“Blood is thicker than mud, cuz”

I couldn’t help but start this first true reflection on my trip to Mexico with this line that my dad always says when we give him a hard time about doing something weird or embarrassing. I am not really sure if it is from a TV show, a movie, is a variation of an old expression, or what, but basically it means, “Well, I’m family, so you’re stuck with me anyway. (with “cuz” as an abbreviation for cousin). My dad always laughs after he says it in a good-natured joking kind of way, but the sentiment is true. He’s part of my family. And my family is one thing I have thankfully always had.

As I prepared for the trip, I wondered what it would be like to meet–and spend my entire time in Mexico with–relatives whose names I did not even know. Looking back, I feel like I should have been more nervous. I normally would have thought: What if they don’t like me? Or worse… if I don’t like them? What if it’s awkward? What if we have absolutely nothing in common? Or worse… absolutely nothing to talk about? I was definitely nervous meeting and spending time with my informants for this past semester’s ethnographic project at first, but I think that experience might actually have prepared me for my trip to Mexico. For some reason, as I boarded the plane with my dad and abuelita en route to Monterrey, all I felt was wonder and excitement. After the slight scare of a fog delay, I became filled with anticipation as I realized that one of my dreams was about to come true. I was finally going to get rid of that feeling that I was missing out on an essential part of my heritage by never having been to the home country of my paternal grandfather and more distant ancestors. Even more than that, I was about to spark those missed personal connections that would end up fulfilling me in ways I could only have imagined. In short, so many things seemed like they were about to change in one weekend.

When we arrived, even though our relatives could have afforded to send a car or taxi for us and it was a Friday (so a working day), my dad’s cousin, her husband, and my great aunt met us at the airport. They took us out to a delicious lunch of cabrito, or roasted goat (a typical Monterrey dish), at one of their favorite restaurants. When we got there, I could see entire goats roasting away on long skewers through the front window. During lunch, we ordered an entire golden brown cabrito for the table, along with other appetizers, which were all served family style. Partly because there was so much food, this was the first of many meals we shared in Monterrey that were eaten slowly and with an ease that I realized felt foreign to me. In fact, I could remember the last time I had lingered at a meal without a care in the world simply because I enjoyed it. Part of that is due to the demands of my normal life, but I realized part of that is also actually under my control. There is a running joke among my college friend group that everyone counts on me to signal when our meal is finished because out of all of them, I am always the first one to leave. Of course, this is not because I love studying or don’t enjoy spending time with them, but rather, if I am being honest with myself, it is because I am clearly valuing my academic success or personal chores more than the present moment. More than that, even during the meal I am inevitably thinking about the tasks I have waiting for me, rather than being completely mentally present. I realize that I am probably not the only person in the world who struggles with such habits, but that cabrito lunch, isolated as it was from the rush of normal life, was the first time I saw the stark difference in my own fulfillment during this meal and most of my meals in the U.S.

So the question is: what was the secret of my Mexican relatives to staying engaged in the meal in the midst of various responsibilities and demands (I’m sure) they faced at that specific time? It didn’t take me long to figure it out because it wasn’t really a secret at all. It was quite obvious that the meal flowed forward, almost timelessly, on the interest that my Mexican relatives showed in getting to know me as a person and vice versa. This in itself was not unusual, but what intrigued me was that there was also a deep interest by them in each other and in my dad and abuelita, whom they already knew. Importantly, this interest did not say “I’d like to get to know you,” but rather “I’d like to appreciate you and spend this time with you as someone whose relationship I value.” I experienced it in the direct eye contact between everyone at our table, the frequent friendly touch on a shoulder during conversation, and the sharing of life stories rather than the “small talk” that typically characterizes a first meeting. The fact that the people and the food were equally important parts of the meal for my Mexican relatives was crystal clear to me, since I was used to treating the meal as a means to the end of quickly nourishing my body before moving on to the next event of the day. The intrinsic value my Mexican relatives placed on the meal as a time to appreciate, maintain, and strengthen their bonds with family members greatly appealed to me, and I integrated this mindset into my own attitude throughout the weekend.

