Alicia,
Regarding immigrants from lands other than Mexico: When I was working
in San Jose, I saw the first immigrants from Vietnam back in the 1970s, who were
appalled by our habits of individuals eating whole steaks when in Vietnam the
same amount of meat would have fed a whole family. Yet, little by little,
I saw them gain weight, and their English improved with the help of their
children, born here, going to school and speaking only English. Since the
kids liked eating at McDonalds as their American friends did, the mothers saw
the convenience of taking the kids there for dinner rather than going home and
fixing dinner when they were tired from their jobs. Also, I once watched
show on TV about a spelling bee that took place in the South where the winner
was a young girl of Vietnamese descent. She had such a drawl that had
I closed my eyes, I would have sworn I was listening to a blue-eyed, blonde
Southern belle! They learned quickly that "when in Rome, do as the
Romans".
Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA ---
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 8:31
AM
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Who are we? was
Re: double surnames
I agree and could not have said it as well.
Aqui esta un dicho bien dicho. "A la tierra que fueres hacer
lo que vieres". meaning ''in the land that you go to, do as you
see. This not only applies to our race and culture but to all other immigrant
races and cultures. I have had this conversation with good friends who are of
Italian, East Indian, Vietnamese, Persian, Japanese etc.
We all experience the same emotions, stirrings and questions about
inculturation, about the loss of our ancestors' heritage and traditions and
our language. I believe that some lose their ancestors' identity alltogether
and some straddle both cultures and some never leave their ancient
cultures.
I have evidence of all of the above just within my siblings. My oldest
sister is the most entrenched in our parent's culture and heritage. Two of my
youngest siblings have moved completely away from our Mexican Culture and
three of us straddle both cultures leaning equally to both sides, the Mexican
and the American. Neither is wrong or right, we each lean towards what feels
right to us.
Now as for the next generation, that is another story. Our children have
married Anglos and are losing our heritage and as much as we would like to
hold on to it we must let them be who they want to be. It makes me feel what
my parents must have felt when they saw us taking different roads not taken by
them.
Alicia Avelar Olmos de Carrillo
San Jose, Ca
Alberto Duarte <albertodua@...>
wrote:
Good
write up...
I have in the past felt that same way as you
have
written. And this is the reason I enjoy and indulge
in
genealogy--to learn who I am and where I came from.
Alberto Duarte
Prieto
Santa Maria, California
--- lareina2@...
wrote:
---------------------------------
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
reason. Why would I want to
return?" His practical
Texan mind did not yearn for the land of
his
ancestors.
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 backgrounds of
people. I have had
friends of all ethnicities, as well people whom
I have
disliked from my own culture. And then a student will
ask
me "what does a Mexican know about teaching
English?" and I remember that
I am different. Yet
none of this answers the question of "who am
I?" To
paraphrase Edward James Olmos in the movie "Selena,"
"we
have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more
American than the
Americans." So how can I say I am
American, when I hear a beautiful
Mexican song and my
heart sings along and I love to indulge in a big
bowl
of menudo with extra tripe?
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":
http://members.cox.net/mechademoh/I_Am_Joaquin.html
.
Look especially at the last stanza, and my favorite
lines are at
the beginning, "I am Joaquin/ Lost in a
world of confusion..."
I
taught a Chicano/Chicana lit course, and as I told
my students,
Chicanos/Chicanas, Mexican-Americans,
Latinos, Hispanics, Americans of
Mexican descent,
Spanish, Americans, none of these labels tell us
and
everyone around us who we are. Each emphasizes a
small part
of the total sum of our culture and
customs. Each of these terms
are fraught with all of
the love and hate we feel about others and
about
ourselves. So in the end, there is no answer. We
can
search for the "truth", but I have found that to be
elusive.
So, as I end my ruminations, let me just say that
I
have learned to accept all who created me, and all who
influence
me. I love the Mexican culture, and I
appreciate the country I was
born in and where I live.
Well, thanks for reading this
far. I hope we all can
shed some light on this most important
subject.
Rosalinda Ruiz
Southern
California
-----Original Message-----
From: Arturo Ramos
Sent: Jan 12, 2006 11:55 AM
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject:
[ranchos] Re: double surnames
Erlinda:
The whole Chicano vs.
Mexican-American vs. Latin@ vs.
Hispanic debate
is a very contentious
one in the United States. I
think that all of
those terms are
very politically laden such that there
is no single
one that everyone
would agree with. There is an
interesting episode
where the
renowned author Sandra Cisneros balked at
being featured in
Hispanic
magazine because of such a disagreement. She
agreed only
after
the magazine agreed to show her on the cover in
a profile shot
with a
fake tatoo reading "LATINA" across her arm.
There is an interesting
article on this:
http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/2000/dec/Features/latino.html
I
suppose that if you want to designate descendancy
from peoples of
Mexico, Mexican or Mexican-American would be the most
precise.
I
will leave my commentary at that lest I get myself
in
trouble.
Interesting thing though, I have run across
documents
where the
indigenous peoples of the area around Colotlan
and
Totatiche would
refer to the indigenous colonizers from the
south
(Tlaxcaltecs,
Otomis and Huastecs) as "mexicanos" designating
that
they spoke the
Mexican language (i.e. nahuatl) and they did
not
consider themselves
as such, since they spoke a different
(Tepehuan)
language. One of
these references appears in an
interview with one of
the last
tepehuan speakers in Azqueltan,
Jalisco in 1912!
I think that the term Mexican to designate all of
the
ethinicities of
Mexico was probably not adopted until
after
independence. I imagine
that those of pure Spanish
descent would not consider
themselved
Mexican before that, especially
when the term
specifically refered to
the nahuatl-speakers of central
Mexico.
--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com,
"Erlinda
Castanon-Long"
<longsjourney@y...>
wrote:
>
> I want to thank everyone for the input on
double
surnames and y
versus
> de... I had forgotten that I
use a double surname
too! I felt I
> didn't want to give up
my Hispanic maiden name so
just hyphenated
it
> with my
married name. That makes me Castanon-Long,
I guess in
Latin
> America that would make me Castanon y Long ... I
found at the
family
> reunion that most of my female cousins from
my
generation did the
> same. Many of us did not marry
Hispanic but would
have kept our
> maiden name regardless. Just
like someone said, it's
a matter of
> family pride..
>
> One more question.. which is 'politically' correct
to designate
our
> nationality of origin if we or our ancestors were
from
Mexico...
> Hispanic, Latino, Mexican-American
or
American-Mexican? I find I
> really upset some people
when I call myself
Hispanic. I'm told that
> excludes my Indio
blood... People ask me what my
nationality is
> because I'm just
brown enough to not be Anglo but
have light green
> eyes, my
sister get's the same thing and she has
blue eyes and
> freckles.
I still laugh when told I don't look like
a Mexican...
what
>
does a Mexican look like!!!!
>
> Linda in
Everett
>
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