the block. Being a kid, I thought "Wow, I'l take the top floor. Like I had a choice. I thought the entire building was for us. We just had the third floor. The bedrooms were very small. When I walked in, I thought it was a walk-in closet and it was a bedroom for the four of us. Eventually, the eldest had to move out of the apartment with their families. But my mother and the rest of us kids would baby sit for their children." As with any single parent trying to raise nine children in a rough part of town, Armando's mother ruled with an iron hand. "I had a very close relationship with my mom," Armando said. "She was very strict. She used to walk to our school without us knowing. She would almost be investigating what we did. A lot of times, we would chose not to take the bus and walk home. All of a sudden, we saw her car driving by to let us know she knew where we were. I never drank, did drugs, or smoke. Nothing. She wouldn't let me go out without another of my brothers or sisters, even when I was 25 years old." Armando had more to worry about then his mother. When I was in high school, I got beat up a lot of times because I wasn't in any gang," Armando said. "A lot of kids wanted me to join their gangs and I was beat up for it because I didn't want to join. I was kicked and pushed and shoved, but I never joined a gang because I thought my mother would kill me if I did." Armando laughed as he said that. After about a year, Armando became homesick for the simpler days in Guadalajara. He especially missed the dancing and the performances he did in elementary school. But there was no school like this in Chicago. So Armando took things into his own hands and started a school-based Mexican dance troupe called Ballet Folklorico from Cooper, the name of his middle school. "We started collecting money from teachers and doing bake sales to make our own costumes," Armando said. Little did he know that it was the start of an illustrative career. |
| An interview with Armando Contreras Brilliance despite all odds by Jonathan Gramling |
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