Andrea Mendez: ‘Patos’
Audio description of ‘Patos’ by Andrea Mendez
‘Patos’ by Andrea Mendez
Artist’s statement
I am using only English and Spanish in this art piece. I’m a first generation Latinx Australian; my family migrated here in the early nineties from El Salvador.
This piece is about a phrase the elders in my family used to say, in particular my father: “May you ascend into heaven con todo y zapatos”. To translate: “May you ascend into heaven with everything and shoes”. Sometimes in full Spanish, sometimes in Spanglish. It was said to someone as a sign of gratitude, a thanking after a favour or something nice was done to the benefit of someone else. The second part of the phrase suggests immediacy, a different way of saying the phrase could be “I hope you go to heaven immediately, with everything you're wearing right now including your shoes!”
Now the word ‘zapatos’ means ‘shoes’, and ‘patos’ means ‘duck’. Similar, don't you think? So when I first heard this phrase as a five year old, I always imagined a duck wearing shoes, flying off to heaven, a little sad (because it had died) but overall happy. Because the sentiment was always sent and received with cheer.
Andrea Mendez is a Latinx first generation writer and actor from Melbourne. She is a co-recipient of the Emerging Writers Award and has featured in numerous Australian literary magazines, most notably Overland. You can find her artistic work @anmdez.