Small details of genuine engagement with family members like these extended beyond meals, and I was amazed at the cohesiveness of my hosts as a family unit that immediately enveloped us into their community. When a teenage girl comes home from a night out to find a distant American relative she has never met sleeping in her bed, and her only concern is not the relative up, that’s when you know she believes that blood is indeed thicker than mud. This happened to my cousin Pati, who is around my age, on the first night. Rather than saying “Good morning” when we both woke up, we said “Mucho gusto” (“Nice to meet you”), laughing at the strangeness of our first introduction. Meanwhile, Pati’s dad effectively made himself our personal guide to the cultural, historical, and geographical highlights of the city throughout our entire weekend. Tending to us with the utmost generosity and care while we were in his home (from cooking us dinner to letting us test drive the family’s ATVs to giving us water bottles for everything since our bodies were not used to the tap water), I am positive he also had more knowledge about and love for his hometown than any professional tour guide would have. Surely, as management of a successful company, he could have been doing a million other things rather than blocking out his entire weekend to entertain us, but he enthusiastically took on this role for himself because… why else? We were family. Even though I was only with them for a weekend, it was experiences like these that made Pati and her family quickly become some of my favorite relatives.

I particularly enjoyed observing the interactions between my cousins, their parents, and their grandmother, which clearly reflected their understanding of generation gaps not as barriers, but as sources of unique value in relationships that helped them flourish. Certain instances stood out to me throughout my time in the atmosphere of warmth and belonging created by this refreshing perspective held by my Mexican relatives. Specifically, I loved that my cousin consulted his mom about minor details of the end-of-the-year college party he was throwing as if he really cared about her opinion and that my cousins (one of working age and one still in college) spent a Friday night together with members of both of their friend groups like it was the most normal thing in the world. I was also surprised, but grateful that we brought my great aunt everywhere with us as if she were a member of the immediate family, rather than treating her age as a barrier to spending time with her. I would not have gotten to know her as well otherwise.

One of the parts that stood out to me the most, by far, was the intensely close relationship between my cousin Pati and her grandmother. Pati’s mom said that the two had been close since Pati was born and that they were like “two peas in a pod” (or the Spanish equivalent). She said that whatever Pati wants to do, her grandmother is willing to do it. I could tell that she wasn’t just saying that either. The delicate care with which Pati walked with her grandmother on her arm never faltered, whether she was helping her down the stairs or deeply engaged in conversation with her… Neither did her good-humored patience in volunteering to be partners with her grandmother for a dominoes game in which she repeatedly had to explain the rules. I think the most touching moment by far was when Pati invited her grandmother to ride on the back of a pretty intense ATV that she was driving over the hills of their summer home. I was not expecting my great aunt to say yes, nor was I thinking it was a particularly good idea, based on having to hold on rather tightly for my first ATV run just minutes before. However, once again, these two defied my expectations in a small, but powerful way as I looked on with wonder and deep admiration at the relationship encapsulated in the scene before me. At that specific moment I thought, “THAT’s what I want.”

I want my family to be like this. I want my children to be able to hang out with their grandmothers and enjoy themselves as much as if they were with their friends. I want to know and get along with my teenage kids’ friends as if they were extended members of the family. I want to spend time with multiple generations of my family more than just during the whirlwind of holidays at the end of the year. I want all of this and more. Maybe the constancy of my current family has made me take them for granted, but I want to grow in love, wisdom, and appreciation from these kinds of close familial relationships not just in the future, but now…

And I can. I can and I have begun to. By happy coincidence, the week I returned from Mexico, my maternal grandparents were awaiting me in my own house. They had moved in to stay with us temporarily while they searched for a new home. God is actually hilariously on point sometimes. While I always appreciate time with my grandparents, this pretty drastic change could have led me to focus on the inconveniences it could pose to my daily routine or on the stark differences in opinion my grandparents and I have on controversial political issues. However, I can only thank God for his perfect timing in preparing me for this opportunity for growth—both as a person and as a member of my family. Not only did my trip to Mexico grace me with experiencing what it really means to treat your family like you value them, but my entire last semester was spent getting to understand the lives and perspectives of people who were grandparents themselves. This included my own abuelita (the one I traveled to Mexico with), whom I had interviewed as part of the auto-biographical spin I put on my written ethnography.

