Hello!

Hello!

27 March 2009

Walk

I took a long way today - about three and a half miles long - during which I listened to the birds, searched the trees for signs of life, and pondered the importance of a good sports bra. On my walk I noticed a few things:

1. A cute, cute, cute Golden Retriever puppy. Awww!
2. A gazillion young moms in yoga pants pushing those special strollers for working out with your baby.
3. A tall, gray-haired man pushing a two-year-old boy in aforementioned stroller.
4. A woman with a labradoodle who was very proud of her dog and talking on her blue-tooth about being laid-off
5. Only one person smiled in passing, and only one said hello. Man, do I miss the South!
6. One Asian family.
7. Little old ladies.
8. People wearing gloves. Whaaaat?

Today is one of those fantastic days that makes you eager for spring and the coming summer. There's sun, there's green, there's a clear, blue sky; there's hope. Mmm, after the long, freezing winter, that's a good thing.

24 March 2009

Sweet procrastination

I'm supposed to be working on a draft grant proposal for my class tomorrow. The thing is that I just can't seem to make myself work on that sucker. This class has taught me that while I'm glad to have a little experience in the whole process of grant writing, this is probably NOT my forte. I'm an ideas person, but not so much a planner.
Big surprise there. (The sarcasm....)

Anyway, I've found that writing for myself tends to help me focus on writing for others. Fun writing helps me do the boring writing as well. Let's be honest: grants are boring writing.

I'm also taking a class on cross-cultural skills which has been making me think (even more) about my own ethnic/cultural identity. I think today's class was the first one in which I've sat without an overwhelming sense of heaviness, of otherness. There have been a lot of notes scrawled in the margins of my notebooks that have less to do with the lecture/discussion and much more to do with the sorting of identity issues.
I didn't grow up in predominantly Latino area. In fact, I was the darkest kid in school until my sister went to Kindergarten; then I was the second darkest kid. For the record, I'm stinkin' light-skinned. Too light for my own tastes. Even so, we were always surrounded by fellow Puerto Ricans and a handful of Mexican friends. I was, even from a very young age, acutely aware that I lived in two worlds. One world existed inside my house and at friends' houses. It was a world of Spanish, arroz, chuletas, and habichuelas; and Latin music. It was a place where we got together for Pay-per-View boxing matches, games of dominoes, and women's raucous stories. The other world existed at school and in public spaces. In this world, we spoke English, waited our turn, and spoke quietly and politely. And then after elementary school, I was shipped off to Catholic school, which was in a much rougher area. And there I was: one more brown face. I wasn't the oddity, the "immigrant" kid (we're technically NOT immigrants), the token Latina. It was a place where those two worlds were in such close proximity that I wasn't as certain of their separation.
The thing is that feels like centuries ago. I left Illinois when I was thirteen - just days before my fourteenth birthday - and ended up on a military base in Heidelberg, Germany. Yeah, yeah, all of us Heidelberg kids know just how white HD was (is?), but it was light years from my childhood in the Chicago suburbs. And I was in high school now, at that age when you're suddenly forging this identity, and for a brown kid in the US, that identity will invariably be wrapped up in your non-whiteness. It's funny to me that I have never been unaware of the fact that I'm not part of the in-group; I have never been unaware of the fact that I am not fully "American", even though I am, more fully than anyone can imagine.
I've been thinking a lot about those years of wrestling with my identity. I was embarrassed by my awkward Spanish, afraid of being teased the way my sister was when she tried to speak, tongue clumsy around sharp "t"s and trilled "r"s. I didn't want to be teased, so I kept my mouth shut, saying the phrases in my mind until I was certain my tongue wouldn't betray me as la prima americana.
I was even more embarrassed by my light skin. My sister and my dad are both gloriously dark - skin that's so obviously Latin, but my skin is obviously nothing. It's both too light and too dark to fit easily in anyone's preconceived notions. I had to make up for my physical deficiency with a real knowledge of the language and history and culture of my people. I consumed every book I could find on Puerto Rico or on Hispanic and Latino issues. I perused the library stacks for Latino names and read their works. I listened to my dad's music: El Gran Combo, Silvio Rodríguez, Juan Luis Guerra. I became addicted to the media form that Latinos have perfected: the telenovela. I dusted off my Spanish and worked it into every sentence; even better, I mastered the art of Spanglish. Spanglish, I'd read, was the language of the future, a tidbit I shared with anyone who would listen.
I think back and I wonder about what led me down that path. It must've been more than all the shame associated with my skin, you know? That can't have been the only reason. The thing is, I don't remember feeling lost or like it was too much work or even thinking that there was anything unusual about living in two worlds. I mean, I didn't think about that until I got back to the States.
Within two months of our return, I'd experienced three distinct racially fraught incidents that had me wondering if the racial harmony I'd experienced in Germany was an illusion. Once, my family was shuttled to the back of a restaurant, past many empty tables to an area occupied exclusively by people of color. I might've been young, but I was neither blind nor stupid. The second time, I was at my church youth group, and we were outside our youth leader's apartment doing a trust building activity. Someone called the cops on us; they'd reported a "gang initiation" going on. Too many Latino kids outside, I guess. The third was my AP English Lit. teacher's reaction to the Latina in her class. She didn't have to say a word. I was the darkest kid in the room, and the shock and confusion on her face were enough; I never felt safe in that class.
That was where I learned that not everyone lives in two worlds. In fact, most people will never have to deal with anything or anyone from outside their world in anything but the most cursory manner. That's a luxury I never had.
I guess the thing that saved me that year - I was only seventeen - was my creative writing class where I was given this outlet to write out these things. My teacher loved it. She made me believe that this story I'd been weaving - the fragments of language, the collage of experiences, the hybridization of culture - were beautiful. My struggle was a source of pride.
I still think about that teacher because that year, I felt like only two of my teachers actually cared about me. She fostered my passion for writing and for creating my cultural and ethnic identity. Someday I'll have to track her down and thank her....

13 March 2009

Blonde

Later on I hope to write about how I felt in LA, how good it was for B. and I, how good it was to see my sister and brother-in-law, and how much I love the beach. For right now, however, there's this article: Fade to Blonde, which I loved. It's about a Latina like me: Brown and proud, hoping everyone can see her pride in her ethnicity, light-skinned, and political. And then she dyes her hair blonde for the piece.
Now, to me - and to her - this is a big no-no. Going blonde is selling out, it's trying to pass for white, it's giving up on your ethnicity, it's wanting to be white. And she does it. And she writes about the experience with amazing clarity, open-mindedness, and intelligence. Loved it.