(Look for the second part of this story tomorrow)
By Reynaldo Mena
“‘Mi’jo,’ the 12-year-old boy heard on the phone. ‘Your uncle Chava needs your help. When you get out of school, go to his house to see what he needs, keep him company.’
It was the voice of his mother, Bertha; the boy was Omar Velasco, now the popular host of the number one radio show in Los Angeles, Omar and Argelia.
A few days before that call, his grandmother, who used to take care of Uncle Chava, had died. Uncle Chava had been shot years before, which left him paralyzed.
Omar took his mother’s instructions to heart. It was what needed to be done. While other kids rested or played on the streets, Omar went to Uncle Chava’s house, bought him his favorite Raleigh cigarettes, his Cokes, or any product he needed. He helped him bathe, change, and tend to his wounds.
“I learned a lot from my Uncle Chava. I would sit next to him, and he would tell me countless stories. He would smoke with his Coke by his side and told me how they grew up, how they lived as kids. That’s where I learned to tell a story, the art of conversation. Seeing him in that situation and how he handled it made me more human, more humble,” says Omar, reminiscing about those years.
Omar Velasco was born in Zapotlán El Grande, better known as Ciudad Guzmán, in the Mexican state of Jalisco.
“For sheer whimsy,” says Velasco. “My family already lived in Colima, but my mom insisted that I had to be born in Zapotlán, like everyone else in the family.”
He was the youngest; his father owned some restaurants in Colima, his mother took care of the family and the household. She also produced things from time to time, always with her hands, like knitting and selling.
“Being the youngest, I was the ‘Messenger of the Gods,’ meaning my brothers. Whatever was needed, I was the one to do it. I liked it because I got to keep the change,” he says, laughing.
His father, Salvador, was born in a town called Gómez Farías near Zapotlán. Omar Velasco came from a very poor family and had to figure out how to make money from a young age, something he passed on to his children, although he never allowed them to work in his restaurants when they were young.
At a very young age, Salvador emigrated to California, a second element that would shape Omar’s future years later.
“I had a normal childhood. I lived in Colima until I was nine years old. I can say that I also lived a solitary childhood. I’ve never been very social. So, I spent a lot of time in silence, alone. I remember walking a lot. I enjoyed it; I’m not like some people who say they find it difficult to be alone and in silence, I enjoyed it. From a young age, I’ve been very observant; I like to observe, watch time pass, and I’m also very analytical. I don’t depend on others to get from one point to another,” he adds.
He enjoyed being with his family a lot, but they could only do so on Sundays. His father worked full-time in his businesses, and his mother was very busy, but on Sundays, they would go to the beach or a pool. They would all sit together and share every moment.
“I don’t have memories of violence, alcohol, or drugs. That didn’t exist in our home. Work, on the other hand, was always present,” he says.
He never felt like crying; he tried to be strong. But at the age of four or five, there was one thing that would upset him.
“There was a song by Cepillín that my brothers used to sing to me, do you remember?” says Omar, and starts singing, ‘Tomás uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh, Tomás uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh, Tomás, que feo estás,’ well, they would change it to ‘Omar uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh, Omar uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh, Omar, que feo estás,’ he says with laughter.
“Of course, I would run to my mother, crying and crying, but that’s the only thing I remember, but come on, I was only four or five years old,” he adds.
A Time of Migration for Omar Velasco
At the age of nine, a period began that would test him. Changes and challenges of facing the challenges that presented themselves alone.
“One day my father told us that we were moving to Guadalajara, near my maternal grandmother’s house. Just us, my father would stay in Colima to run the restaurants. I accepted it, as always, but the change was significant,” he recalls.
Guadalajara was a big city compared to Colima. He still didn’t have many friends, but the few he had were slipping away, and he felt like he was losing his father too. If he saw his father sporadically in Colima, in Guadalajara, he had almost disappeared.
His mother enrolled him in elementary school, and as if it were something very ordinary, she took Omar Velasco to the bus stop on the first day of classes.
“She said, ‘buses stop here, take the one that goes to Normal Superior, get off at the second roundabout, cross, you’ll see a DIF (goverment building), and behind it is your school,'” he says, laughing again. “I was just a nine-year-old kid; I was scared to death. I was so frightened that when I tried to get on the bus, a man noticed how paralyzed I was and yelled, ‘¡súbete, morro!’ I wondered why he called me ‘morro,’ not yet knowing what it meant.”
That’s how he arrived on his first day of school.
“My mom was used to us doing things on our own. That’s how life worked; I had to learn everything on my own. I didn’t need anyone to tell me how to get somewhere. At that age, I had to do what I had to do to survive; I didn’t analyze it,” he adds.
On his way back, he chose to walk. Omar Velasco explored the streets of his new city, regardless of the distance. He would arrive, go buy tortillas, and they would eat at three in the afternoon, all together, except for his father.
One afternoon, something positive happened. Being the new kid on the block, everyone was curious about him and his family. Four kids lived nearby, on the way to his grandmother’s house. Omar Velasco, as introverted as he was, hesitated to run errands and have to pass by where they were. In the end, he had no choice but to do it. When he left and took the first steps, the other kids approached him and asked him questions like his name, where he was from, and others. They became his friends. When he wasn’t with Uncle Chava, he could spend some time with them.
Just when he thought things had reached a certain normalcy, another episode arrived that would change his life again.
At the age of twelve, his father announced that it was time to close their businesses in Colima and return to the United States. There was no other choice. The businesses were not doing well.
“You’re leaving, but this time you’re not going alone,” the mother told the father, and they emigrated with one of his brothers. Omar Velasco had thought that someday his father would return to join them in Guadalajara. This time, he felt like he had lost him even more, and now his mother too.
“Destiny had these plans for me, alongside the person I was meant to be with.”
Tomorrow, part two.
