The History and Musical Evolution of Ashley Marie Aguirre.
Disclaimer: The events which I am about to recount are told as I remember to the best of my ability. Some memories have been verfied and others my mom swears aren't true, but I remember them so they must be.
A semi-autobiography
The Birth of a Musical Enthusiast
On the eve of May 9th, 1986 a young woman went into labor wearing a pink button up short sleeved cotton dress with faint white pin stripes and a blue bow at the collar. Her hands and feet perfectly manicured and her hair shoulder length, straight and layered.
The Contractions carried over into the morning of May 10th, at which point a miracle occured. Yes, on May 10th, 1986 at 10:10 a.m on the fourth floor of Whittier Presbyterian Hospital, Ashley Marie Aguirre was born to a 21 year old Mexican-American mother by the name of Marie Jessica Aguirre and some 27 year old sperm donor who had been born on the day of Fools, better known by the rest of us as April Fools Day and this fool's name happened to be Juan Jose Rodriguez.
When I asked my then single, now married mother how she felt the day I was born, she said, "I was very depressed (which may explain my depressive character--heridity) because my gorgeous body had been streched beyond its limits and I looked like a sack of potatoes, but it was also the happiest day of my life, I cried tears of joy, you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, I was a mom and I had someone who needed me, but I think it was me who needed you more." Yes, that's my mother and I love her.
The Early Years
I have almost no memory of my mother being in my life up until I was about 4. I know what you're thinking, "Does anyone really remember anything from those years?" Well, by some act of God, I do remember. Maybe because at the age of 2 my brain was probably the equivalent of a six year old brain, which allowed me to retain more in memory than "normal" kids. Yes, I remember the day I developed my fear of heights, the day I came tumbling down a flight of stone stairs. At the age of 3, I had all the sense in the world knocked into me.
Because my mom worked two jobs to try and provide for me, she was more of a cameo in the early developmental stages of my life than a mother. Something I long resented her for, but with age, and several bonding conversations I began to understand her. Yesenia Ortega-Marroquin (Yesi), my mother's high school best friend took me in when I was two months old, and by "taking in" I mean more of a long term, but not permanent, babysitting.
Yesi's mom, Magda Pereida (Maggie, or as I called her, "ta ta[my first words]") quit her job in Hollywood as a maid to become my fulltime nanny and moved into Yesi and Ricardo's apartment on Greenwood in Montebello.
Enter my first biggest musical influence:
Ricardo Ortega, or Pop as I later called him. Man, oh man, could that man twist. He came from a family of musicians. Him and his brothers had formed a band modeled after Richie Valens and his bamba band. My pop was the singer. I remember him singing me to sleep and always listening to music really loud, which probably shows why I am a heavy sleeper and am immune to loud noise. Not only could my pop sing, but damn it, I have yet to see a man move the way he did. Remember John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever? Yeah, well he's got nothing on my pop. I remember twisting around the apartment in my socks and copying everything he did. Sopa de caracol, anyone? The moves he taught me have lasted me more than a decade, they never go out of style. I remember wanting to be like him. I'd envy his Elvis impersonations.
Yesi and Ricardo asked my mother if they could adopt me, but my mom said, no, because she was trying to get everything together so that she could be with me.
The Big Move of '91.
Before I knew it I was 4 and half years old and living in a single bedroom apartment on telegraph and paramount with my mom and a man who was introduced to me as my father, Edwyn, who was also 9 years my mother's senior. I don't know how the change happened, but it was like I went from one family to another overnight. I remember I had to sleep in the living room and how scared I was sleeping by that huge window. I'd peek out that window at night and I swear all of Michael Jackson's Thriller chracters were standing outside my door ready to break the door down and eat me.
Enter the second musical influence in my life:
My dad, Edwyn Alfredo Marroquin, to this very day has been the only real father I have ever known, or at least he has been for the past 16 years. According to my mother, this man had shown up at her door with all his belongings and when she opened the door he didn't say a word and walked right in. Feeling sorry for the chap, my mom didn't have the heart to turn him away, she loved him after all. Okay, so I need to explain a bit here.
