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By Sarah Woods

My grandparents moved to Guadalajara, Mexico from Rumson, New Jersey when I was seven-years old. Grandpa was an electrical engineer who spent his entire career at AT&T and he wanted to retire in a moderate climate. He grew up in often brutal border town of Brownsville, Texas with a Spanish speaking Castilian mother from Mexico and a Scots Irish father descended from a Kentucky doctor who owned slaves and fought for the Confederacy. Grandpa’s Dad ran produce up and down the Rio Grande and I later realized he was the key to understanding why Dad started every day with a half a grapefruit sprinkled with sugar.

Grandma was Grandpa’s second wife. Dad’s mom Helen died from breast cancer shortly after they met. Grandma Helen was orphaned in Wisconsin in December 1919 at the tail end of the influenza epidemic. Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Mac married shortly after Mom and Dad. Grandma Jackie was a retired nurse who was a masterful artist and crafter who knew how to make chicklets gum crackle and pop, a habit Mom found grating. She loved tanning, reading, and shopping. She and learned to speak Spanish by visiting craft stalls in markets all over Mexico.

Grandpa retired as the head of Bell Labs overseeing the development of the civilian and military communications infrastructure for the United States. He was also stridently racist and sexist, ensuring that all the top scientists who worked in the many labs under his direction were staffed by white men. According to Dad, Grandpa never substantively engaged in the strong arguments for civil…