When I come to America, I feel like I'm coming to visit family

Host: The desert wind rolled across the borderlands, carrying the scent of dust, diesel, and memory. The sun had fallen, but its afterglow still burned faintly on the horizon, a thin line of amber between day and night, Mexico and America, past and present.

A small cantina sat on the edge of town, its wooden sign creaking in the wind, its lights flickering like forgotten stars. Inside, a guitar hung on the wall, its strings silent, but alive with the ghost of songs once sung to homesick hearts.

Jack sat at the bar, a glass of mezcal in his hand, watching the television above the counter. On the screen, Vicente Fernández — El Rey — sang beneath a shower of roses, his voice deep, tender, and unbroken. The crowd was weeping, but smiling.

Jeeny entered quietly, her hair whipped by the wind, her eyes bright with the soft ache of recognition. She spotted Jack, walked over, and sat beside him, ordering nothing. The song on the television filled the silence between them.

Jeeny: “That voice… it sounds like soil and soul mixed together.”

Jack: “Yeah. Vicente. He said once, ‘When I come to America, I feel like I’m coming to visit family, to bring a reminder of home to those who can’t be there.’”

Jeeny: “I remember that. My father used to play his records when he missed Mexico. Said it was the only thing that made his heart stop wandering.”

Jack: “Funny. A song can cross borders better than people can.”

Host: The bartender walked by, wiping a glass, nodding to the rhythm** of the music. Outside, the wind howled, carrying with it a stray note from a mariachi trumpet, like a thread of gold in the night air.

Jeeny: “You know what I think he meant? That music isn’t just art — it’s inheritance. Every note carries someone’s longing for home.”

Jack: “Home’s overrated.”

Jeeny: “You don’t mean that.”

Jack: “I do. Home’s just geography soaked in nostalgia. It’s only sacred because we’ve lost it.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly why it’s sacred.”

Host: A pause. The song ended, the crowd on the screen cheering, crying. The camera panned across their faces — men and women who had crossed oceans, mountains, borders, only to find their souls again in a voice.

Jack: “You ever think about how weird it is — a man singing from a stage thousands of miles away, and people cry like they’re in their mother’s kitchen again?”

Jeeny: “Not weird. Human. Because home isn’t a place, Jack — it’s a memory of belonging.”

Jack: “Belonging’s another illusion. You’re born somewhere, they draw lines around it, give it a name, call it yours. But you cross a border, and suddenly, you’re an outsider.”

Jeeny: “And yet, when Vicente sang, no one felt like an outsider. That’s what made him a bridge.”

Jack: “A bridge that people walk on to forget they’re divided.”

Jeeny: “Maybe forgetting for a while is the only way we remember who we really are.”

Host: The air shifted. A truck passed outside, blasting ranchera from its speakers — joyful, sad, loud. The moonlight spilled through the cantina window, painting the tabletops with silver.

Jack: “I’ve never understood why people miss home so much. If it’s gone, move on. If you left, there was a reason.”

Jeeny: “Because leaving doesn’t erase the part of you that stayed.”

Jack: “Sounds poetic. But nostalgia’s a drug. It keeps you looking backward.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes backward is where the healing lives. People don’t go to concerts like his just to listen. They go to remember — their fathers, their fields, their language, their laughter.”

Jack: “And cry about what they can’t get back.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because tears are the only bridge some people have left.”

Host: The bartender lowered the volume, the song fading into quiet hum, leaving only the sound of glasses clinking and chairs creaking.

Jeeny: “When I was a child, my mother used to say, ‘La música es el alma viajera’ — music is the traveling soul. Vicente carried people’s souls across the border for decades.”

Jack: “And what good did it do? The world’s still split in half. The songs end, and people still go back to their corners.”

Jeeny: “But for a few minutes, they remember they’re part of the same family. Isn’t that something?”

Jack: “A temporary illusion.”

Jeeny: “A necessary one.”

Host: Jeeny took a slow breath, watching the steam from her drink curl upward, disappearing like a ghost returning to heaven.

Jeeny: “You know, my father used to say that music was God’s apology for distance.”

Jack: “Your father said a lot of things.”

Jeeny: “He meant it. Every time he heard Vicente sing, he’d close his eyes and whisper, ‘That’s what home sounds like.’”

Jack: “What does home sound like to you?”

Jeeny: “Like forgiveness.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass, his reflection distorted in the amber liquid.

Jack: “When I left my town, I told myself I’d never go back. Too many ghosts. Too much history. But sometimes, when I hear an old song… it’s like the air remembers me.”

Jeeny: “That’s the thing about home — it doesn’t need your permission to haunt you.”

Jack: “Maybe it’s not haunting. Maybe it’s calling.”

Jeeny: “Then why do you ignore it?”

Jack: “Because answering means admitting I miss something I swore I outgrew.”

Jeeny: “Missing isn’t weakness. It’s proof that you loved.”

Host: The guitar on the wall vibrated faintly, as if echoing their words. The air in the cantina shifted, thicker now, heavy with the weight of memory.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what Vicente meant — that coming here wasn’t just about performing. It was about reminding people that they still belong somewhere, even if it’s only in a song.”

Jack: “And what about those of us who never felt like we belonged anywhere?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the song was meant for you too.”

Host: The television flickered again, a clip of Fernández bowing, his sombrero held to his heart, his voice breaking as he thanked his audience — “Mi gente, mi familia.” The crowd roared, crying, cheering, believing.

Jack: “He called them family.”

Jeeny: “Because he meant it. Every note said, ‘You’re not forgotten.’”

Jack: “But the world forgets anyway.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But a song remembers for us.”

Host: The wind outside quieted, leaving the night strangely still. Jack stood, reached for the guitar on the wall, and strummed it once. The sound filled the room, soft, simple, true — a bridge of sound across loneliness.

Jeeny: “You play?”

Jack: “Barely. But maybe it’s time I remembered how.”

Jeeny: “Then play something for home — even if you don’t know where that is.”

Host: He smiled, faintly, hesitantly, and began to play — a melody without lyrics, but with heart, the kind that turns silence into belonging.

Jeeny closed her eyes, listening, and for a moment, the cantina felt like a cathedral, the air humming with the echo of every exile’s dream.

Host: When the last note faded, neither of them spoke. The moonlight rested on their faces, and the distant sound of mariachi rose again from the streets, tender, aching, eternal.

Jack: “Maybe home isn’t something you go back to. Maybe it’s something that lives wherever someone remembers you.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And music is how the heart remembers.”

Host: The camera would pull back slowly — the cantina, the border lights, the endless desert beyond. The song from the television would fade back in — Vicente’s voice, rich and immortal, singing not to a country, but to a family scattered across the earth.

Host: And beneath his voice, the truth would linger like the last chord of a serenade —

that home is not a place,
but a song carried in the heart,
and that when one voice sings,
a whole people remember they belong.