In short, the integration of all of these experiences and circumstances in my life still blows me away. I realized that my grandparents also coincidentally wanted to spend extra time with my sister and me before I go off on my travels to Kenya and Chile and my sister goes off to her gap-year job. After almost a month of sharing my home with them, and treating them like members of the immediate family rather than extended family, I will not say every moment has been peachy and easy and perfect, as a race/class discussion with my grandfather attested. However, I will say that every moment has been rewarding and an exercise in love. My grandmother’s tears upon helping my parish priest give me a send-off blessing for my travels suggest that my grandparents feel the same.

June 9, 2015July 2, 2017 by bribri729 Categories: Monterrey, MéxicoTags: belonging, cultural differences, family, generation gap Leave a comment

Identity: Turning a Question Mark into an Exclamation Mark

The other day I ran across this article.

Reading the many opinions put forth in the article itself, as well as in the comments section, I felt a familiar feeling of unease arise in me. The question of being “authentically” Hispanic or Latinx is all too familiar to me as a Mexican American and Puerto Rican American young woman.

I was actually forced to confront this issue head on in a cultural anthropology methods course for majors this past semester. Facing the prospect of a semester-long project in which I was to try to integrate myself into an unfamiliar community with the goal of “doing” anthropology, my stomach was a bundle of nerves. Of course, some of this anxiety stemmed from the fact that this was my first attempt at sustained ethnographic research. However, the other half was related to practical concerns regarding how linguistic miscommunications could negatively affect my work with the community of Spanish-speaking immigrant Hispanic service workers who agreed to participate in my project. Embedded in these concerns was an idea that I have consciously been carrying for years now, but have rarely verbalized. More specifically, my anxiety was not just connected to the possibility that I would be less efficient in gathering ethnographic data as a result of linguistic barriers, but rather spoke to something deeper. It was this “something” that I kept hidden because it brought me shame just to speak of it, as if acknowledging its existence would make my deeply rooted fears of illegitimacy come true. However, I realized over the course of the semester that I would be a sham if I did not recognize its impact on my ethnography and how I approach cultural anthropology in general. I am talking about my insecurity over being Latina myself, but not having yet mastered fluency in the language or culture of my heritage.

I can’t tell you how many times other Hispanic, even some of my relatives, approached me as a child, speaking Spanish because they assumed that I understood. To their surprise, no, I was not raised bilingual… No, I had never actually been to Mexico… and No, I was not going to have a quinceañera to celebrate my passage into womanhood. These common markers of Mexican American identity did not apply to me, and I slowly became conscious of–and then embarrassed and ashamed–about that fact. Upon coming to Duke, my self-doubts grew, and I was able to name them for what they were, as I realized that my shortcomings were visible to other people as well. I remember overhearing a Hispanic member of Mi Gente (one of the Latin American cultural groups on Duke’s campus) mention to another member that she did not get why some of her Hispanic peers were trying to be involved in the organization “now” when they “do not even speak Spanish.” I felt uneasy upon hearing this even though I have never seriously sought to be involved with Mi Gente. Obviously, I am not saying this anecdote is in any way indicative of how most people in that organization (or similar ones) think, but it is something that I heard. The girl seemed to be accusing ‘those’ Hispanic Duke students: “Why weren’t they more involved in their culture growing up?” (whether the language or other norms and practices). Her words and tone of annoyance seemed to imply that because I was not a native Spanish-speaker, I was not as authentically Hispanic, and thus was not as worthy of participating in the activities of such an organization that celebrated my heritage.

