"Mixed Blood" comes from a collection of short stories and reportage that Moyshe (Moisés) Rubinstein published under the title Meksikaner Temes (Mexican Themes) in 1940, a mosaic of Jewish life in Mexico during the first half of the twentieth century that often draws on the failed dreams of Eastern European Jewish migrants to reach the United States. The title, "Gemisht Blut" in Yiddish, recalls the Spanish word mestizo, of mixed European and indigenous parentage, a loaded term in the history and politics of Latin America. Possibly autobiographical and with sparse dialogue, the story traces the relationship between a young Jewish immigrant and a local Mexican girl, ultimately raising questions about identity, nostalgia, loss, assimilation, and the struggle of reconciling with one’s history and choices.
For the modern reader, there are uncomfortable moments of both sexism and racism in the text. The story reflects a facet of Yiddish life in Mexico, and in doing so it also reflects the prejudices—whether deliberate or unconscious—of the writer and his time. — Avi Blitz, Deborah Hochberg, and Eric Lerman
Yoske was merely a boy when he left home. Though he’d grown up in the Russian steppes during the tempestuous time of revolution and civil war, he was one of those people who are so concerned with themselves that they take little note of the outside world. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and he was as tall as a sturdy ear of corn in a Ukrainian field; stormy weather had no effect on him. A singular moment felled and tormented him, however—the murder of his older brother in a violent pogrom.
Years later, he would still dream of his brother; he’d see a Ukrainian killer in every uniformed man he encountered. When his uncle on the other side of the ocean sent him money to travel across the wide world, Yoske became enchanted with the idea, and though the whiskers on his round face had barely begun to sprout, he left everyone behind and set off on a journey far from home.
Trains and ships brought Yoske to Mexico. When he arrived in the strange country that sat on the doorstep of the United States he wanted to turn around and go straight home. He didn’t enjoy the pace of the city or the people whose language he didn’t understand. He decided that Mexico was not a real country at all. But he took the advice of a more experienced immigrant, with whom he shared his doubts and woes, and set off for the border to join his uncle in the golden land.
Yoske had fortune on his side. His father had made him recite a prayer from an old siddur that would accompany him on his long voyage across land and sea. And he believed that the merit of the old prayer book watched over him. One dark night, while attempting to creep over the US border with two other fortune seekers, guards detected the group crawling and blindly fired bullets in their direction. Yoske’s friends were wounded and detained, but Yoske managed to edge back to the other side unscathed.
The misadventure left Yoske penniless in a remote town in the Mexican provinces, where after a long search he met a fellow Jew who spoke a bit of Yiddish and advised him to take a pack and begin trading with the locals.
Yoske scaled mountainous terrains and arrived in villages where Indians, dark as coal, with shrouds on their dried bodies and thin hair on their Kalmyk-like faces, lived in sandy caves. Not knowing their language, Yoske used sign language and half-words to communicate with his customers, and he slowly offloaded his wares. He didn’t know what to do with his earnings, the pieces of silver and gold coins he received in exchange for his little knives and traps, for his linen and leather pouches, and for the locks and rings that the affable and naïve peasants bought up like children’s knickknacks.
One day he set down his work and went to the bank to buy a whole hundred dollars to send home to his mother and father. He wrote the address on the envelope containing the check in stilted letters. When he put it in the letterbox, he stood a while, contemplatively.
It didn’t take long for Yoske to transform into a different person. He began to speak the language of the folk, and though he met a couple of Jews, he preferred to befriend some locals who respected his worldliness—but didn’t know about his Jewishness.
Yoske would come home exhausted. Trudging around on horses over narrow trails and scaling mountain paths had made him tired, and he began working in the city. He’d spend his evenings in the beerhouse or at the cinema, and he began to consider what his new home had to offer. He was over twenty now, and his nights were sleepless and restless.
One morning, as he made his usual way down one of the side streets with his pack, he encountered a young girl with a bright countenance and alluring, enchanting eyes. Almost unconsciously, he began following her, fixing his gaze on her legs and waist, as was the custom among Mexican men; a sadness overcame him when the girl disappeared into a house. Yoske stood for a while, lost in thought. His heart rose up in his chest and a vague impulse surged through his limbs.
As though driven by the devil, he followed the girl into the building. Dizzy and lost, he set down his pack and began talking to the lady of the house and her daughter. He offered his wares to the girl who’d caught his attention for a price so low that it was impossible to refuse. He was delighted that the girl seemed to pick up on his game. With delicate hands, she chose from his goods, and Yoske had a chance to observe her up close.
