Texas State Historical Association - My Texas

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Rosabel and the Jungle Inn

She was the oldest child in a family of four, a rosy girl who suited her name: Rosabel. She was shy, until she stood in front of a microphone. You see, Rosabel loved to sing. The local radio station in Harlingen put on a late-night show for aficionados, hosted by José Cantú. Cantú had quite a following, for he imitated the uneducated Mexican, flirting with the housewives who called in to request songs and being everyman's compadre. Few people really spoke like that, like the Mexicans in Hollywood films, but the local men lapped it up and imitated him imitating them! Rosabel was a regular on his show.

There were other venues for aspiring stars in Harlingen. The Grande theatre hosted amateur competitions on weekends, between movies, but the Azteca theatre, located closer to El Mexiquito, was more likely to fill up with large families and noisy irreverent children who cried, fought among themselves, and threw popcorn at contestants. Rosabel didn't sing there.

Her voice was pleasant. She sang a patriotic Mexican song on almost every show, with enthusiasm. Family and neighbours cheered her on. She was one of theirs! All that year, Rosabel sang over the radio. Until she fell in love.

He was a Mexican immigrant visiting her relatives in the neighbourhood when they met. He was a quiet, hard-working young man, and with her family's and neighbours' encouragement, he began to court the young girl. Getting young people married was everybody's concern. When the young man proposed, Rosabel accepted. The neighbours speculated about her retirement from her singing career, but love had priority.

One day a truck moved into the vacant lot almost across from our house and began dumping heaps of sand, bricks, and other building materials; drove away; and returned with more evidence that something immense was happening on our block. We all lived in wooden houses, so bricks indicated something BIG!

A floor was laid. Brick walls went up. And then the strangest thing happened: an artist began painting murals on the inside walls. You could see the creeping tigers; roaring lions ready to pounce; trumpeting, stampeding elephants half hidden behind jungle foliage. Herds of zebra and antelopes attempted to escape the slaughter, and gigantic serpents patiently awaited, draped around trees. You couldn't possibly escape the bloody death promised within these walls.

There was no roof; so the fairy lights were strung up on overhead beams. Would they install a flushing toilet? The entire community had outhouses, so this detail was of major curiosity to us all! It was the children who happily announced that this place was going to be called "The Jungle Inn." Live music and beer were going to flow through our neighbourhood.

A squall of accordions, singers, and guitars kept everyone awake. Men staggered noisily home at all hours. The neighbourhood mothers complained because they couldn't stop their children from standing on the inn's curb, gawking. But the popular Jungle Inn prospered, for awhile.

And Rosabel continued singing, even after her engagement. "But wait until they're married," the gossips speculated. "He'll put a stop to her singing career." We children knew all about these power struggles between men and women; after all, we all played "Indito." This was a singing game in which two partners stood a few feet apart facing each other and took turns approaching the other while singing verses in Spanish. These were initiated by whoever played the woman, asking the Indito for permission to go to the bullfights. He replies "no." She asks him again. He still refuses. She offers him flowers, and he resists all her efforts to charm him. They link arms and dance in a circle, happily ending the game.

Another game, "Mata rile rile rile," involved chanting, and was very old. My mother had played it as a child. It required us to compose rhymes spontaneously. Our games included many references to Inditos, because Mexicans and Native Americans share a long love-hate history. In the past, each has taken the women of the other in marriage. The brilliant Mangas Coloradas, "the scourge of Mexico," was married to a Mexican woman. Even the ingrained racism of today's government cannot obliterate the fact that Mexico's first president was a full-blood Zapoteca indigenous man, Benito Juarez.

Mother sang very old courtship songs that included portions of indigenous dialect, but we've lost their meaning. My great-grandmother was an indigenous Mexican, but we only know her Christian name, Ignacia Magallon, not her indigenous lineage.

Rosabel's wedding day was set. My mother was asked to stand for the groom's mother because his family was unable to come from the other side. The groom looked handsome, and serious. The trim Errol Flynn moustache set off his pale smooth skin and even white teeth. He looked vulnerable among the bride's numerous rowdy relations and masses of their children. She looked beautiful. Her chestnut hair was shiny. The satin-and-lace-trimmed dress set off her plump shapely figure. She smiled and blushed, embarrassed at being the centre of attention.

In the evening everyone moved to the venue where the wedding festivities were being concluded: the Jungle Inn. The bride and groom graciously suffered drunks and other strangers who wandered in for their nightly drinks and attempted to dance with the bride, closer than decency allowed.

Rosabel never sang over the radio again. And shortly afterwards the Jungle Inn closed. "License discrepancies," the men nodded meaningfully. "IT HAD NO TOILETS!" screamed the laughing women.

Once, when I was a junior high student, I took the long way home on the Fair Park bus. As it passed by our old house, I looked out the window at the Jungle Inn. There they all were, still lurking among the peeling, painted foliage on the faded, crumbling walls interlaced with strangling vines and overgrown grass.

But the lions were silent.

Alma Iris Ramirez
Adelaide, South Australia
Published: November 14, 2005