I am a Spanish immigrant, having arrived in the United States when I was in my formative years. In my country, I was spanked frequently at home, and also smacked with a ruler pretty regularly at school.
About three weeks after arriving in my first US school in the 1960s, one of my 7th grade classmates informed me that the teachers here were not allowed to hit students, and that nothing of importance really happened at after-school detentions. For a mischievous one, that was a license to cause all manner of problems.
Even if I say so myself I was a very smart child, and a good student, but not quite smart enough it seems. I would finish my classwork quickly, and then turn my attention to talking with friends, poking the girls at my table with a ruler, or writing dirty words in my notebook in Spanish. The teacher didn’t speak Spanish.
Well, one day, one of the girls I’d been poking told the teacher what I’d been writing and the teacher picked up my notebook. She asked what I’d written and I pretended not to understand. When a classmate translated the question, I lied.
The bell rang and I left, not worrying too much that the teacher had my notebook. About an hour later, I was called to the principal’s office and asked to explain my notebook to him. He was fluent in Spanish. I apologised, and then tried to blame the little girl who’d turned me in.
The principal called my house, but my mom was not home. He wanted me to read her the list on the phone. He gave me detention for two days, and told me to have my mom call him the next day. Of course, I didn’t say anything to my mom.
The next evening, the phone rang and I answered. It was the principal. I lied again and told him my mother was in the shower and he should call back in 10 minutes. Then I unplugged the phone. I plugged it back in the next morning, and forgot about everything.
That evening, I was at a neighbour’s house when my mom came in with the angriest look on her face I’d ever seen. Her eyes were wide, burning with a mix of shock and humiliation, her cheeks flushed a deep, furious red. She stormed in, her voice already raised, trembling with outrage as she demanded to know what I had done. The principal had called her at work, she said, and the shame of being contacted by the school—by an American principal, no less—was written all over her face. But what truly made the moment unforgettable was the eruption of her fierce Spanish temper, a force of nature I had witnessed many times before. My mother’s passionate, fiery temperament was legendary in our family—her emotions always ran hot, and when she was angry, it was as if a storm had swept into the room. Her words came out in a torrent, each one sharper than the last, her accent thickening as she scolded me for disgracing the family, for lying, for making her look like a fool in front of strangers. She was not just angry—she was betrayed, deeply hurt that I had hidden the truth from her, that I had let her down so completely. Her fury was immediate and overwhelming, filling the room, her hands shaking as she ordered me home, slapping my face, arms, or buttocks every few feet.
(short pause) When we got home, the air felt thick and electric, as if the whole house was holding its breath. My heart pounded in my chest, a heavy, sickening drumbeat that echoed in my ears. I could smell the faint tang of leather and old wood as my mother marched straight to her bedroom closet. The sound of the closet door sliding open was sharp and final, and I watched, frozen, as she reached up to the top shelf and pulled down her old leather belt—a deep brown, almost mahogany, with a heavy brass buckle and a surface worn smooth from years of use. The belt looked impossibly long in her hands, the edges cracked but still strong, and as she doubled it over, it made a low, ominous creak that sent a chill down my spine. The leather caught the light, gleaming darkly, and I could almost feel its sting before it even touched me.
She made me lean over a hard-backed chair in the living room, the wood cold and unyielding against my stomach. My palms pressed flat to the seat, my knuckles white, and I could hear my own shaky breathing, ragged and shallow. The room was silent except for the faint ticking of the wall clock and the soft, menacing swish of the belt as my mother tested its weight in her hands. Each second stretched out, thick with dread, my skin prickling with anticipation. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself, every muscle tensed and waiting.
The first strike landed with a sharp, explosive crack—a sound that seemed to fill the entire house. The pain was immediate, a hot, stinging line that burned across my skin and made me gasp. My breath caught in my throat, and I bit my lip, determined not to cry out. But the belt came down again, and again, each lash biting deeper, the sting building into a fiery ache that radiated through my body. The sound of leather on flesh was relentless, echoing off the walls, mingling with my mother’s angry words and my own muffled sobs. Tears blurred my vision, hot and shameful, and I could taste salt on my lips as I tried to hold back the sobs that threatened to escape.
With every stroke, the pain grew sharper, my skin burning and throbbing, my legs trembling beneath me. My mother’s voice was a storm in my ears—scolding, disappointed, heartbroken. I felt small and exposed, my cheeks wet with tears, my heart aching with guilt and humiliation. The belt left hot, stinging welts that seemed to pulse with every heartbeat, and I could feel the heat radiating from my skin long after the last blow had fallen.
When it was finally over, my mother’s anger seemed to drain away, leaving only exhaustion and sadness in its wake. She told me to stand against the wall, not touching anything, for fifteen minutes. I stood there, my face pressed to the cool plaster, my body still shaking, the pain in my backside a constant, throbbing reminder of what I’d done. The room was quiet except for my sniffling and the distant hum of the refrigerator. I felt raw and exposed, my pride in tatters, my mind replaying every mistake that had led me here. The sting lingered, both on my skin and deep inside, a lesson I would not soon forget.
I got into trouble a few more times at school after that, but never so much trouble as to have the principal call my mother.
