Things I would like

1. A week near the beach - under the sun - with the boy I love. (Scheduled to come up SOOOOON!)
2. Adequate sleep tonight. Ha!
3. If my paper for Urban Econ. would WRITE ITSELF!
4. If the article I have to read would read itself aloud to me, because I actually do want to know all about it.
5. A couple hours of free time to write.
6. A couple hours to write things that are less fun, but arguably have more weight on my future. Such as an essay and a letter of introduction.
7. Some time with the fam. Man, I miss those crazy fools.

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.

Confessions

I hate snow. Hate it. Despise it.
I know I'm going to get flak for this and people will be like, "Oh, but it's so pretty." Yeah, yeah. I've heard that. It is. It's pretty when it's falling down, but I want that ish to melt as soon as it hits the ground; it should not accumulate on any surface that I need to walk on.

Everyone tells me about all the fun they had as children playing in the snow, and to be honest, I have one and a half fun memories of that. The half is that first time I played in snow. I was probably four or five and there's a picture of my sister and I bundled up in snow suits wielding a snow shovel and piling the snow in C.'s toy stroller. I was probably excited about it that day. After that, we did not play in the snow by choice. We were totally over it.
The full memory is of an eighth grade winter camp when we went snow tubing and had a big snowball fight. It was fun only because I was with my friends, not because balls of fabricated snow (read: ice) were flying at my head.

So, yeah, spare me the nostalgia, because I have no love for snow. I have plenty of love for 95 degrees and 100% humidity, so I would not say that I have no appreciation for nature or what not. Give me sun and heat and humidity any day and I won't even ask you for AC. Snow is just not my thing.

It snowed here this week and now my driveway is a dangerous skating rink. It snowed, rained, froze. There are deadly layers of ice and icy snow from the bottom of the steps to the cars parked out back, and even more deadly layers leading out to the curb where my recycling bins have been sitting for days because I cannot bring myself to make the trek out there to drag them back to their rightful place because I don't. Want. To die. It's scary, no joke.

I had to scrape that stuff off my car the other morning and it put me in such a bad mood until the sun came out and melted a little bit of it. Nothing depresses me like scraping snow and ice off my car in the morning, except, you know, maybe January.

So to end this rant on a positive note, I get to escape this frozen wasteland in a month. Mmmmm, Los Angeles.... Land of sunshine, beaches, taco trucks, and heat. Can't wait for the fun in Southern Cali with the sweetest boy. Oh yeah, and my sister and brother-in-law. Yay.

Random

I can feel a couple heavy blog topics brewin' right about now, so I wanted to throw in a little something light before I expound on issues of race and ethnicity, grace, and the city of Nineveh (in separate posts, of course), and a couple of poems (if you're lucky).

For today, nothing but randomness:

1. I'm fascinated/obsessed with Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Marilyn Monroe for reasons that are the same but different. They're both people who have come to symbolize something much greater than themselves (revolution, feminine beauty), both people who lost their lives at young ages and under mysterious circumstances, both people with an amazing potential who didn't have the chance to fulfill it.
I read Che's Bolivian Diary as well as The Motorcycle Diaries this past summer, and when I can read for fun again, I plan to read more of his works. The thing is, he's a brilliant writer, even if you can't/don't agree with all of his ideas. I loved The Motorcycle Diaries because it showed him in all his idealism, before he was so radicalized, before he was El Comandante Che Guevara. There's a hopefulness in his writing and an idealism that I can connect with. But by the time the Bolivian Diary rolls around, this has been replaced by stubborn adherence to a failed ideal. That tragedy is what intrigues me.
That's what I see in Marilyn as well. She was this young woman who'd had a rough, rough life, but she kept hoping that she'd make it. And then she did. She never really knew what an impact she had; never really knew her inside out beauty. But she also had this idealism, this optimism, about her that was just luminous. Ultimately, though, it was that stubborn lack of self-confidence and the way she was shamelessly used that led to her demise.
They say Che was executed by the Bolivian army, but they also say he was executed by the CIA. They say that Marilyn committed suicide, but they also say that she was killed by the Mafia. That mystery - and I'll admit to being a bit of a conspiracy theorist where these two are involved - is pretty interesting as well.
Ah, and as a side note, my favorite poem in the world is "Oración por Marilyn Monroe" by Ernesto Cardenal, a liberation theologist from Nicaragua. You can find it here.

