December 2025 "Becoming the Story Keeper" by Leslie Rivera

Stories are invaluable resources to humans as a species. Stories are power, identity, and most importantly, memory. After reading They Call You Back by Tim Z. Hernandez, I began to analyze the bloodied and bruised history of my family, the pain and perseverance I inherited. Everything that has ever happened to my parents and grandparents has made its way to me. By learning the stories of my parents' childhoods and experiences, I see how my father became the man who taught me to be wary of others and how my mother became a woman who fought to keep her children safe and alive. Knowing someone’s story allows for understanding and humanization of their actions. Prior to learning about my father’s childhood, I saw him as a strict and bitter man pushing me to be the best, a man who switched from berating to joking within seconds. I resented him; I almost believed he did not love me. But, over the years, I collected fragments of his past from having to leave his home country, to living in the ghetto, to losing his brother in a car accident. He lived a life of loss and terror; he did not want me and my brother to live that life either.  

The closest I felt to him was when he told me and my brother stories from when he lived in El Salvador. He shared tales of the Cadejo and of mischievous spirits. My father would tell me how the cadejo was a canine-like entity that would protect you in exchange for your soul. Every story he shares, the more he makes sense, and the more I make sense. In learning our history, I understand that the paranoia that almost consumed me was my inheritance from a man who had every right to fear and distrust. The inherited curse of fear was given to me to protect me, my own cadejo, which would try to claim my soul. Stories are power; they reveal where the generational wound was inflicted and reveal the balm to heal it. I have been in love with stories for so long; every story I am given connects me to a greater mycelium network. I am no longer just one person, but a vessel to collect and share stories with others. The history of our parents and grandparents affects us whether we know them or not; in knowing our history, we take control of our own story.