Jasmine Acuna is a bundle of irony. The 7-year-old’s chipper
demeanor belies her taste for old movies, love ballads, Indian food
and Charlotte Bront
ë, not to mention her devotion to community service.
Gilroy – Jasmine Acuna is a bundle of irony.
The 7-year-old’s chipper demeanor belies her taste for old movies, love ballads, Indian food and Charlotte Brontë, not to mention her devotion to community service.
“Jas,” as her mother Ottielie Acuna calls her, spends every other Saturday dazzling residents with her voice at the Amberwood Gardens Nursing Facility in San Jose, where her uncle, Lamont Otis, resides.
“I want to be like Judy Garland,” said Jasmine, who also enjoys singing songs by Carly Simon, Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey. ” ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ is my favorite.”
Jasmine, whose preferred subject at the Charter School of Morgan Hill is math, said she never really learned how to sing. “I just sang,” she said.
Mildred Otis smiled at her granddaughter’s spunk Friday morning, knowing that the little girl’s got talent, sure, but she couldn’t have learned old love ballads by herself. It takes time and experience to master those tunes, and Jasmine’s been learning from Mildred since she was an infant.
“I would hum to Jasmine when she was a baby, that beautiful theme song from ‘Shane,’ and Jasmine would hum back if she was awake. The ‘High Noon’ theme song, too,” Mildred said, referring to two western movies from the 1950s.
“They’re like two old women,” Ottielie said of her mother and daughter Friday morning as all three sat at their dining room table, above which hung red and orange Chinese lanterns the size of beach balls. Two Samurai swords graced the mantle, ceramic trinkets crowded tables throughout the house, and Jasmine’s miniature, Peanuts-esque black piano sat quietly on the living room floor amid all the decorative commotion.
The atmosphere meshed well with Jasmine – “It was nice and dull before we decorated,” she said – who’s also a ballerina preparing to be a flutist and a swimmer.
She might be a vet when she grows up, she said, but singing comes first, and her eyes lit up with talk of Chicago, New York City, limos, diamonds, and mansions: standards for the star Jasmine wants to become despite her rejection last October from the TV show America’s Got Talent.
Jasmine wasn’t fazed since she’s been creating ballads and love songs since she was 2. The precociousness alarmed her mother.
“She would make up these songs. One went, ‘Why did you leave me when you said you’d love me? Now it’s sad and rainy…’ ” recounted Ottielie, who works as an human resources representative in San Jose. “That’s an old lady’s voice. That’s not a little kid,” she added while laughing.
“Jasmine sang before she actually spoke, and when she didn’t speak she would just sing,” said Ottielie, who played clarinet in junior high.
Mildred used to sing until an abscess in her throat nearly 50 years ago foiled her ambitions. But as she sat staring off into space while her granddaughter conquered a slight cold to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” Mildred smiled, knowing her talent’s reappeared two generations later.
“I only have to sing a song to her once, and she gets it,” said Mildred, who also relishes baking apple pies with her granddaughter. “I enjoy that she makes these older people feel good (at Amberwood) because some of them don’t have any visitors.”
Jasmine’s performances run up to an hour – which is how long she usually practices each day – with as many as 45 clap-happy tenants packed into the dining room, according to Ottielie.
Many of them are probably unaware that Jasmine wants American soldiers to return from Iraq or that she wants to go to Las Vegas “for the action,” but they sure appreciate her smooth voice and curly black hair.
“I want to keep doing it for a while,” Jasmine said. “I like the clapping.”
