Systems

Something happened this week. There was a conversation about this cupcake protest and someone mentioned to me that if we all would just stop paying attention to race, racism wouldn't even be an issue. That the way to fight the system is to prove to people that we are more than our skin color. Fight the stereotypes, be successful, and then "they'll" like and accept us.
I didn't respond. I'd already told the person we'd just agree to disagree, but that comment? It's been bugging me since because people are still looking at my skin and my name and my sex as if they're bad things, as if they're the opposite of privilege. The thing is that if it's true that ignoring it and doing the "right thing" will prevent this treatment, I'm not sure where I've failed.

I've spent a lot of my life proving people wrong:

Third grade rolls around and they ask me to take a test to show that I speak English. Yeah, I'll do it. Let's ignore the fact that last year I took a test that put me in my elementary school's gifted and talented program; I'll go ahead and prove to you that I have mastered your language.

In middle school, I was in a special program for gifted and talented students and my English teacher told me that I was the smartest minority girl she'd ever taught. Um, what?

High school teachers and counselors steered me away from advanced classes - not in my HS in Germany, just the one in VA. I didn't listen, and took the classes anyway. I was in NHS and German Honor Society. Oh, and I studied German in high school, because my parents weren't going to let me study a language I already knew and spoke and it just made sense.
In my spare time, I get harassed by cops for walking around with my (Latino) friends at a football game and / or attending my (Latino) church youth group.

College. I came in with something like eighteen credits approved. I was part of my school's Honors program. I made dean's list almost every semester after my freshman year and graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.7 or something like that. No "C's get degrees" for me. Oh, and my freshman year a girl flat out tells me, "I don't like you because you're Puerto Rican." Mmmkay... Thanks?
I graduated in five years, but only because I took a year and a half off in the middle: one year to volunteer and a semester to earn some money while working for the federal government.

I worked for three years as a Spanish teacher at a public school. I replied tactfully or shut up when my colleagues and / or superiors made comments about our immigrant students, or the "barrio" by the ESL classrooms (I wish I weren't quoting), or when people told me Puerto Ricans didn't know how to speak. Meanwhile, my Latino students were discouraged from taking advanced courses, being guided, instead to Auto Mechanics and Child Care. Security barged in to accuse one of my kids of vandalizing a bathroom when he'd been in my room the whole time. I saw two of my students being roughed up by cops for walking around in the evening. Oh, and this happened.

I went to grad school, and did really well, surprisingly enough. I cried my way through a Cross Cultural Skills class. I fell in love with a white man. I got stared at - not in a friendly way - when I went to the grocery store in my very white neighborhood. I was pulled over because a cop didn't think I should've been in my neighborhood at night.

I taught in Philly. I was told that "some students" shouldn't be held to the same standards, because, really, when were they ever going to use the information I was teaching them? Seriously?

So what I'm saying is that there's a flaw in this type of logic. I've done the right things. I'm well educated, well traveled, well read. I'm intelligent, middle-class, decently attractive. If I'm following the logic that being successful will make people ignore my skin and my heritage, then I should not be dealing with racism at all. Not ever. Not in my life, not in the lives of the people around me.
And yet, I've been yelled at to leave my own country, I've been told that my language isn't worth learning, I've dealt with the reality of being in a relationship with a white man, and I've been utterly exhausted by the dynamics of oppression.

What I'm saying is, I've played by the rules. I've done it even though it's hurt me and I sometimes wonder why I've had to give in and shut up and go along in order to be successful. Does it sometimes make me feel like I've sold out? Yeah, sometimes. But do I also think that I'm subverting the system in some way? Yeah. Put me in your stereotype box, sucker: I listen to country, salsa, and hip hop on the same playlist. But those rules? Those rules did NOT undo the system. It's going to take a lot more than that for me to, oh, I don't know, be paid the same amount as a white man in the same field.
What I'm saying is that I'm not going to feel guilty for believing that there's a system at play here and that said system goes beyond individual actions and beliefs. It's about the fact that people will react to my last name before they react to my educational background. It's about the fact that even though I have zero plans to have children, possible employers are worried about how soon I'm going to want to be on maternity leave. And I've done what I can, I've fought for myself and I've fought for others and I'll keep fighting.

It still matters. It's still important to note our privileges because we all have them. And you know what else is important? Finding ways to shed those privileges, or to subvert them, at least. And it's important that in the areas where we're at a disadvantage that we push and push and fight. And there will be tears and exhaustion and pain, but it's important. Because the sooner we recognize that there's a deeply flawed system at work, the sooner we can begin to live in opposition to it.

Ramblings....

I was called "White girl" last night. Granted, I was called this by some kid who thought I was staring at her as I was looking out the window, trying to get some air on our drive home from small group. Clearly this child was a bit delusional since she thought I was looking at her, specifically, even though she was pretty much in the middle of a group of nine or so girls of the same age, but her comment really irked me.

I hate being called white. Hate it.

As a woman, I've spent a lot of time looking in the mirror and lamenting what I see. Butt's too flat, hips too narrow, shoulders too broad, hair won't cooperate, what is up with my boobs? But in the long run, I've come to terms with my body, and not just come to terms with it, but learned to love it and embrace it and care for it. But there's this one thing that I still struggle with and that's my skin. For as long as I can remember, I've hated my skin tone. My sister and my dad have such a lovely, caramelly complexion and I'm so stinkin' pale. Yes, I can tan, but that fades in the winter, and I burn at least once every summer. I definitely take after my mom, though my mother's skin is lighter, even, than mine.

When my sister was born, I had a little baby doll that I tended to the way my mom tended to my sister. C. got a bath, my doll got a bath. I still remember that doll, chocolate-hued plastic and dark hair; my gosh, I loved her. Then we moved to the States and my mom learned English by watching Oprah. In my four-year-old mind, Oprah was the most beautiful woman on the planet, and I was convinced that I would never be pretty because you had to be Black to be pretty.

