Tsunami
My grandmother Anita, my dad’s mother, was an angry unpleasant woman who didn’t share much, but she did share her anger.
Most of my relationship with her was when I was 4 to 7 years old.
I’m sure she told me stories between complaining about this and that. Here is a story, and her telling it is one of the few nice memories I have of her.
My grandmother used to tell me how her town of Manzanillo was the ancient city of the Mixteco Indians, the oldest Indian civilization in Mexico. The people who gave their name to the country of Mexico. She told me that 400 years ago this city did trade with Japan, and 800 years ago it did trade with China. When I shared this at school, my teachers told me I was wrong. But there have been the discoveries of Chinese anchors off Orange County, and centuries old Japanese shipwrecks all along the west coast of the Americas.
Those factoids are fact.
Manzanillo was built on the hills surrounding a beautiful bay.
My grandmother told that her uncle told of a day the tide went out and then kept going. There was an amazing amount of fish and seafood waiting to be scooped up. Then shipwrecks were uncovered, and much of the town people went out, running to get food, and treasure. And while most of the town was out in the bay, a tsunami came in, covering all the food and treasure, and killing all the treasure hunters out there. But also killing people who did not go out. All of the flat part of the town was leveled then dragged out to sea. And most of the hillside homes were destroyed as well. She told how her uncle told about there being a line far up the side of the hill where the houses changed, where the colors changed, because that was as far as the flood water rose.
My childhood memory, and my imagination, suggested to me that this was a childhood memory of her uncle’s. A story told to her when she was a child. That this probably happened in the late 19th century. It was exaggerated in the years of retelling. Still, it was a cool story.
When I was 20 I went to Manzanillo with my dad. His first time since leaving there when he was five. There were no roads, and only two ways to get to the city, one was by boat and the other was by train. My dad wanted to drive there, so we drove. We drove on the railroad tracks and on terrible rocky dirt roads. An adventure.
When we got there I looked for that line on the hills, remembering the story. And there it was, like a ring in a bathtub, the line where the tidal wave stopped high up on the side of the hill. That detail wasn’t exaggerated at all.
Today I fact checked this whole story. I am writing this in shock. All this happened in 1932! She had only been away in Los Angeles for 7 years. I can see why this story was so real to her. I understand why I remember this story so well. I wonder how many of her family that she had left behind, were lost.
Look at the Google satellite map, and see that the old town still hasn’t really been rebuilt. Resort hotels have been built, but not quite where the old town was. And looking at the ocean on the map, you can see that the continental shelf actually drops in the middle of the bay. So the story of there being ships and treasure, which I thought was a suspicious detail, could actually be true. The low tsunami tide would easily have completely emptied the bay.
The destruction and death must have been enormous.
My grandmother was always angry.
The Mexican Catholic Purge in 1927, why she probably had to leave the country, and her home, then the destruction of her home a few years later, would largely have contributed to my grandmother‘s great unhappiness and anger.
I’ve never trusted anger. I see that it often is a safe way to show a hidden deeper emotion.