2. I have always, always, always, for as long as I can remember, wished that my skin were at least five shades darker. Daggone Spanish and Italian blood! I've always wished that my African and Taíno heritage would be more apparent in this light skin. I can't even tell you the complex I have because of it. My sister is wonderfully dark, and I'm so stinkin' pale. I've had people question my Puerto Rican-ness because of it, which makes me so. Stinkin'. Mad.

3. I always have hummus in the fridge because it is a delicious and convenient source of lean protein. I spread it on sandwiches, stuff it in pitas, eat it with carrot sticks and broccoli, and use it as salad dressing. Good and versatile stuff, hummus.

4. I feel personally offended when Puerto Ricans call themselves "Boriquas" with a "Q". UGH! Spell it right if you want those Puerto Rican points! "BORICUA", with a "C". Thank you.

5. I am obsessed with the concept of grace. It's a big, big thing, and I wonder if we've softened it or skipped over it in modern US Christianity. I'm grateful I spent a few years as a "hot mess", because those years have helped me realize how wonderfully all-encompassing grace really is.

6. As I've gotten older, I realize how little I care about what people say about me. This is a big deal for a Latina where el qué dirán is always just under the surface, especially in the church circuit. So I'm not apologizing for loving hip-hop, engaging in politics, and speaking Spanish in public, among other things. Which is not to say that I'm completely free of this qué dirán thing, just that I can see myself getting there, because I'm only trying to make One Person really, really happy with me.

7. I'm much more attached to my family than most people my age. In that way, I'm so Latina.

8. Corny as it sounds, I really believe that whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. The fact that Kanye sings about it just makes me more able to work his lyrics into conversation. I do love me some Kanye.

9. I miss having a tv so I can watch telenovelas, AI, House, and Bones. Also, I heart Food Network and Top Chef. Sigh. I wish I liked tv less.

10. I love the physical act of writing: the contact with paper, the sound of pencil on the page, the satisfaction of seeing lines of my own handwriting on a page.... Blogging, while fun, doesn't give me the same feeling.

So much for not going too deep....

Happy day

***I started writing this the 22nd of January, and have really struggled to find the words to describe it all. I still think it's inadequate, but I also feel like I can't really hold off on it much longer. So, here it is, on the 28th, with all its imperfections: my attempt to share what I experienced on 20 January 2009.***


We have a new president. I was reading the headlines online today and it struck me that "President" no longer means "George W. Bush"; it means "Barack Obama". Man, I have been waiting for this day for ages, it seems, and it's finally here. It happened, and I'm still trying to get my head around it all.

First of all, we went. A group of about ten of us from Eastern went down to my parents' house and went into the city on Tuesday. I could talk about the logistics of it: the hours of travel, the lines to get on metro, the free buses, and the helpfulness of Metro staff, and I guess I just did, but that's not the point. We saw (albeit on the jumbo-tron) Yo-Yo Ma, Aretha Franklin (and her bow), Beyonce, and Jay-Z, but that is also not the point.
The point isn't, as some wanted to make us believe, that George W. Bush was out of office.

The point, at least for me, is that the city was flooded with people from all over the nation - from all over the WORLD! - to see history being made. As a nation, we have elected a man who is nothing like any other President before him. He is not a Washington insider, not an old white man from a political family, not the easy choice. The poignancy was undeniable as he took the oath of office the day after we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.; the nation's first black President. And there were over a million people there to see it happen. There was a unity in that crowd that I've never before experienced outside of church. There was a sense of hope and this swelling of pride that we, as a nation, might possibly become what we'd always hoped we could be.



This is a dark time in this country, and it has been for a long time, I think. September 11th really rocked our sense of self; our sense of justice and security and all that is right. It turned the country on its head, and I think that as a nation we've been reeling from that for the past seven-plus years. I remember being on my way to Panamá when the war in Iraq started, and going back to Panamá the day of the infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech - let's just say that in the six years since then, my own perception of my country has changed, and our image abroad has, too. I'm not saying that it's exclusively Bush's fault, because I think that there were several issues that led to this phenomenon, but it feels like there might be hope to make the US more like what we'd like her to be. Does that make sense?