Clearly, I don't still think that there is only one type of beautiful today, but I still wish my skin were darker. My sister is so classically Latina, with her curves and golden skin. I feel like people think I'm an impostor. I know better, but I also know how I'm perceived, especially when I'm with B.

I've been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about ethnic identity, about the ways it's perceived and the ways it's presented. I think about what it means to "be Latina" in the US. I think about stereotypes that have impacted my own perception of who I am ethnically - the ones I've embraced and the ones I've rejected.

I know that when it comes to my hair, my curls feel like such a Puerto Rican thing. I try not to straighten them too often, because man, they make me feel so Latina. I wear fitted clothes, things that hug my curves, because aren't these curves so like a Latina? Aren't we all about emphasizing esa cinturita y esos muslos (waist and thighs)?

And I tan. All summer long, I try to draw those rays to my skin because in my head, darker skin is so much more Latina. I think about songs where men sing to their morenitas and negritas; songs that talk about piel canela.

I know in my head that there are many ways to be Latina, that there is no one Latino "look". But I feel like the rest of the US doesn't really get that.

And that "White girl" thing bugs me. While this girl was going off yesterday, I ignored her. And then she said, "White girl", and I snapped, "I ain't White." Because I don't feel White, I've never thought I was, never felt like it was the world I lived in. I've always been so Puerto Rican. And I know that Latino is this thing you become here in the States, that our own system of racial identity on the island is so different, but this is one area of my life where I've been completely "Americanized": I see my culture and my ethnicity in a US context, where I've been thrown in with the inhabitants of an entire continent (minus the US and Canada).... And now that B. and I are married, I see even more that I am not White. There are real things that are different, things I don't get, things that aren't acceptable in my culture. And B. and I work these things out, we try to build these bridges, create this hybrid, learn about and from each other. And it's not easy but we do it.

It's changed my life, our being together. Changed it in many ways, but one of the big ones is this part of ethnic identity that comes from others' perceptions. Yeah, yeah, I'm not supposed to care about what they think or say, but let's be honest. Human beings are social creatures, and we all base at least part of our identities on the perceptions of others.

I am, as always, living in the tension: too dark / too light. Too White / too "ethnic" (newsflash: being "White" does not prevent you from having an ethnicity). Too rich / too poor. Too loud / too quiet. Too safe / too exotic. Too gringa / too much of a S**c....

It doesn't get easier. I know, I know, I know that I have this strong identity, that I'm bicultural, that I know how to function in a variety of environments, that I can and have lived in areas that are majority White, majority Latino, majority Black, majority Asian. I know this. And yet....

"White girl".

Sound Track for a March

Yesterday I marched with hundreds of thousands for immigration reform and was elated to hear that the health care bill was passed (color me red, to hear the complaints from folks that probably haven't actually READ THE BILL).

Anyway, while my friend Z. and I listened to speaker after speaker at the rally, we talked about how nice it'd be to have some musical interludes between the speeches. Sometimes I'm shallow like that, even when trying to save the world.

So here's my own sound track for immigration reform.

1. "Mojado" Ricardo Arjona e Intocable

The quintessential immigration song. "Si la luna suave se desliza por cualquier cornisa sin permiso alguno, porque el mojado precisa comprobar con visas que no es de neptuno." A reminder that God has given us citizenship in His Kingdom and that all other kingdoms don't really matter in the long run.

2. "Papeles mojados" Chambao

A look at immigration from a European perspective. Same story, different continents.

3. "Tres veces mojados" Los Tigres del Norte

My students in VA turned me on to this one. A reminder of those who cross more than one border to get here, and who are strangers in multiple countries, despite the common language. It's crazy to me to think of the craziness/bravery of those who travel weeks and months to get here.

4. "Visa para un sueño" Juan Luis Guerra

This one hits close to home because it's about Dominicans trying to leave the DR. Many of them end up taking rafts over to PR, which is just as dangerous as rafts from La Habana to Miami.

5. "Sólo le pido a Dios" done by everyone and their mother, though this particular version is by Tao Rodríguez-Seeger and the guys from Fiel a la Vega

I ask God only for this, that I would not be indifferent to injustice. Amen.

6. "Casas de cartón"

This version is by Javier Álvarez. Injustice, migration, capitalism....

7. "Pobre Juan" Maná

On the telenovela side of dramatic, but about those deaths in the desert.

8. "Si el norte fuera el sur" Ricardo Arjona

The differences (maybe?) between North and South America. "Free" trade, national debt, war, exploitation, etc.

9. "Sangre americana" Bacilos

For those who don't remember that America applies to two continents and the bridge in between. For those who don't remember that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and that the original "Americans" are not of European extraction.

10. "We Are Called" by David Haas

This is a song from my days as a Catholic. The sound quality is pretty much terrible, but the lyrics are here. The chorus pretty much sums it up:

"We are called to act with justice / we are called to love tenderly / we are called to serve one another / to walk humbly with God!"

I will not lie; this song was in my head all day yesterday.

And a bonus song:
"Voces de Sol" Fiel a la Vega

"Entren vestidos de sol, las almas que quieran luchar....Sigue el camino, persíguelo con alma y pasión" Fight the good fight, make your voice heard, and seek your goal with passion. Yes. Amen.



And finally, some verses that came to mind:
Matthew 25:33-40

Leviticus 19:33-34

Line

They're talking about salsa and merengue, the songs the "old heads" like, the ones that get them out on the dance floor.

"You know she be jammin' to that in her car, when she's cleaning on Saturdays, with the mapo"

"She's from Puerto Rico; she's a hick. So you know she does."

And there it is, the line is drawn, the us-them divide, the island-mainland divide. To these kids - second, third, fourth generation Philly Ricans - I am the island. I was born in Puerto Rico, I eat the food, listen to the music, believe in the language.

