YADA YADA YADA / The Original Mercedes Was not a Benz Neither

That’s my name, Mercedes. If you are not Latinx you probably say - "Like the car". Then, to keep the conversation going, maybe I would respond- "The car was named after a woman".  - "A beautiful woman”, you might go on. Of course, if you find the Benz beautiful, what else could the real Mercedes Jellinek have been? I learned to kind-of-like this back and forth.  -What? You did not know she was the daughter of one of the builders? It was Jellinek and Benz. Wikipedia has pictures of her. I’m glad that she seemed to be beautiful. - Jellinek-Benz as a car brand was not going to cut it. When I am in an educational mood, I could go on and tell you that there is a highly revered Madonna, Nuestra Señora de Las Mercedes - Our Lady of Mercy. And, if I feel like getting personal, I could say that I was born on Her day, a big celebration in the Dominican Republic, also in Spain, and many Latinx countries.  If I feel intimate, I could venture to tell you that as a child, seeing The Car cruising thru my raggedy neighborhood made mothers hush their children to hide indoors. Boys and girls, especially the pubescents ones.

If I'm wearing my jester hat, you might hear me say - "Yes, but I'm a Limited Edition. Custom Made, All Original Parts"- Or - “Vintage, Mint Condition".  Heck, after I must spell it over the phone, to make sure they got it right, I would say -"Mercedes, like the car", assuming we all know how to spell the Benz name.

Growing up I didn’t like to be called Mercedes. It sounded too serious, too grown up. I liked my middle name better, so everybody called me Amarilis/Amarillys. I erased Mercedes from my life, even from official papers. Well, not from all of them. Until I got my first official job at a USA official office.  I had to use my first name like it was on the very official papers. And there it was Mercedes quietly waiting for her moment, because the payroll secretary was insistent on making everything consistent. Plus, at the parties, and everywhere, people asked me if they could call me Maria, because they couldn’t make it beyond three syllables to say “Amarilis”. So, Mercedes sprang to action and came to the rescue. After all, it is my name. But at first it felt strange, as if I was talking about somebody else. Many people change their name when they join certain communities -nuns, monks, artists- because they wanted a new image, starting a new life. It was like wearing a beautiful old pair of shoes for the first time in a long time. I admit now that I resented having to switch names. So many new things to learn, to adopt and adapt. Even the name. Asking me if I was named after a car was not a conversation starter. At least, not a congenial one. Now, after all these years, all that is meaningless. It’s just stories to tell or to forget. Or to remember in gratitude to all the Mercedes NotaBenz that have made my name famous.