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CG ShopThis Latina No Habla |
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| Written by CG Girl |
| Friday, 09 October 2009 21:16 |
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This Latina, NO Habla Written by Renee Juarez-Medina My husband calls me a “White Mexican,” and he’s not referring to the color of my skin. Rather, he is referring to my LACK of the Mexican culture that flavors his whole existence. I am a third generation Latina. As proof of my lack of cultural pride, I don’t even refer to myself as ‘Mexican,’ ‘Mexican-American,’ or ‘Chicana.’ And I had the audacity to be born not in Texas, Arizona, East L.A. or even the barrio of El Monte California where I was raised. I was born in Moses Lake, Washington, where I lived until I was three. My grandparents were “uppity Mexicans” who wanted that their children not be enslaved in farm work. They wanted their children to have better prospects than they themselves had. To this end, my paternal grandfather became a minister. He and my grandmother also ran their own small store and, of course, they were farmers, tambien. The whole “White Mexican” label comes from the fact that my family assimilated (fully adopted American culture while simultaneously shedding nearly all of the Mexican culture), while my husband’s family acculturated (adopted some of American culture while retaining much of the Mexican values and mindsets). So I do not speak Spanish; I did not grow up watching telenovelas; I did not enjoy Mariachi music; my family didn’t even make menudo or tamales until I was in high school! Speaking of stereotypes, no-one in my family has ever received food stamps, no-one in my family has ever sold oranges, peanuts or oversized balloons at the bottom of a freeway off-ramp; no adult male in my family has ever been in jail (with the requisite tattoo on his neck) or re-hab, and no-one in my family owns their own lawn service! I am not suggesting that any of those activities are bad (with the exception of prison); I am saying that to believe stereotypes of ANY group as a whole is wrong and offensive. While none of the aforementioned stereotypes apply to my family, I do not believe that I am tremendously lacking in culture. Though my parents intentionally did not teach us to speak Spanish as our first language (they had experienced first-hand the sting of prejudice and discrimination), they did instill in my siblings and myself all of the most important elements of our culture. One of the markers of the Mexican culture is the concept (read “obsession”) of family. In the Hispanic culture, the family comes before ALL else. PERIOD. You don’t have to like your family, but you are bound to them by love, obligation, duty, and respect. If you have two dollars in your savings account and a family member needs a loan, you loan it to them. If you have clothes or furniture that you no longer need, you find out who needs it and you might even have to deliver it too. Holidays are not spent skiing in Mammoth, they’re spent with your family in your mom’s too small house, all crammed in, telling those same old stories, eating, laughing, arguing…and loving every minute of it. Religion might vary, from hardcore Catholics to Born Again Christians, to fallen away Christians, to (secretly) non-believers, but there is a respect for religion because it is part of the glue that binds the family together. As for respect, there is a reverence for the elderly in our culture. Disrespect is not tolerated, and lectures on the proper treatment of the elderly continue well into adulthood. “We know mom,” my kids say to me in the car on the way to a family function. “Say ‘hello’ and give hugs to EVERYONE we know! You tell us EVERY TIME we go to ‘Ma’s house.” Culture is more than a bunch of stupid stereotypes, it is the richness of a fabric that we clothe ourselves in. It is the beauty that I find in Hispanic people, my people. And while I do not speak Spanish, I love the musical quality of it, the passion that it is suffused with. I may not know how to make tortillas, but I know that they are made with love. And I may not be that brown, but I have brown blood that goes to the roots of my existence! |