But on the island? On the island, I'm so mainland. Shoes too casual, hair too wild, speaking English much too easily.

The familiarity of the push and pull invades. It's all in lighthearted fun, but my heart aches for the homeland I've lost, for the land which will never really be my own. And my heart aches also for the tightrope, for its existence, and for those who live on it - men and women like me who are neither here nor there.

But here's the thing: lately my heart aches most for those who live on either side of that divide, those who are safely island, safely mainland, because they will never know the sweetness of Spanglish - true Spanglish - on the tongue. They will never know the relief of return on both ends of the flight that links the two places. Those on the island will never know the way it feels to wake up in the morning aching for the tropical heat and salty air, la nostalgia aguda que forma el carácter e inspira el corazón. Those on the mainland will never know what it feels like to live in perpetual summer, to live as part of a unit instead of wandering alone; nunca reconocerán el destino y la mano de Dios de la misma manera que la vemos los de la isla.

So I'm a hick - the island Puerto Rican - and at the same time I'm la americana.

And today, looking at my students, pondering the unique situation of the third generation of Brown folks, I felt grateful for my place on the tightrope.

And they're right: I do jam to some salsa in my car.

On language, Part 2

So this is the promised second part. I guess when I said Saturday, I meant Monday; it's been hectic.

My students in VA called them chents, my students here call them "hicks" for some reason that I still can't understand, but basically, there's a distinction between those Latinos who speak English and those who don't. Worse, there's a distinction between those who speak English and do and those who can and choose Spanish. Choosing Spanish, it seems, is just as bad as not speaking English. It breaks my heart to see how often my kids want to downplay what they know, how they want to cover up the fact that they do actually speak Spanish, for fear of being labeled any of the above terms, which, if you didn't know, are negative.

I expect the resistance from those on the outside, but the rejection by those who look like me is a sharper sting. I've spent a life building up the protective layers for the former, but the latter still surprises me. We might share ethnic or even national ties, but it's that damn LANGUAGE issue that trips us up. Within the community there's a recognition that the Spanish language gives you greater authenticity as a member, but at the same time, it's ENGLISH that gives you the cachet. So we downplay el español and play up that English, and pretend that's not the same form of self-hatred that prompts us to stay out of the sun and straighten our hair and diet our hips away.

That Guillén poem, though, just blows my mind. Here it is again:

PROBLEMAS DEL SUBDESARROLLO

Monsieur Dupont te llama inculto,
porque ignoras cuál era el nieto
preferido de Víctor Hugo.

Herr Müller se ha puesto a gritar,
porque no sabes el día
(exacto) en que murió Bismark.

Tu amigo Mr. Smith,
inglés o yanqui, yo no lo sé,
se subleva cuando escribes shell.
(Parece que ahorras una ele,
y que además pronuncias chel.)

Bueno ¿y qué?
Cuando te toque a ti,
mándales decir cacarajícara,
y que donde está el Aconcagua,
y que quién era Sucre,
y que en qué lugar de este planeta
murió Martí.

Un favor:
Que te hablen siempre en español.

I love this. First off, the title: Problems of "Underdevelopment" - Third World problems. And guess what? The problems are not corruption or lack of clean water or terribly deficient educational systems. The problems are that the French think we're uncivilized because we don't know the minor details of French literary history, that the Germans get angry because we don't know about their historical figures, and that the Brits and US Americans are annoyed with the way we speak and write their language. It's that familiarity of being looked down on for the language we speak.
Ah, but the catch: We can ask them to say tongue twisting words, to point out some geography, to identify a historical figure, and to give us some details on Latin American literary history. And the other catch? Do it in Spanish. We're always playing along, adopting the other's language - it's exhausting and exasperating. We are just as educated, cultured, relevant. And guess what? So is our language.

Whether we've been here for five weeks, five years, or five generations, we have to learn to respect the humanity of those who don't speak English and those who do but choose to love and cherish Spanish as well. There's an element of dehumanization in disrespecting languages, I think. If I can't understand you, then you aren't as much a person as I am. And that's dangerous.

On language, Part 1

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of the perceived superiority of the English language and the implications that has on identity and self-esteem and racial/ethnic tensions. This is not to say that I have my thoughts "together", but that it's been floating around a lot.
I'm teaching Spanish again, my first language, and one that I love now, so I'm always thinking about language, the politics of language, and the connection between language and Latino identity. This past spring during my Cross-Cultural Skills class, I started thinking of how I identify as a speaker of Spanish in public places.
I love to speak Spanish in public for several reasons, though I won't deny that one of them is just that it makes some people uncomfortable. Is that terrible? I'm not trying to be mean, and believe, I'm most certainly NOT talking about you, I'm just pushing the envelope on what's acceptable for a middle-class, well-educated, young woman who's spent most of her life in the United States. I mean, it's understandable when recent arrivals speak their languages in public, but it's somehow less accepted for someone who's been here since the age of four to do the same. If you speak English, why speak Spanish?
For me, the answer is simple: my family speaks Spanish. My aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, my cousins, my parents - they all speak Spanish. With few exceptions, that's all they speak, and I love them and want to communicate with them. Too easy, right? Right. Because that doesn't explain why I speak Spanish at the grocery store and on the street when I'm with bilingual folks. Spanish allows me to express myself in ways that I can't in English. There's a musicality to it, a reassuring structure, an identification of the nuances of gender and class and age built into the very foundations of the language. Not to mention the loveliness of words like "desahogarse" and "humildad" and "bendito". There are ideas that can't be translated, links and connections between states of being that can't be as fully expressed in English because it would require two nouns and a conjunction. There's always something lost in translation.
Spanish is beautiful, so rich and layered and homey. Algo cómodo y a la vez lleno de vida y pasión. I admit that I am smitten with accent marks, arching gracefully over vowels, coaxing my tongue into proper pronunciation.
But this has not always been my attitude towards my first language.
There was a time when I felt that Spanish was the language of lesser intelligence; a time when it marked me as a child who might need extra help. I was ashamed of my heritage and that came out in hatred towards my mother tongue.
It wasn't a conscious shame, but rather a subtly internalized sense of inferiority passed down by well-meaning clueless teachers, folks at the store who looked at me with mixed suspicion and pity, and curious but insensitive classmates. Poor little brown girl, with her inferior skin, inferior language, and (logically) inferior brain. Which is not what they were literally thinking, but in a world where White, English-speaking men are the standard, I do not measure up.
And so English became my defense; it let people know that I was, indeed, smart. See how well I speak your language?