Edwyn and Marie met on the corner of Passons Blvd. and Shade Ln. inside the house of Edwyn's brother, Rolando (Otto) Marroquin's house during Marie's senior year of high school. Rolando is Yesi's Father, and Marie, having been kicked out of her house during high school had moved in with Yesi and her family.
While she lived there, Edwyn had also moved in, he was in the process of a painful separation from his wife Norma, whom he shared a daughter named Scarleth with.
The story goes that they would always stare at each other when they lived together but never talked much, and Edwyn was always trying to put the moves on her by saying, "dame un chito (besito)." And she wouldn't, she was always attracted to him but stayed away because of the situation.
On the night of her senior prom, my mom says that while everyone wanted to go to the beach after prom she asked to be dropped off at home and everyone left without her. She says, "all I could think about was him." When she opened the door to the house she found him waiting, and she finally gave him that kiss that he'd been beginning for. And rest as we say, is history.
Well, a lot more had to happen before they could actually stay together. As I said before, Edwyn was in the middle of a separation and my mom, well she was just finishing up high school. So she did what she had to and said she couldn't be with him, that he had a little girl and he should be with his wife. Edwyn went back to his wife and My mom then spent the next few years crying. Two years after they stopped seeing each other my mom was pregnant with me. A little more than a year later, Edwyn and Norma had their second child, a boy, who they named Alfredo. They both had their own lives, but love, real love at least takes a lot more to break than time, distance, marriages, divorces, pregnancies, and whatever else the world throws at it.
It took almost 7 years since they parted for them to finally end up together. Edwyn, as much as he loved his children, had had enough of his wife. They fought all the time and they were both physically and mentally abusive to each other, they had nightly fist fights and were always breaking things.
So he said goodbye, and that's when he showed up at my moms door.
Okay, that's it for tonight. I'm exhausted and I need sleep before class at 10. This is only the beginning.
A semi-autobiography
The Birth of a Musical Enthusiast
On the eve of May 9th, 1986 a young woman went into labor wearing a pink button up short sleeved cotton dress with faint white pin stripes and a blue bow at the collar. Her hands and feet perfectly manicured and her hair shoulder length, straight and layered.
The Contractions carried over into the morning of May 10th, at which point a miracle occured. Yes, on May 10th, 1986 at 10:10 a.m on the fourth floor of Whittier Presbyterian Hospital, Ashley Marie Aguirre was born to a 21 year old Mexican-American mother by the name of Marie Jessica Aguirre and some 27 year old sperm donor who had been born on the day of Fools, better known by the rest of us as April Fools Day and this fool's name happened to be Juan Jose Rodriguez.
When I asked my then single, now married mother how she felt the day I was born, she said, "I was very depressed (which may explain my depressive character--heridity) because my gorgeous body had been streched beyond its limits and I looked like a sack of potatoes, but it was also the happiest day of my life, I cried tears of joy, you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, I was a mom and I had someone who needed me, but I think it was me who needed you more." Yes, that's my mother and I love her.
The Early Years
I have almost no memory of my mother being in my life up until I was about 4. I know what you're thinking, "Does anyone really remember anything from those years?" Well, by some act of God, I do remember. Maybe because at the age of 2 my brain was probably the equivalent of a six year old brain, which allowed me to retain more in memory than "normal" kids. Yes, I remember the day I developed my fear of heights, the day I came tumbling down a flight of stone stairs. At the age of 3, I had all the sense in the world knocked into me.
Because my mom worked two jobs to try and provide for me, she was more of a cameo in the early developmental stages of my life than a mother. Something I long resented her for, but with age, and several bonding conversations I began to understand her. Yesenia Ortega-Marroquin (Yesi), my mother's high school best friend took me in when I was two months old, and by "taking in" I mean more of a long term, but not permanent, babysitting.
