Saturday, November 7, 2009

Name Game.

So, you might be wondering why my blog has some saltines and some beans all up on the header. One, saltines are delicious. They comfort you when your sick. The make soup all the more delightful. If you don't like saltines, leave my blog.

Actually, don't, I need readers.

When I was thirteen, I was at one of my cousin's parties. I didn't speak Spanish, so the majority of parties were spent staring glossily at the rapidly depleating Corona bottles. There was some girl there, and her little sister, and I was standing awkwardly to the side.

"How come you don't talk right?" I suppose I could have ignored her, but I wanted to show, 'See, I was just like you! Just different!' I forget, different isn't a good thing

"I'm half Mexican,"

"Oh. Were you too stupid to learn to speak right?"

At this point, her older sister, broke in, 'speaking right' and told her off. "Callate, pendeja!" She liked my cousin, and her little sister starting things with the fake Mexican of the family wasn't a good way to get him to pay attention to her.

"My dad remarried. Neither speak Spanish very well. I'm Not stupid," Spanish had been touchy for me, ever since my first trip to Mexico, into that tiny farm town, where, lo and behold, they didn't speak English! I found out I had a whole different part of me. And it was mindblowing.

"So, you're a cracker!"

"No, I'm Mexican!" I was, I filled it in on the scantron, I went to Mexico, saw an entire village of people that claimed me as theirs, that I was Mexican.

"You don't speak Spanish. You don't know how to dance right. You're so pale. You don't eat spicy food. You're not Mexican,"

"No, she is--" Her sister interrupted, sensing an impending explosion. "She's a cracker too."

"I am NOT a cracker!"

"Yes you are you're just....A cracker with beans on it!"

"Uh-huh, a cracker con frijoles. Frijoles are beans," her sister added thoughtfully.

"I Know what 'frijoles' are!"

I made my parents leave soon after that, and whenever I would butcher a word in Spanish and be laughed at by my relatives, whenever I'd have to ask for a word in Spanish, whenever I'd fill in a stupid bubble, I'd remember I wasn't Mexican-- I was a cracker with beans.

And is that a bad thing?

I've gone through a good chunk of my life hiding behind various identities--of being a minority, of Not being a minority, of being Mexican, of being white, there's not one single thing I truly belong to.

Being reminded of my dual heritage isn't a bad thing, and while the circles I am in may sometimes make it seem like that...Eh. I will elaborate eventually.

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