It wasn't until high school, when I started to develop a real sense of ethnic identity, that I brushed off my Spanish and wore it as a badge. It was a sign of how "truly Puerto Rican" I am, which, really, what does that MEAN?! Apparently, in my head, it meant speaking Spanish. And I'm glad it did, because once I got over the greater part of my militancy, I just fell in love with the language, with the way it feels in my mouth, with the incredible diversity of it, and the myriad influences which have shaped it. And have I mentioned the PRACTICALITY of Spanish? It's one the top three most spoken languages in the world, and the United States actually has the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. (Which is why I'm not talking about you when I speak Spanish in public. I know better.) It has served me well, allowing me to communicate with people from all walks of life, opening doors for me when it comes to jobs, and giving me the opportunity to read Neruda and García Márquez as they are meant to be read: en español.

But there still seems to be a stigma associated with the language. I notice it all the time in overt and subtle ways, and I'll get into those later, tomorrow or Saturday. But for now, a poem from my favorite poet: Nicolás Guillén:

PROBLEMAS DEL SUBDESARROLLO

Monsieur Dupont te llama inculto,
porque ignoras cuál era el nieto
preferido de Víctor Hugo.

Herr Müller se ha puesto a gritar,
porque no sabes el día
(exacto) en que murió Bismark.

Tu amigo Mr. Smith,
inglés o yanqui, yo no lo sé,
se subleva cuando escribes shell.
(Parece que ahorras una ele,
y que además pronuncias chel.)

Bueno ¿y qué?
Cuando te toque a ti,
mándales decir cacarajícara,
y que donde está el Aconcagua,
y que quién era Sucre,
y que en qué lugar de este planeta
murió Martí.

Un favor:
Que te hablen siempre en español.

perreo

This morning I was awakened by someone blasting reggaetón from their car as they parked at the greenhouse-type-place next door. My first thought: ¿Reggaetón? In Wayne? If it hadn't been that it happened just minutes before my alarm sounded, I might have run outside to meet my fellow displaced Latinos. You know, before I realized that women who are technically soltera but not sin compromisos should NOT run out to meet landscapers just because we share a language.

As it was, I was a little unhappy that I lost precious moments of sleep.

Related to the previous post

There's something angry and sad and beautiful about this poem, which was also featured in the documentary, and I found it online here. I also realized it's in one of the books that I'm reading for class: Being Latino in Christ. It's one of those poems that I'm sure I'll be figuring out for awhile.

Puerto Rican Obituary

by Pedro Pietri

They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back
when they were insulted
They worked
They never took days off
that were not on the calendar
They never went on strike
without permission
They worked
ten days a week
and were only paid for five
They worked
They worked
They worked
and they died
They died broke
They died owing
They died never knowing
what the front entrance
of the first national city bank looks like

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors
on to the next of kin
All died
waiting for the garden of eden
to open up again
under a new management
All died
dreaming about america
waking them up in the middle of the night
screaming: Mira Mira
your name is on the winning lottery ticket
for one hundred thousand dollars
All died
hating the grocery stores
that sold them make-believe steak
and bullet-proof rice and beans
All died waiting dreaming and hating

Dead Puerto Ricans
Who never knew they were Puerto Ricans
Who never took a coffee break
from the ten commandments
to KILL KILL KILL
the landlords of their cracked skulls
and communicate with their latino souls

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
From the nervous breakdown streets
where the mice live like millionaires
and the people do not live at all
are dead and were never alive

Juan
died waiting for his number to hit
Miguel
died waiting for the welfare check
to come and go and come again
Milagros
died waiting for her ten children
to grow up and work
so she could quit working
Olga
died waiting for a five dollar raise
Manuel
died waiting for his supervisor to drop dead
so he could get a promotion

Is a long ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery
where they were buried
First the train
and then the bus
and the cold cuts for lunch
and the flowers
that will be stolen
when visiting hours are over
Is very expensive
Is very expensive
But they understand
Their parents understood
Is a long non-profit ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Dreaming
Dreaming about queens
Clean-cut lily-white neighborhood
Puerto Ricanless scene
Thirty-thousand-dollar home
The first spics on the block
Proud to belong to a community
of gringos who want them lynched
Proud to be a long distance away
from the sacred phrase: Que Pasa

These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent

Juan
died dreaming about a new car
Miguel
died dreaming about new anti-poverty programs
Milagros
died dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico
Olga
died dreaming about real jewelry
Manuel
died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes

They all died
like a hero sandwich dies
in the garment district
at twelve o’clock in the afternoon
social security number to ashes
union dues to dust

They knew
they were born to weep
and keep the morticians employed
as long as they pledge allegiance
to the flag that wants them destroyed
They saw their names listed
in the telephone directory of destruction
They were train to turn
the other cheek by newspapers
that mispelled mispronounced
and misunderstood their names
and celebrated when death came
and stole their final laundry ticket

They were born dead
and they died dead

Is time
to visit sister lopez again
the number one healer
and fortune card dealer
in Spanish Harlem
She can communicate
with your late relatives
for a reasonable fee
Good news is guaranteed

Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
Let them know this right away
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
Now that your problems are over
and the world is off your shoulders
help those who you left behind
find financial peace of mind

Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
If the right number we hit
all our problems will split
and we will visit your grave
on every legal holiday

Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
let them know this right away
We know your spirit is able
Death is not dumb and disable
RISE TABLE RISE TABLE

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Hating fighting and stealing
broken windows from each other
Practicing a religion without a roof
The old testament
The new testament
according to the gospel
of the internal revenue
the judge and jury and executioner
protector and eternal bill collector

Secondhand shit for sale
learn how to say Como Esta Usted
and you will make a fortune
They are dead
They are dead
and will not return from the dead
until they stop neglecting
the art of their dialogue
for broken english lessons
to impress the mister goldsteins
who keep them employed
as lavaplatos porters messenger boys
factory workers maids stock clerks
shipping clerks assistant mailroom
assistant, assistant assistant
to the assistant’s assistant
assistant lavaplatos and automatic
artificial smiling doormen
for the lowest wages of the ages
and rages when you demand a raise
because is against the company policy
to promote SPICS SPICS SPICS

Juan
died hating Miguel because Miguel’s
used car was in better running condition
than his used car
Miguel
died hating Milagros because Milagros
had a color television set
and he could not afford one yet
Milagros
died hating Olga because Olga
made five dollars more on the same job
Olga
died hating Manuel because Manuel
had hit the numbers more times
than she had hit the numbers
Manuel
died hating all of them
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
and Olga
because they all spoke broken english
more fluently than he did

And now they are together
in the main lobby of the void
Addicted to silence
Off limits to the wind
Confine to worm supremacy
in long island cemetery
This is the groovy hereafter
the protestant collection box
was talking so loud and proud about

Here lies Juan
Here lies Miguel
Here lies Milagros
Here lies Olga
Here lies Manuel
who died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Always broke
Always owing
Never knowing
that they are beautiful people

Never knowing
the geography of their complexion

PUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
PUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE

If only they
had turned off the television
and tune into their own imaginations
If only they
had used the white supremacy bibles
for toilet paper purpose
and make their latino souls
the only religion of their race
If only they
had return to the definition of the sun
after the first mental snowstorm
on the summer of their senses
If only they
had kept their eyes open
at the funeral of their fellow employees
who came to this country to make a fortune
and were buried without underwears

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
will right now be doing their own thing
where beautiful people sing
and dance and work together
where the wind is a stranger
to miserable weather conditions
where you do not need a dictionary
to communicate with your people
Aqui Se Habla Espanol all the time
Aqui you salute your flag first
Aqui there are no dial soap commercials
Aqui everybody smells good
Aqui tv dinners do not have a future
Aqui the men and women admire desire
and never get tired of each other
Aqui Que Paso Power is what’s happening
Aqui to be called negrito
means to be called LOVE

It's those last few stanzas that just make me break down in sobs.

And though it's perhaps a bit less eloquent, it makes me think of that Kanye line: "They made us hate ourselves and love their wealth" (from "All Falls Down").

Assimilation

I just heard this quote on a documentary about Puerto Ricans: "Assimilation is a curse because it forces you to give up your identity".

I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this documentary, probably because it was done by Rosie Pérez and her Spanish is a more than a little rusty. (I have seriously got to get over my discrimination against Latinos who can't speak Spanish well.) The quote, however, got my attention because I've been thinking about how much I've given up simply because I live here in the US. I'm a speaker of Spanish in public places; I like resisting expectation, if that makes any sense. But my question is, is assimilation even a choice? I mean, we're here, we live here. How much can you avoid becoming something else? You retain what you can, but you give up a lot anyway. You give up and you adopt and adapt.
I've been thinking about this assimilation thing a lot. I know I've assimilated, but I know I haven't completely lost myself - that piece of my people that I carry around. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, if anyone else feels that they carry their people inside, but I do.
I don't know, I don't know.... I wonder what happens next, you know? With the next generation? What do they lose? What do they gain? I don't know.
I
Don't
Know

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....

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.

Formative

I had to write a case study about a "cross-cultural interaction" from my personal experience for my Cross-Cultural Skills and Understanding class. I struggled a lot with it because I didn't want to get too personal; I think I did end up going in that direction, but it wasn't my intention. I wrote a few bits before the final draft, a little snippet about an experience I wrote about here before, which I kind of liked, so I'm including that here:

Last August: I was running an errand for my mother. The car windows were down to take advantage of the August heat, and Alejandra Guzmán blasted on the radio; Mexican rock spilled out the open windows. I pulled up to the stop sign, ready to turn right, and waited for the coming car to pass. I saw two teenage boys in the car, windows down; there was nothing unusual about it, just a couple high school kids taking advantage of their last weeks of summer vacation. And then they drove by; one leaned out the window: white face, black mouth. “GET OUT!”
My heart stopped and my mind raced. Was he talking to me? Did he just yell that at me? Was it my flag hanging from the rearview mirror? Was it the Alejandra Guzmán on the radio? Was it just the sight of this brown face? My hands trembled on the steering wheel because I knew they were driving in the same direction that I myself was heading toward, and the thought of running into them at the grocery store terrified me. Here I was, twenty-five years old and afraid to run into a couple of high school kids at the grocery store.
The car behind me honked, snapping me out of my paralysis. I drove, still shaking, knowing that this would never end. No matter how long I spend here, I will never fully understand; I will never fully belong. The feeling that this is home will always be tenuous and fragile. I am not welcome.

