It was Swallows Day, March 1992, and the 200th Anniversary of my family’s home – the Rios Adobe……
For a child, culture is seemingly as transparent as the color of rain. Fraternity and reciprocity are more important than those characteristics that define and sometime separate us as people. The 17 year anniversary of my first trip to San Juan Capistrano, my ancestral home, has recently passed and I am reminded of the preternatural feeling of alliance I felt when introduced to my extended family. For a seemingly Caucasian light-haired boy growing up in Seattle, participating in the San Juaneno family reunion was a unique break from modernity and present day Babylon.
Though I had never before met my cousins in the tribe, and have not seen them since, our connection was instantaneous and profound. It is common for children to split into factions, developing later into cliques and smaller societies of their own. Yet for this small group of children, fast friends for the weekend, similarities were stronger than differences. Now, all these years later, on the cusp of my adult life, I hope to one day soon return to the Rios Adobe in San Juan Capistrano, sure that the connection I felt as a child still exists.