***
Margarita was a young, non-Jewish girl. Her stature and strong build belied her barely sixteen years. Her dark eyes sparkled like fire beneath her eyebrows and long lashes, inviting Yoske’s gaze. Her graceful neck and dark comely visage shone like a mirror. Yoske was captivated by her voice, by her resounding laugh and her tender movements.
He visited Margarita frequently and became her ardent admirer. The girl accepted his company. Her relationship with her foreign companion was filled with joy and delight. Yoske loved her cheerful spirit; he felt as though he had grown wings, as though he had been freed and drawn into a better world. Rather than traipsing the mountain paths with his pack, he now strolled alongside the thought of Margarita. How easy it was to walk with her! Yoske began to notice the deep blueness of the sky, the mountaintops mingling with the clouds. As the peaks touched the sky, so Yoske longed to touch this heavenly woman who inflamed his thoughts and feelings.
There was a cool breeze on the night that Yoske, driven by uncontrollable desire, kissed and bit Margarita’s red lips. Like rosebuds, their hearts opened to one another. Words of endearment punctuated their burgeoning affection. The stars sparkled and winked at them, and the moon’s face transformed into a laughing angel. Yoske felt that his journey was over.
Margarita was a well brought up girl. She didn’t know anything about Yoske’s origins, and it never occurred to her to ask about his past. His radiant countenance and sky-blue eyes delighted her. His tall, slender figure impressed her, and with all the fire of a first love she devoted herself to her mountain angel—her dreamy Jose. Between the blue sky and the earth-black rocky wasteland, the two young flowers glided, breathed, and thrilled one another. Yoske shone like the steppes and the Ukrainian fields; Margarita gleamed like the Mexican gulf. Heaven and earth kissed in unison with them; the world quivered and spun in a frenzy of forgetfulness.
Yoske was surrounded by new horizons. He rarely wrote home. Greater desires overcame him now. He stopped wandering with his pack of wares, opened a business, and moved into an apartment at the top of a building. Burning with desperate jealousy, he devoted himself to Margarita and became engaged to her, as her family wanted.
He began a new life.
Seldom has a couple’s joy equaled that of Margarita and Yoske. Not a single angry word poisoned their way. Margarita’s warm, natural innocence enveloped Yoske so completely that he felt as though he were walking on clouds. Full of love and devotion, he didn’t notice the months and years pass by. He barely noticed his business succeeding, how his clientele grew, and how the days flew. A deep forgetfulness waxed in him. He didn’t recognize how absorbed he was in his own little world.
Margarita was innocent and kind. Yoske sensed he would never find a young woman better than she. He grew accustomed to her compassion as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He rarely considered what was happening around him. The fruit of their happy union was a little boy.
Margarita didn’t understand why her husband wanted to name the child Ruben. Yoske named the boy after his brother, Reuven, who died before his eyes at the hands of the Ukrainian Haidamaks. It even seemed to him that the little child resembled his murdered brother.
Yoske kept the secret of his background hidden from Margarita and her family. They called him El Ruso behind his back but were never anything but kind to him and never probed him about his origins or his past. At sober moments, when Yoske would wake up in a daze and remember his old home and his mother and father, he would shake himself, close his eyes for a while, and upon waking hasten to the post office to send fifty dollars home.
But he rarely had time to reflect upon his previous life. Ruben was growing like a robust hybrid fruit. The blending of the essences of his parents had given Ruben’s cheeks a dark rosy hue. His eyes were fiery, like his mother’s, and his speech was clear and fluent from the moment he could talk. Yoske loved his child with preternatural intensity. When he held his child on his lap, he trembled from the sweetness he felt, and tears of joy flowed from his eyes. Margarita adored her Jose for the searing tenderness he showed their boy. Brought together from different worlds, Yoske and Margarita were bound to one another by chance in idyllic happiness.
Yoske had not written any letters to his parents. He felt it was enough to regularly send money home. He was also glad that he had not received any letters from them. It seemed to him that he would never be able to explain his life to his family, especially if they should ask him about marriage and about how he lived. With all the fire in his heart, he would push such thoughts out of his mind and surrender to his radiant Margarita and her angelic child.