That's not what I ended up writing about, though. I wrote about an incident that happened when I was eleven that I have never been able to shake off. It's the one that has pushed me to be more and better my whole life. I think about Edward James Olmos in Selena, saying how Mexican-Americans have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans and I think of that day in 1993 when that first became clear to me. So here's a bit of what I wrote for class:

I’m eleven. At eleven, I could not possibly be more all-American, having lived most of my conscious life in the Midwest. I straighten my hair and worry about the fullness of my hips and listen to rock; I’m busy trying to fit in, trying to hide the ethnic parts of myself and my upbringing. There’s no way to hide it right now, though, because my grandmother and two of my cousins are visiting and I have to speak Spanish, not just inside the house, but outside of it as well. We have come to the mall with them, and I am walking with Marilyn, my cool oldest cousin, the older sister I always wished I had. We are in 579, my favorite store, lingering over a rack of stirrup leggings with matching sweatshirts; it was 1993. I remember my fingers trailing over a pair of plaid leggings – jade green, maroon, and ivory – and wondering if my mom would say yes to this purchase. Marilyn and I talk excitedly about the outfits, already carefully selected by the company and hung on interlocking hangers. We speak Spanish.
One of the saleswomen leans over the counter to talk to the cashier. I can still remember her: the shoulder-length blonde perm, the bubble bangs, and the winter white sweater she wore; it’s all seared in my memory, just as clear sixteen years later. She opens her mouth and says, “You know, we’re going to have to start offering a credit card for these Hispanics like Sears does. These Hispanics. They come to this country and they don’t learn English.” The cashier nods her head knowingly as if she’s thought of this before – as if she understands.
I’m standing not three feet away, at a rack right next to the register, but they have not bothered to lower their voices. I look at them nervously from the corners of my eyes. Marilyn, of course, is oblivious and it occurs to me that they think I don’t understand. I feel a heat in the pit of my stomach, a ball of shame and fear and confusion. I can’t make my tongue form words in either language, and all I know to do is to move away as quickly as possible.
I’m still clutching the plaid leggings and the matching jade green sweatshirt when I meet my mother and grandmother in the back of the store. The words are still ringing in my head, and I can feel my hands trembling despite my tight grip on the plastic hanger. Somehow, I convince my mother that Mari and I are ready to leave 579. She pays for the clothes in our hands, and I escape the stifling air of the store with my family, all of them still speaking loudly in the language that has caused my personal crisis.
I was afraid to mention it for months, afraid to put words to the event that had transpired. I did not know how to respond to it, and so I kept silent. One day, nearly three months later, I sat in the backseat of the car and told my mother about it. The confession felt like release at the time, a sharing of hidden pain that made it possible for me to be defended. My mother marched down to 579 one day and spoke to the manager. She told her everything that had happened, and made it clear that we would no longer support their establishment and that she would share our story with all our friends. There must have been apologies, offers of better service, something to keep her quiet; but it did not change her mind. We never set foot in that store again.
This is always in the back of my mind. Deep down inside, I’m still that eleven-year-old girl in 579 overhearing the staff say that my people did not learn English. I know that it was not my first uncomfortable cross-cultural experience, and it was not even the worst of those experiences, but it is the one that I carry with me, the one that haunts me....

As I was writing, I was amazed by the clarity of the memory. I can remember the cashier's long, brown hair - wavy in the way hair was wavy back in 1993 (was it called a body wave?). I can remember the guilt and shame I felt every time I wore those daggone stirrup leggings - shame that was not associated with the fact that they were stirrup leggings, but that they'd been purchased on the day I knew I needed to flee that place. (Don't worry, I'm now QUITE ashamed of the fact that I wore plaid stirrup leggings, period.) I don't think I'd realized quite how much that shaped me, how I realized that if I spoke we could organize a little economic resistance, how I felt wonderfully principled and proud every time I walked by my old favorite store without so much as looking in, how it's taught me to be the kind of woman who will speak Spanish in public places and challenge a stranger's stare with my own....
For better or worse, this, and all those other incidents, have made me who I am. They've made me embrace my culture with so much pride, while walking that careful tightrope of being "ethnic" in the US: la prima americana, the Puerto Rican friend. Ésa soy yo.

My brain is fried

So I was doing a little preliminary research on the topic I want to pursue for my Urban Politics midterm - the role of Latinos in Philadelphia politics - but I'm having a hard time finding some real data. I mean, in a city that was 8.5% Latino almost 9 years ago (we all know that's gone up) I find it hard to believe that there isn't more information about mobilizing the Latino community (about 75% Puerto Rican, so don't give me the "they can't vote" argument!) to take political action. Hmmm... Just makes me think, is all. I think I'll find info, it'll just take a bit of legwork, and it's a topic I'm interested in, so I'll do what I have to do.

In lighter news, I was sitting here, calmly looking for information, when I felt something tickling my arm. I looked down and there was this huge brown spider just crawling along. I don't normally have a problem with spiders, but I do have an issue with them invading my personal space, and my skin is definitely my personal space. I swept it off, and it fell to the floor, and now I'm a little creeped out by this bold little arachnid just crawlin' around. I don't want to swallow it in my sleep....

Own worst enemy

This is something that I've been thinking about for a long time, and I've been meaning to write about it for quite awhile (see "Hypothetical"), but I just hadn't gotten around to it.
Tonight, however, I've got John Legend on iTunes, and I'm inspired partly by him, and partly by the time I've had to think.

First: this area where I'm living feels so *white*. It's been a loooong time since I've been somewhere that isn't crazy diverse, and as a brown-skinned woman, it's a comfort to know that there are people who look like me around. It makes me feel safer. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but my fellow minorities, but we don't have the luxury of not noticing those kinds of things. I'm aware of these things, and with the recent news about the teens here killing a Mexican man basically for being Mexican, I'm a little worried.

Anyway, that's not the direction I was going to take with this post, because it doesn't really have to do with the violence inflicted on minorities, but rather on the violence and oppression we inflict on our own people.

