How ‘Coco’ Allowed Me to Remember My Nana
At the beginning of my senior year of college, I went to see the recently released Pixar film 'Coco' and 105 minutes later, nearly 10 years after the death of my grandma, I wept.
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You are now reading an exclusive piece from the Film Daze Digital Magazine, Issue 6: Adolescence. Enjoy! - The Film Daze Team
It’s surprising how much memory can fade. Elementary and middle school years feel like a wave that washed over me, one without many concrete moments, though full of stories that I’ve told dozens of times. These stories are sometimes all that remains, fleeting in truth and rooted in a decades-long game of telephone. Outside of my family and a couple of close friends, the overwhelming majority of people in my life during that time have vanished from my memory. Except for Margie Porras. Or as I called her, Nana.
My mom’s mom, my nana, made me try cow tongue around the age of 10. She convinced my cousins and me to do a photoshoot wearing Los Angeles Lakers jerseys, her favorite team, and her reason for yelling at the television. She cooked Mexican food for the entire extended family on the weekends, whipping up homemade tostadas, tamales, and Sp…