I mean, I am not the most patriotic person - wait. That's kind of what I'm trying to say. There has been a narrowing of what it means to be patriotic, and it's not the first time in our history that it's happened. My particular brand of patriotism involves a critical look at our nation, at our shortcomings and sins, and the courage to dream of something better for this country. Something like mercy and justice and inclusion and grace. And standing on that mall in that crush of people, I felt like I wasn't alone in that hope. Standing there, in that crowd of a million plus, I thought: "This is what democracy is about; this is what it feels like to believe that your voice has been heard. This is what it's like to believe that the people of a nation can truly bring change."
I think this is what Barack Obama has been about: about bringing the outsiders in, about opening the lines of dialogue so that it's not just a select few who can say what's what in Washington. I hope and pray that it's something that he can carry through his presidency. He has started a movement that I hope continues.
There's this: as I watched Barack Obama take that oath, I felt, for the first time since I left elementary school, that I really can make it. I felt like this really is the land of opportunity. Here's this man who looks nothing like any president before him, who's been on the outside, who's young and brash and different, and HE MADE IT. This nation chose him. I can't even explain the kind of hope that gives me as a Latina, that someday my children, with all their differences might dream those same big dreams and see them come to pass; that they won't have to assimilate and speak only English and straighten and dye their hair to make it. It makes me feel like this really is MY America, too.



There are some who will say I'm being melodramatic, and maybe I am, but that's what I felt on the Mall on January 20th. There was a sense of unity and hope and pride (in its best form) in the city that day, and it made my heart full. I pray that Barack Obama would lead with that same hope and unity that I felt that day.

Y'all...

People always make fun of me for loving country music the way I do. They laugh even more when I say my top three musical genres are (in no particular order) probably hip-hop, salsa, and country.
I don't often have to defend salsa - it's hot, it's danceable, it's distinctly Latin. Same goes for hip-hop - it's hot, it's danceable, it has the potential to be very smart and thought provoking....

I wish I could say the same about country, but people are always hatin' on country. I tell you, it is so underrated.
Here's what I like about it:
1. Story songs. I like songs that make sense, and stories do. They're these little snippets of life set to music, and who doesn't love a story?
2. They still believe in being in love forever. Think of all those great "love" songs from other genres - they're about heartbreak, or unrequited love, or lust. Country has some great songs about the sexiness of everyday love. Of growing old with someone, of celebrating the different stages of life with the same person, of sticking through those hard things and making it. I like that; there's something real about it that's sorely lacking from so many other forms of entertainment where the only part of the relationship that matters is that exciting pursuit and the sweet honeymoon part of it. Country celebrates that and all the mundane aspects of love and relationships.
3. On a related note, they talk about family. As a Latina, family is crazy important to me. Crazy, crazy important. My mom and I have become such good friends now that I'm an adult, I love my sister dearly, and I have always, always been Daddy's li'l girl. When I hear those songs about leaving home for the first time, or about dads and daughters, I get a little choked up. There are so few songs about family in other genres.
4. It's so stinkin' American. Y'all know I'm not that patriotic; I'm not talking Toby Keith post-9/11 talking about boots in anyone's rear. I'm talking about the searching for undiscovered places, the beauty of long afternoons in the country, the love of freedom, faith in God, and the faith that we can get through tough times. Those are the parts of American culture that I really like, and they come through in the lyrics.
5. The music itself. These are real people, playing real instruments - obscure instruments at times. There are fiddles and rhythm guitars and mandolins and drums and guitars.... There's a richness to the music with all those layers of guitars, the subtle harmonies, and a rawness you can't get from the slick studio productions with drum and bass machines. I appreciate that.

I like the twangs, but a lot of modern country is less twangy than it once was, which makes it more palatable for more people - the thing is I wish people'd give it a chance, because they might discover it's so much better than they'd thought.

Impulse

I might have just purchased this bathing suit from Victoria's Secret sale....



I guess I'm looking forward to Spring Break.

Now excuse me while I do a few crunches....