Read Online Unbreakable: My Story, My Way by Jenni Rivera - Free Book Online Page A

love. It seemed impossible for me to live without the father of my children and the first man in my life. It didn’t help much that I was still intent on being like my mother and hanging in there forever. I can’t ever be with another man, I thought. My father wouldn’t allow it. Yet, over the years, my father came to know how rocky our relationship was. I didn’t know it at the time, but Rosie would report back on the abuse she witnessed whenever she slept over. And when we lived in the back house or in the house nearby on Fifty-Fifth Street, the rest of my family would hear our fights. As hard as it was for them, my daddy told my brothers to never get involved in anyone else’s relationship and to mind their own business. And so they didn’t intervene.
    But one day during the early summer of 1992, my father surprised me by not following his own advice. We were sitting at the dining-room table at my parents’ house on Ellis Street. Daddy looked at me and asked, “Aren’t there any other men in the world, mija ? Why are you so stuck on this one? Do you not feel worthy of being loved and admired by another fish in the ocean?” I was surprised, but happy to hear him say such words. It meant that if I did someday meet, date, or fall in love with someone else, it would be okay with him. Since he was the boss, it would have to be okay with the rest of my family too. It was on.
    I was sick of taking Trino’s shit. In August of 1992, he hit me for the last time. I was too tired to fight back. Instead, I called the cops and put his ass in jail. This time we were over for good. Something in me finally said, “No more.”
    While he was in jail, I began going out with friends. I was twenty-three and had never been to a club, aside from the singing competitions I’d gone to with my father. I hardly went out at all. When you get pregnant at fifteen, that kind of thing falls by the wayside. And when you are married to a man like Trino, forget about it. Now thatI no longer had him running my life, I could make up for a bit of lost time. I learned how to have fun, drink, and let loose. I enjoyed being able to dance again like when I was young and carefree at backyard barbecues or in my parents’ bedroom.
    Wherever I went, music was always blasting and I was always singing along. But I had not set foot on a stage to sing since I was eleven years old and had forgotten the words at the singing competition. One night when we were at El Rancho Grande, a nightclub in Carson, a friend said, “I dare you to go up there and sing.” Then another friend said, “Naw, she’s not down.” That’s all I needed to hear, and they knew it. I walked onstage and told the norteño group that was playing that I wanted to sing “Nieves de Enero.” Chalino Sánchez had passed away during that year, and the track was popular at the time. I stood in front of the crowd, and as soon as the first words came out of my mouth, I was overwhelmed by so many emotions. I was reminded how much I loved the feeling of being onstage. I was reminded that I had a voice. When I was finished, the entire club started to clap and cheer. I felt as if I could fly.
    It had been twelve years since the day in 1980 when I’d told my father I would never touch a microphone again, but he had been right, that one day I would end up onstage again without his pushing or persuading me. All it took was a dare. After that night I decided to record a complete album for my father as a birthday gift. I knew how much it would mean to him, and I had fun doing it. I went into a studio and sang under the name Jenni “La Güera Rivera” Rivera. The title of the album was Somos Rivera . I never thought anyone would hear it besides my dad, but he fell in love with it and asked me if he could promote it under his record label, Cintas Acuario.
    “Do whatever you want with it,” I told him. “It’s yours. But if you are going to promote it, use the name Jenni and spell it with an i