The issues of acculturation and assimiliation run deep
and are painful in this land of multiethnic and multicultural groups.
What do I call myself? Who am I? Much of the pain of the generation
that follows the immigrant one often causes much confusion, and
sometimes, self-hatred and denial of ancestry. How can I call myself a
Mexican when I can speak only a rudimentary Spanish and only visited
the birthplace of my grandma and great-grandma once? When I visit
Mexico, I recognize its beauty and its devastation, and when I land in
the United States, I am happy to drive my sedan, go inside my condo,
and turn on my tv to "Law and Order." Both my parents are of Mexican
descent, but both were born in the US. On my mom's side, both my
grandparents were born in the US as well. When my maternal grandfather
was offered the opportunity to visit deep into Mexico (not Juarez or
Tijuana), he said, "My parents left Mexico for a
I remember as a child growing up that my father instilled a deep
pride of my Mexican ancestry. He was a young man during the Chicano
Movement, and even attended the Moratorium in 1970. I have never had a
negative attitude about the word Chicano/Chicana, but as a child of the
'80s, I never saw the need to be as political as my father. I have
often told him that I will fight in marches if I need to, but my fight
against prejudice and racism is fought in the classroom, where I expose
my students to Mexican-American literature and topics. For years I
have often felt like a traitor, however. I see the struggles of the
new immigrants, but I do not truly understand, having been raised in
middle-class suburbia. I feel uncomfortable when speaking Spanish,
for the words do not come easily to me in front of an audience as they
do when I am alone. I see people as individuals. and have often
overlooked the ethnic/racial back
I'm sorry for rambling, but I do not fit totally in either
culture. I came to genealogy as a path for a better understanding of
who my family is and was, and where they came from and for health
reasons-- and I've discovered that I am the Spanish, I am the
indigenous; I am the slave, I am the slave-owner. I am the conqueror
and the conquered. To hate the Spanish is to hate a part of myself.
To deny my indigenous background is to deny myself. To reject the
American is to reject myself. I am all of these, and yet none of
these, entirely. We all must come to our own level of acceptance or
rejection of who we are and from where we come. I think much of my
feelings are well-stated in this famous poem by Rodolfo "Corky"
Gonzales, "I am Joaquin":
href="http://members.cox.net/mechademoh/I_Am_Joaquin.html"
target="_BLANK">http://members.cox.net/mechademoh/I_Am_Joaquin.html .