Yes, we've still got to deal with racism, discrimination, and a real fear of how people might react towards our otherness. No matter what people say, things haven't changed that much - racism is just more hidden now. It continues to be a systematic, endemic thing in this country, a presence just as real and as evil as any other form of oppression or injustice. I'm not saying that there isn't a real need for racial healing and reconciliation here, because there IS. There absolutely is. That said, how much do we as minorities turn on our own people?

I think I first started thinking about this in earnest after watching "American Gangster". It was a good movie, don't get me wrong; the story pulls you in, and Denzel Washington is just so stinkin' good. The thing is, as I'm sitting there falling in love with his character, wanting him to get away with everything, and getting caught up in the sexiness of organized crime, it occured to me that while Frank Lucas's life is being built up, countless other lives are being destroyed by his product.
He's using this crime syndicate to show that a Black man can be succesful and run his own organization, but this is at the expense of all these other Black lives which are being consumed by heroin.
There's an allure, an attractiveness, a sexiness in that gangster lifestyle. Otherwise, movies like "American Gangster", "Scarface", and "The Godfather" wouldn't be the icons they are. There's something so smooth and so cool in the way we portray these men. And it's not just in movies, music and popular novels are also filled with these gangster ideals; it's part of American culture. And we buy into it.
It's not a matter of life imitating art. This is a true story, and organized crime was around before these movies and rap and reggaetón came into being. As minorities, we turn on our own people in search of that prestige. Frank Lucas wasn't taking his cheap heroin to exclusive neighborhoods; he was getting rich off of poor Blacks and Latinos: people who looked like him and his wife. And the man who started his empire to be free of the control of white America made slaves of his own people.

When I was working in DC this summer, we had several big incidents at the Rec Center. One staff member was physically assaulted, another was held up at gunpoint, and a man was shot on the same block. We keep doing these things to our own people. You see it all the time: gang violence, Black-on-Black crime, wealthier Latinos who exploit undocumented Latinos....
How can we expect to make headway if we keep our own people down? How can we fight for justice and equality when we're so busy turning on our own? How can we ever free this nation from the ugliness of racism if we're determined to be our own worst enemies?

It's so frustrating. If all of us minorities, in every shade of non-white skin, would get together, if we'd stop fighting eachother as well as our own people, we'd be so much more effective at bringing about profound changes in this country. Do I believe it's possible? I don't know. I'm a bit of a cynic, but, my God, I hope it's possible.

Notes on a (vicariously taken) Latin American Journey

I finally got a copy of "The Motorcycle Diaries" last Thursday, which I have been meaning to read for ages. I finished it on Tuesday - it was better than I'd expected it to be. I mean, the movie was magnificent: the story and the breathtaking landscapes of Latin America are the kinds of things that stir my heart. That, and the brilliance of Gael García Bernal.
But the book! There's so much in it about that connection with the mestizo and indigenous heritage of Latin America that I fell in love with. I do feel a connetion and affinity for my Taíno heritage. I've always been interested in it, even as a kid. Anyway, there's this rediscovery on his part of the origins of Latin America - the part that so many have tried to erase over centuries of colonization and oppression. Now I'm sounding a bit radical - which I'm not, not really.

But there's this beauty in the connection of Latinos, and in the sophistication of the tribes that were originally found in México, el Caribe, Central and South America, that I love. And that's what spoke to me as I was following Che before he was Che from Argentina to Chile, through Perú, and onward to Colombia and Venezuela (with an accidental detour into the Brazilian Amazon).
This has always been my favorite part of the movie, and it's the thing that sums up the book for me: Ernesto's toast on his final night in the lepers' colony in Perú:

"Although our insignificance means we can't be spokespeople for such a noble cause, we believe, and after this journey more firmly than ever, that the division of America into unstable and illusory nations is completely fictionalal. We constitute a single mestizo race, which from Mexico to the Magellan Straits bears notable ethnographical similariteis. And so, in an attempt to rid myself of the weight of small-minded provincialism, I propose a toast to Peru and to a United Latin America."

Yes, there's staggering diversity in Latin America, but the truth is that our shared history and our common language and that commonality of mixed blood unites us as well. Not, of course, that I'm advocating some new "Bolivarian" revolution a là Huguito (Chávez of Venezuela), but that I do believe we should, as nations and as individuals, help one another. We are, in a sense, brothers and sisters.

Inmigración - Europa y las Américas

"Papeles Mojados" by Chambao
Here we have a song about illegal immigration to Spain. She's saying "What would you do in their shoes?" There's all this injustice, poverty, war, disease.... Wouldn't you risk it, too? Many don't make it, but those who do just want a better life. And across the pond....

"Mojado" by Ricardo Arjona and Intocable
Same story, different continent.

I could throw in "Visa para un sueño" by Juan Luis Guerra and it'd still be the same, with a slightly different geographical focus (DR-PR). The thing is, it sucks to be the stranger in every case. There are valid reasons for this movement of people, and though it can't continue unchecked, closing borders does nothing to resolve the underlying problems (economic and political instability, injustice, poverty, violence, disease, etc.).

Band-aids aren't enough.

Más vale vivir llorando que morir sin saber cuanto

Mujer de 26 años (Hey! That's me!) by Tony Croatto and Fiel a la Vega


Love that song, the bittersweetness of settling for stability and the pang of regret all those years later and the determination to let her daughter live without all the pressures of el qué dirán. It's so Latin.... My parents are old-school Puerto Rican, and that qué dirán is such a huge deal in the family, that I can totally identify with the woman in the song.

A little clarification for non-Spanish speakers: el qué dirán is the fear of what others will say about the decisions we make and the things that we do. We live public lives, us Latinos, and that fear is a huge part of traditional Latino culture - it was one of the recurring themes in all of the texts we read in A2....

Anyway, on a different note, I have a place to live and roommate for next year. J and I secured a cute little apartment five minutes from Eastern which I'm excited about. We even have a front porch! I heart porches. I'm a little (ha!) worried about money, but I'm trusting God to provide for me.