* * *
The years passed by like a sweet dream, and one day Yoske realized that his son was now six years old. Margarita decided to send Ruben to school. Yoske tried to chase away, as if with a whip, the thoughts he had about the Christian education his son would receive. Because he loved Margarita, he drew away from her so as not to pull her into the tragedy he felt. One night he dreamed that his father, clothed in a white kitl, came to him from the afterworld, wailing and lamenting that his grandson did not know that he was a Jew. Yoske woke up soaked in a frightened sweat. He reminded himself that his father would yet live to the age of a hundred and twenty. He spat three times and covered his head with the bedsheet, but he couldn’t go back to sleep.
When he arrived at work the next morning, the postman handed him a letter. Yoske recognized from the envelope that the letter was from the old country, and he felt his heart begin to ache. With trembling fingers, he opened the envelope and carefully removed the small missive. When he saw the delicate letters on the page, he realized it wasn’t in his father’s handwriting.
Yoske’s eyes glazed over and he blinked. He leaned on the table and, with a pounding heart and with the fine letters whirling before him, read through the letter.
A torrent of tears flowed from his eyes and dampened the paper as he read his mother’s notice that his father was now resting in paradise, that he died in great sorrow because Yoske had not sent any letters. She wrote that his father’s last words were “Yoske, Yoske.”
Yoske imagined that he could hear his father’s voice. He left his workplace, hurriedly locked the door, and set out into the street with no thought to where he was going. It seemed to him that he might yet attend his father’s funeral. Such was his grief that his eyes were unseeing. He didn’t acknowledge the people around him and was unable to pay attention to what was before him.
He stumbled through the streets and plazas and somehow managed to arrive home. With a sorrowful gasp, he collapsed on the sofa. Margarita was startled and frightened. She fell to her knees before Yoske and begged him to have pity and tell her what had happened. Yoske felt as if he were choking, as if a dense clod were stuck in his throat. He wanted to speak but couldn’t. As Margarita sobbed, Yoske heard his small child’s frightful shout, and then felt the gentle touch of his wife and the fingers of his beloved Ruben on his face. He sat up, embraced Margarita and Ruben, and with a tear-choked voice told them the sad news he’d read in the letter. A tear ran down Margarita’s soft face, and she consoled her husband with warm words. Little Ruben tearfully asked about his grandfather, and Yoske decided then and there to tell him who his grandfather was. The child did not understand— that his grandfather was a Jew, and that his papa was also a Jew.
Jose’s words stung Margarita, but she controlled herself and said, “Jose, what’s the point of you telling all this to the child? You’re a good, loving man. That’s all I need of you. Please, calm yourself. Your father was an old man, and everyone meets their maker in the end.”
“I want to tell him,” Yoske said, raising his voice, “I want you to know too. After all this time, I need you to understand that my son needs a different upbringing than that of our friends’ children.”
Margarita didn’t understand what Jose meant, and she took his reaction as a sign of grief. She tried to still him with soothing words. She took Ruben to another room and left Jose to calm down alone.
But from that day Jose began speaking to Margarita about his home, about his background. He told her his history, where he was born, how he arrived in Mexico, and how often he longed to see his mother who was alone now, old and isolated. He pulled a crumpled photograph of two people from a chest and showed it to his wife. The man in the picture was standing up and wore a formal hat; the woman wore a bonnet. This was the first time Margarita had seen such people. Yoske placed the photograph on the cabinet beside his bed; tears often welled in his eyes when he looked at it.
Margarita studied Jewish traditions, she learned about Jewish holidays and Jewish history, topics that were very foreign to her—something from another world. She loved her Jose and wanted to understand everything about him. She would listen attentively to his words, ask questions, and try to remember as much as she could. She struggled to comprehend what Jose meant when he explained how Jews perform an operation on newborn boys to ensure their health and the health of their future offspring. Margarita told her mother, an old Catholic woman, about it; concerned it may be something sinful, Margarita’s mother consulted the priest and asked how they should protect themselves.
Time passed and Jose felt more settled. He found out that in the capital, where Jews had once come to do business, there still existed Jewish life. Jews had brought their customs there all the way from the old country. He subscribed to a Yiddish newspaper and read about everything that was happening in the world. Though he didn’t quite understand why, a thought began nagging at him to take Margarita and Ruben to the big city.
He learned from a Jewish traveler that they’d performed a circumcision on a thirteen-year-old boy whose parents belonged to a Sabbatarian sect in the city. Yoske wouldn’t leave the young man alone. He kept him in his shop a whole day, bombarding him with questions about the unusual circumcision. He asked how the boy was, how they did the operation, and who, and where, and how he felt. Yoske was troubled and unsettled by the tale.
