The American House Party

On Saturday, a friend who is a very cool guy, a DJ who spins trendy pop music, invited me to a house party where he would be DJing.

He said, "Ro, it's a house party." From my experience, house parties consisted of your typical red plastic cups, beer cans, a room full of sweaty people in casual attire, having random conversations about every topic imaginable.

         I invited my friend Daisey so as to not show up solo and I consider her what we call a ‘ro-dawg’ Someone who is basically your wing man or wing woman, your partner in crime. She was excited to hang out with a new group of people and decided she’d come. Before arriving, we stopped at a nearby liquor store to pick up some beer. We thought a 12 pack of Modelo Especial would be good to share with our new potential friends.

         Upon arriving, we were greeted outside by my DJ friend. He was dressed similar to us, in jeans, sneakers and a leather jacket. We walked in and soon realized the people inside were not dressed anything like us. It was a themed party and the women were dressed to the nines in ballgowns, diamonds and expensive glamorous shoes. The men were donned suits and tuxedos. It was a throwback 1920s formal attire themed party.

         Our eyes grew big and I told Daisey, “Boy, do we stand out!”

I told the DJ, “how dare you not tell us there was a dress code!” We felt out of place, embarrassed and awkward. Soon, we walked through this lavish home with our 12 pack of Modelo and made our way to the outside patio so as to hide from everyone else. We popped open 2 cans of Modelo and began to drink. We said we’d leave after maybe another beer as we couldn’t stand the stares of people.

         I felt the DJ was responsible for our embarrassment but he himself could be the one to get away with his casual look. We looked appropriate for a bar or music lounge, but not for this lavish themed party with champagne and hors d'oeuvres. Soon, more people arrived. We continued to drink our Modelos until suddenly, people approached us. They were interested in talking to us as we stood out. We felt like we were on the spot, the topic of conversation. Before you knew it, we had managed to befriend a small group of attendees. They wanted to know who were were and why we were drinking Modelos.  Most importantly, they were interesting in sharing a Modelo with us. We showed them how we hid our box of beer underneath the bar, as our beer didn’t match the bottles of expensive champagne, vodka and whiskey. They had only the best.

They thought it was silly that we would care. After all, it was “LA” and you could always show up being you, as you are, without a worry of what other’s might think. I hadn’t realized that it was a birthday party for an actress and that all these people were in the film industry as well.

         Here we were: two Latinas among nothing but non-Latinos doing our thing, drinking Mexican beer in a swanky party, and having others wanting to join in our casual laid back vibe. Needless to say, we made friends and we introduced many people to the beer they hadn’t tasted before but were completely interested in trying. The night ended and we had a good time.