I went to ICC last night and saw a lot of the folks from the retreat. I really enjoy spending time there, even though I am pretty much the only one who's not Korean.

Well, as long as I'm up so early, I should get my booty in gear and work out. I've been so laaaaaazy this summer!

AméRican II

At the risk of sounding a little militant, I want to talk a little bit more about why I'm so proud to be Latina. There's just so much to be said about the Latino presence in the US - so much that's never said, never taught; so much that so many of us don't know about ourselves....

1. Hispanics have had permanent settlements in what is now the US since 1565.
The oldest city in the US, St. Augustine, Florida, was founded by the Spaniards. There were Spanish settlements all over the East Coast - LA, GA, FL, on up to VA. Not even kidding. Not to mention that the vast majority of the Western United States was once part of Mexico. As some of my students put it: "Wait, a minute, we're NOT immigrants. We were here first!" and then, "Then why are they so mad that we're here? It was ours first." Hilarious and cute. True, and not. But the fact is, when we look at how long various ethnic groups have been in the US, Hispanics are second only to Native Americans. Interesting....

2. The first full admiral in the US Navy was a Hispanic man.
David Glasgow Farragut was of Catalan descent - in other words, we was a Spaniard. He served in the Civil War. Not to mention all the other accomplishments of Hispanics and Latinos in the military.....

3. The first woman to win a Tony, an Oscar, a Grammy, and an Emmy is a Latina.
Rita Moreno. Double props for being una boricua. That's a lot of statues for the mantle folks. Incidentally, the first Latino to win an Academy Award was also Puerto Rican (José Ferrer).

4. The first woman to serve as Surgeon General of the United States was a Latina.
Antonia Novello, another Puerto Rican, served under the first President Bush.

5. We make up about 14% of the US population.
We're the largest minority group in the US; but you already knew that. What does that mean? It means the US is the fifth-largest Spanish-speaking country. There are more Spanish speakers in the US than in SPAIN, folks! (Let that marinate.) Spanish is the most popular "foreign" language in US schools. One of the most popular tv shows for young children stars a proudly bilingual Latina (Dora the Explorer). One of the most popular prime time shows stars a cast of Latinos from many countries, is produced by a Latina, and is based on a Colombian telenovela (Ugly Betty). Some of the top contenders on American Idol are Latinos. We're on the radio, in movies, on tv (FINALLY!), in books, on the catwalk.... We are everywhere. And we're continually impacting culture.

Proud? Yes. Yes, very.

I am not a foreigner, not someone whose people haven't been shaping this country in profound ways for decades (centuries). I am this brown element that people don't yet understand, though we've been here for so long.

I come from a race of fighters - the kind of fighters who will do it quietly, day in and day out, working to make the most of what they've been given. César Chávez. Luis Muñoz Marín. Roberto Clemente. Dolores Huerta. These are my people.

I come from a race so blessed with creativity that we have had a hand in all aspects of culture in this country. Lalo Schifrin. Tito Puente. Sandra Cisneros. Alfonso Cuarón. Edward James Olmos. Rita Hayworth. These are my people.

The list goes on. On and on and on.

Gabriel García Márquez, Sammy Davis, Jr., Marc Anthony, Pablo Montaner, José Feliciano....

What a rich heritage we have. What a rich heritage we have on this soil.

Ésta también es mi América.

Corazón hinchaó

I've been thinking lately about how incredibly proud I am to be Latina in general and Puerto Rican in particular.

I just got done watching The Bronze Screen and I'm even prouder.

More on this later, but for now, a quote from León Ichaso:

"It's never 'our time' unless we set our watch and say 'Now'."

Preach.

"Si yo no hubiero nacido en la tierre en que nací, estaría arrepentido de no haber nacido aquí"

AmeRicana

So I was driving to the grocery store, running some errands for my mom today. I had my window rolled down, listening to some music (in English, quite unusual for me) and was waiting to turn out of the development when this kid who's in a car that's speeding past me sticks his head out the window and yells: "GET OUT!"

I sit there for a minute, in shock. What did he just say? And then it's clear. This little punk told me to get out. Get out of what? My own country?

I didn't have time to give him the history lesson: No, punk, I'm PUERTO RICAN. That means I'm a US citizen. No really, I was born a US citizen, and so were my parents and so was my grandma. My great-grandmother, she became a citizen in 1917 with the passage of the Jones Act because the US needed some more manpower to help fight in World War I and President Woodrow Wilson thought he'd pick up some soldiers in the US's Caribbean colony. And actually, my daddy is a colonel in the US Army. So, what was that again? Get out? Yeah, I thought so.

This, I'm sure, is a result of the anti-immigrant sentiment that seems to be settling on this nation. Personal baggage and politics aside, I know that immigration cannot continue unchecked at the same pace; not only for the good of the US, but also for the good of the nations that are losing hardworking citizens by the thousands. I KNOW this. Something has to be done. But at the same time, this crackdown has allowed for all these prejudices simmering just under the surface to rise. And I can feel it.

I'm a well-educated woman. I know the difference between lay and lie, between good and well, between your and you're; which is more than I can say for a large number of "real" Americans. ;) I've been in this country since I was four, and I'm an American. Not only in the broad continental sense, but in the specific estadounidense sense - I'm from the US. And what would the US be without that ethnic diversity? Not the US, that's what.

I'm a brown-eyed, brown-haired, brown-skinned Latina, and I can't hide that. My mouth spills forth both Spanish and English with equal ease. I'm that border child, the one with a foot on each side, blending together a hybrid culture. And I'm proud of that. But having said that, I have just as much right to this land as the blondest, tallest, whitest person.

And even if I didn't have that right, that cowardly act, that shout of "GET OUT!" as you zoom by safely in your car, that's not going to get anyone anywhere. Land of the brave, huh?