He learned when Yom Kippur fell and found a reason to not open the business that day. He took Margarita for a walk beyond the town, caressed her just like before they were married, looked into her beautiful eyes, conversed with her, and showered her with compliments, but he failed to assuage her deep sense that something was bothering her husband, and she sweetly but boldly demanded that he explain to her the reason for his agitated state.
“I know something is weighing on your heart,” she pleaded, “Tell me, Jose! Your dreams are my dreams, and I want to make things easier for you.”
Yoske was overwhelmed by his wife’s kind words, and he wanted to kiss her. As they sat on the trunk of a fallen tree in a wooded area, he remembered the delicious adventures of the first months of their courtship. He was almost at a loss for the words he needed to describe his emotions to Margarita. He reassured her that without her support he wouldn’t do anything, but that he wanted her to agree to have Ruben circumcised. He admitted that without her consent, his sweet life would be bitter and he’d remain unsettled.
Yoske was crestfallen when Margarita explained her opposition to such a move. He wondered how she knew that the circumcision was a religious ceremony and not a health procedure. She told him she’d heard about Jews from the city who hadn’t circumcised their children, and Yoske recalled how Margarita had recently spent a long time conversing with a Jewish woman who’d come to town from the capital.
Margarita didn’t want to leave Yoske in a state of tension. She watched her husband’s face sour and took pity on him, adding that she herself didn’t know if she was absolutely against the ceremony.
“We’ll see,” she said. “Maybe Ruben won’t want to do it, in which case the whole thing doesn’t matter. So why are we bickering? It’s better to wait.”
Her words filled Yoske with a tender hope, and he considered how good Margarita was to him, how worthy she was of any sacrifice. He thanked her for understanding and reassured her that he would do anything to please her.
He made sure to meet with the Jewish woman from the city. He had a feeling that no good would come out of her friendship with Margarita. He didn’t have to wait long. Margarita confided that the same woman had informed her mother that Yoske was a Jew. Her mother had taken a candle to church and asked the priest to forgive her daughter’s dreadful sin.
One morning, Ruben came to see his father at the shop. Yoske was surprised because the boy rarely came to see him at work. He embraced and kissed the thriving child, who was now in his second year at school.
Ruben shot his father an inquisitive look and Yoske felt uncomfortable.
“Pa,” Ruben suddenly asked, “tell me, Pa, why does Mama have dark hair and black eyes when Papa has blond hair and blue eyes?”
Yoske’s head spun. He slid Ruben off his lap. His son’s question rang in his ears.
“Why is Mama . . . ? Papa, why . . . ?” Yoske murmured the question back to himself.
He was agitated when he arrived at home. He wasn’t in the mood to chitchat with Margarita. She asked about his day, and he gave her clipped answers.
“We’re going to Mexico City,” he announced. “We should be there. I’m moving us this month.”
Margarita listened and consented.
* * *
Yoske sold his business. With the money, he moved with his wife and his son to Mexico City. Before anything, before getting settled, before exploring the city and discovering what kind of world he was in, Yoske went to the Jewish center and apprehensively introduced himself at the school registration office. He answered all the registrar’s questions with quiet assent, but he had to swallow hard when they asked the name and origin of his child’s mother. He paid the required fees and left, buoyed with optimism.
Yoske felt terrific joy when he woke Ruben up for his first day. He took him down to the street to wait for the school bus. Watching the bus pull away, his eyes welled up with tears. At that moment, Yoske felt as though he were home once more. He imagined seeing his mother. He imagined her embracing him, showering affection on her lost child—the boy who went adrift but found his way back.
Born in Grodno, then Poland, in 1906, Moyshe (Moisés) Rubinstein emigrated to Mexico in 1936 and worked as a journalist for the Yiddish newspaper Der Veg before establishing his own paper, Di Shtime, in 1939.
Avi Blitz has taught Hebrew, Yiddish, and Jewish studies since completing his PhD in comparative literature in 2020. He teaches Yiddish through the Argentinian branch of YIVO (IWO) in Buenos Aires and is assistant professor of instruction of Hebrew in the department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Blitz prepared this translation with two of his advanced Yiddish students, Detroit-based poet Deborah Hochberg and retired physician Eric Lerman.