March 13, 2010, Rodey Hall, UNM
By Jesse Alemán
These are probably the hardest four pages I’ve ever had to write, but on behalf of Professor Hector Torres, the Torres Family, and the University of New Mexico’s English Department, I would like to thank all of you for joining us on this sad occasion. I am Dr. Jesse Alemán, Associate Chair in the English Department and Hector’s friend and colleague for over ten years. So, I’m up here playing two roles—one professional; the other personal—even though the relationship Hector and I shared deconstructed such a dubious distinction, as he would surely point out. He would also warn me to keep it upbeat—“Don’t be too grim, Jesse”—he would perhaps say. But the sudden and violent events that have brought us here together in the first place make it difficult for me to be anything but somber, mixed with no small amount of anger, both of which stretch from the pit of my stomach to the back of my mouth, and I’m not too sure just yet whether they will produce tears or curses. So far, it’s been a little bit of both because I have not been able to make sense of the selfish act of violence that took his life and the life of Ms. Stefania Gray. I have not been able to make sense of it for myself or for my family, to whom “Uncle Hector” was also very dear. It’s for this reason that my heart is so heavy, for by all accounts, Hector’s kindness does not correspond with the violence that took him from us. I worry for his being—that he might be suffering from susto after the trauma of it all—and I’m even more concerned that it will be a long time before we all find some peace in a life without Hector and Stefania.
So as has been the case for the last 10 years, I find myself trying to learn from Hector again, trying to understand how he was able to keep anger at bay, so that I can make peace with his loss. For now, I certainly can’t make sense of it—I won’t even try. Instead, I would like to pay some tribute to Hector professionally and then share some thoughts about him personally, with the hope that my words will at least bring me some solace and consolation.
Dr. Hector Torres joined the UNM English faculty in 1986, after earning his PhD in English from the University of Texas, Austin. He had wide-ranging intellectual interests: contemporary, postmodern Chicano/a literature and film; literary theory and criticism; linguistic theory; psychoanalysis; Marxism; deconstruction; and globalization studies. He taught courses in all of these areas, as well as in English syntax and discourse analysis. Sometimes, conversations with him were so dizzying that I would have to hold my head with both hands to keep it from spinning off—this in the hallway of the Humanities Building or in the men’s bathroom, sober. Never mind at the pub, his house, or my dinner table.
Before he published his Conversations with Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Writers, a collection of interviews in 2007, and before he wrote articles with titles such as “Chicano Doppelganger” and “The Ethnographic Component of Chicano Discourse,” he penned a doctoral dissertation on “Bilingualism in Medieval England: The Old French and Middle English Versions of the Ancrene Wisse,” a 13th Century guidebook for monastic women that provides rules and guidelines on spiritual matters. Now, it’s quite a distance from medieval anchoresses to Gloria Anzaldua, but in that stretch is the breadth and depth of Hector’s love of learning. In many ways, it also explains his approach to teaching.
Dr. Torres taught scores of undergraduate and graduate students over his twenty plus years in UNM classrooms, but even though we all know him to be intelligent, he was sometimes difficult to follow (to say the least). I know. We once co-taught a course in Chicano/a literature and theory, and his approach was simple—we need to rise to the highest level of our ideas and then surpass them. Thus, he made learning a daily challenge to himself and to the students he taught. Some—what am I saying?—most struggled to follow him, but what perhaps they do not know is that Dr. Torres struggled too. He didn’t take learning and teaching lightly; instead, in the process of teaching he wrestled daily with his ideas just as Jacob wrestled with his angel. And he expected students—and his colleagues—to do the same. And once we got there, once he got us to the precipice of our ideas, and we jumped, we were never the same. Books and movies forever ruined by Derrida, Lacan, and the specter of Marx, while our nightly dreams, “forget about it,” he would say—all manifest content sublimating something else.
For over 25 years, he inspired his undergraduate students to live up to their highest potential, and he challenged his graduate students to surpass their potential. Yes, the density of his discourse was sometimes difficult to measure at first (his vocabulary is a foot taller than he is, one student once wrote about him), but when we remember all of the students he has taught, especially the scores of Chicano and Chicana students he’s taught over the years, then surely we can sense the sheer mass of his impact as a mentor, advisor, role model, and pedagogue.
The diversity of people gathered here today also speaks volumes about Hector’s impact as a friend. Never in my worst nightmare would I want to eulogize him, and yet, it is my greatest honor to date to be up here speaking of him as my friend, for he had so many close ties with each of us, and we each have so many fond memories of him, that I cherish the opportunity to remember him as a friend. I’m not special. Hector could make friends with just about anybody—he even befriended my otherwise inhospitable cat, Hopper—but what made Hector so special was he extended his friendships with the same amount of kindness, charity, and love that characterized him as a person. He brought people together—sometimes people who would probably never cross each other’s path otherwise would find each other sharing food, laughs, and drinks at Hector’s house. And today’s he’s done it again.
Over the last decade, Hector and I worked, played, laughed, drank, thought, and commiserated together, for believe it or not, being Chicanos in an English Department isn’t always easy. In the process, he became a third brother to me—not quite an older one (because he didn’t act like it), but not really a younger one either—but a brother nonetheless. He also became a part of my family, enjoying Melina’s food and company and spoiling the kids with presents gift wrapped in store bags. He was that kind of uncle, who bought the kids boom boxes and expensive soccer balls and always seemed genuinely shocked when the kids grew an inch. “Torres,” I told him once after a birthday party, “don’t spoil the kids so much,” but his response was the simple truth, “I can’t help it, man; I love those kids.”
Over the last few days, I’ve heard a thousand similar Hector stories. Memories of things he said or did that stuck with someone or struck them. People across his circles of friends reminiscing about Hector—his infamous jump shot; his favorite Freddy Fender song; his deconstruction of the self; his intimidating intellect; quizzical look; and his ability to treat every single nephew and niece as his favorite. In all of these stories, I heard slivers of Hector Torres—postmodern pieces of him strangely familiar to me because in their totality was the colleague I let into my house; the friend me and my family grew to love and admire; and the man we will all miss, collectively and individually, precisely because he so generously shared a piece of himself with us all, without any of the malice or evil that took him from us. We will all miss him dearly, remember him fondly, and, I hope, we should all see to it now that Hector and Stefania are treated justly. We owe it to them both, and perhaps then, we can all find some peace.
Posted by scarr at March 15, 2010 03:16 PM