Yesi's mom, Magda Pereida (Maggie, or as I called her, "ta ta[my first words]") quit her job in Hollywood as a maid to become my fulltime nanny and moved into Yesi and Ricardo's apartment on Greenwood in Montebello.
Enter my first biggest musical influence:
Ricardo Ortega, or Pop as I later called him. Man, oh man, could that man twist. He came from a family of musicians. Him and his brothers had formed a band modeled after Richie Valens and his bamba band. My pop was the singer. I remember him singing me to sleep and always listening to music really loud, which probably shows why I am a heavy sleeper and am immune to loud noise. Not only could my pop sing, but damn it, I have yet to see a man move the way he did. Remember John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever? Yeah, well he's got nothing on my pop. I remember twisting around the apartment in my socks and copying everything he did. Sopa de caracol, anyone? The moves he taught me have lasted me more than a decade, they never go out of style. I remember wanting to be like him. I'd envy his Elvis impersonations.
Yesi and Ricardo asked my mother if they could adopt me, but my mom said, no, because she was trying to get everything together so that she could be with me.
The Big Move of '91.
Before I knew it I was 4 and half years old and living in a single bedroom apartment on telegraph and paramount with my mom and a man who was introduced to me as my father, Edwyn, who was also 9 years my mother's senior. I don't know how the change happened, but it was like I went from one family to another overnight. I remember I had to sleep in the living room and how scared I was sleeping by that huge window. I'd peek out that window at night and I swear all of Michael Jackson's Thriller chracters were standing outside my door ready to break the door down and eat me.
Enter the second musical influence in my life:
My dad, Edwyn Alfredo Marroquin, to this very day has been the only real father I have ever known, or at least he has been for the past 16 years. According to my mother, this man had shown up at her door with all his belongings and when she opened the door he didn't say a word and walked right in. Feeling sorry for the chap, my mom didn't have the heart to turn him away, she loved him after all. Okay, so I need to explain a bit here.
Edwyn and Marie met on the corner of Passons Blvd. and Shade Ln. inside the house of Edwyn's brother, Rolando (Otto) Marroquin's house during Marie's senior year of high school. Rolando is Yesi's Father, and Marie, having been kicked out of her house during high school had moved in with Yesi and her family.
While she lived there, Edwyn had also moved in, he was in the process of a painful separation from his wife Norma, whom he shared a daughter named Scarleth with.
The story goes that they would always stare at each other when they lived together but never talked much, and Edwyn was always trying to put the moves on her by saying, "dame un chito (besito)." And she wouldn't, she was always attracted to him but stayed away because of the situation.
On the night of her senior prom, my mom says that while everyone wanted to go to the beach after prom she asked to be dropped off at home and everyone left without her. She says, "all I could think about was him." When she opened the door to the house she found him waiting, and she finally gave him that kiss that he'd been beginning for. And rest as we say, is history.
Well, a lot more had to happen before they could actually stay together. As I said before, Edwyn was in the middle of a separation and my mom, well she was just finishing up high school. So she did what she had to and said she couldn't be with him, that he had a little girl and he should be with his wife. Edwyn went back to his wife and My mom then spent the next few years crying. Two years after they stopped seeing each other my mom was pregnant with me. A little more than a year later, Edwyn and Norma had their second child, a boy, who they named Alfredo. They both had their own lives, but love, real love at least takes a lot more to break than time, distance, marriages, divorces, pregnancies, and whatever else the world throws at it.
It took almost 7 years since they parted for them to finally end up together. Edwyn, as much as he loved his children, had had enough of his wife. They fought all the time and they were both physically and mentally abusive to each other, they had nightly fist fights and were always breaking things.
So he said goodbye, and that's when he showed up at my moms door.
Okay, that's it for tonight. I'm exhausted and I need sleep before class at 10. This is only the beginning.