Moments like this are what fed my insecurity and kept me from actively processing it or confronting it. That is, until I wrote my first ethnography in the anthropology methods course.

The personal and cultural journey I went through this past semester taught me a lot of things. More specifically, the people from “my” community taught me a lot of things. Listening to the experiences of many immigrant Hispanics, I heard echoes not only of the lives of my parents and grandparents, but also of my own life. I, too, live in a low-income, predominantly Hispanic and African-American neighborhood. I, too, developed as a young girl a passion and skill for dancing that I will probably carry with me my entire life. My family also has a history of struggles with alcoholism and domestic violence, partly due to the cultural manifestation of the patriarchy known as machismo. I, too, love the Spanish language and can smell a fake (i.e. factory-made/processed) tortilla from a mile away. My informants for this project who were open and trusting enough to share their lives with me not only allowed me these kinds of identifications with their stories, but appreciated them.

Furthermore, in learning more about my informants’ lives, I was encouraged to ask more questions about my own family’s background. My parents’ childhood anecdotes made me think that maybe I wasn’t raised bilingual because of the stigmatization of Spanish-speaking that was much more prevalent during their generation. In our conversations sparked by this project, my parents also confirmed that I didn’t have a quinceañera because we could not afford it. Come to find out, my parents had never taken me to Mexico before because if we went, we would not have gone to the tourist-y beaches of Cancún, Cozumel, or Puerto Vallarta. We would’ve gone to the areas in which our relatives lived that my parents (accurately or not) thought were too dangerous at the time.

It was largely these enlightening experiences of my first real ethnographic endeavor that enabled me to begin to make sense of my insecurity and start to overcome it. A huge part of that was my decision to make my final written ethnography auto-biographical.

I am proud to say that now I am a lot more certain of my thoughts on this topic. No matter what people say, my life has been colored and shaped by my Hispanic heritage. I resent the notion contained in the article above and in the Duke girl’s comment that people can deny that fact due to some outwardly obvious aspect(s) they assume about my identity. In fact, I don’t just resent it–I reject it. I can’t do anything about what parts of my culture I was or was not raised with, but like some voices in the article mention, I can seek to embrace some of the things I missed out on now that I am becoming my own person. The fact is that I care a lot about my Hispanic heritage and strive to learn more about it everyday, from constantly enhancing my Spanish-speaking abilities to asking my grandparents questions about how they grew up.

Extremely importantly in this on-going process of self-confidence and self-discovery in my ethnic/racial identity was an event that occurred less than a month ago: my first time ever traveling to Mexico. Incredibly, as the product of happy coincidence and my own persistence, I was able to spend a weekend in Monterrey, Mexico with my dad’s cousin and her family. While it was only for a weekend, I was extremely comforted by the ease with which my dad, my Abuelita, and I were able to integrate into the lifestyle of our Mexican relatives. They were perfectly generous and loving hosts, and the experience was everything I had ever hoped for and more. As soon as my relatives told me they did not realize that I was not a native Spanish-speaker, I knew the trip was going to further dismantle my self-doubts. My three cousins who were around my age were my eager guides into the culture and country that my family had left behind at least 2 generations ago, and there was a lot I did not know, but also a lot I was familiar with. While I was so excited to practice my Spanish, comically, my cousins wanted to practice their English, so we ended up using Spanglish, just like my dad does at home. I should not have been surprised by this, but it just further confirmed the idea I am trying to internalize… Cultures are defined by the people within them, not some pre-set and unchanging standards created out of the realm of “objective rationality.” Besides, I claim to be Mexican American and Puerto Rican American, not “purely” Mexican or Puerto Rican. That’s the beauty of cultures, they never have definite boundaries.

June 8, 2015July 2, 2017 by bribri729 Categories: Monterrey, MéxicoTags: ethnicity, Hispanic, identity, insecurity, Latinx, Mexican-American, self, Spanish, transformation Leave a comment