Kim Kudym

El Macho y La Flaca Kim Kudym

In love with everything about Mexico after her adventure there as a high school exchange student, Kim returns to spend her junior year abroad at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She meets Alberto, a physical education teacher, during a Day of the Dead celebration and discovers a new reason to love Mexico. Alberto shows her the time of her life as they explore parts of the country that he himself had yet to see; Acapulco, Puerto Escondido and Zihuantanejo. El Macho and La Flaca become inseparable, spending every possible evening together, playing the guitar and learning each other's repertoire of songs in Spanish and English. Alberto is handsome, smart, charming, so much more adventurous than Charlie, the American boyfriend she left behind who is still planning a seventeen day visit during the Christmas holidays. Subtle displays of controlling behavior start to present themselves, which Kim at first dismisses as Alberto's machismo. Alberto accepts a scholarship for a master's degree program at Springfield College, only a thirty minute bus trip away from Kim's campus in Amherst, Massachusetts. From this point forward, things get a little sticky. The dynamics change between them once Alberto demands that English be their language of communication and he becomes increasingly more controlling and jealous. Speaking only in English, Alberto now sounds like nothing more than a goony foreign student, far from the sexy and romantic Mexican Kim once knew. Their roles are reversed as he is dependent on her in an unfamiliar land until he slowly makes new friends. Kim's family welcomes Alberto with open arms on occasional weekends and school breaks, in spite of Mom's worries that he is only using them to eventually obtain American citizenship. Nothing could be farther than the truth. Alberto's contempt for Americans is only reinforced when he experiences prejudice as a Latino living in the U. S. The relationship sours when Alberto reveals his involvement with other women while Kim's relatively easy college days come to an abrupt halt. Her senior year at the University of Massachusetts becomes wrought with worry about finding a teaching job in a difficult economy and trying to juggle both student teaching and night classes. An undiagnosed anxiety disorder is exacerbated with the stress of teaching in an educational system ill-prepared to deal with the needs of a non-English speaking immigrant population. Kim finds herself needing her parents more now, but their marriage is falling apart, leaving both parents emotionally unavailable. Alberto only makes her feel worse about herself instead of better. In spite of the toxicity of their relationship, Kim is unable to fully let go of what she and Alberto had together in Mexico. She corresponds with him and his family for several years but a return visit helps her find closure. They each move on with their lives, trying to make their way in the world as twenty-somethings, a challenging time even in the early 80's without the existential threats of today. In her journal and correspondence with friends and family on both sides of the Mexican border, Kim documents with self-deprecating humor her struggle to make friends and navigate romantic relationships, especially when a job opportunity takes her to a new community. Letters from her Mexican friends, written in Spanish, chronicle their early adult years as they, too, seek life partners and try to gain independence from their parents during the economic debt crisis of Mexico.