“Being Mexican American”

by Sonia Guevara

Biographical information:

Name: Sonia Guevara

High School: Cesar E. Chavez High School, Class of 2010

University: Texas A&M University

Graduation Date: May 2014

Double Major: BS Interdisciplinary Studies, more specifically Bilingual Education; BA Spanish Language

Current Employer: Houston ISD

Position: 4^th Grade Bilingual Teacher at an elementary school where 99% of the population is Hispanic, and low socioeconomic status

Future Plans: I plan on teaching at this campus for as many years as possible and eventually pursue a master’s degree in Bilingual Education.

Discussion questions:

Each student should have a question for Ms. Guevara in response to her essay below or biographical information below.

Instructor's questions: What is the current status of bilingual education in Texas public schools and elsewhere? What cultural conflicts and support does bilingual education generate?

Mexican Americans are sometimes called "the ambivalent minority" because they show the mixed attitude between an immigrant striving for assimilation and progress, and a minority who feels aggrieved that something was taken against their will. How much does your essay exemplify this ambivalent status?

 “Being Mexican American”

I never questioned why I don’t own a United States soccer jersey but I do have a Mexican one. I don’t know why it is that when Mexico loses I have these crazy emotions inside of me and I sometimes even find myself shedding a tear. The weirdest thing is that I realize that when I am watching a match between Mexico and the United States, I always cheer for Mexico. Nobody told me that I was supposed to cheer for them, I just do. It’s not like my dad forced me to buy the shirt, or watch the games, I actually bought the jersey myself. When I hear both national anthems though, the hair on my back rises no matter which one is playing. I am proud to be an American, but I am also proud to be Mexican. It’s something that I would not even know how to explain.

My parents were born in Mexico, but decided to raise their children in the United States. I guess this is like many people’s story; our parents came for the American Dream in hopes that their children might someday live a better life than the one they lived. This may sound like a great thing to many people back in Mexico but I sometimes feel like it’s more of a burden than a good thing. This may make me sound like an ungrateful child; my parents risked their lives crossing the Rio Bravo hoping that their children might someday be doctors or lawyers or anything great. I’m not ungrateful, though; I love them for what they did for me. If they would have never swam across that river I would not be sitting in my college dorm room typing this essay.  What I don’t think they ever thought about is how we were going to grow up in this alien world called America. I don’t have cousins, aunts, uncles or any of my grandparents here. I have a very small number of family members who actually do live in the U.S. What does this mean for me? A Birthday party, a Christmas Eve, a New Year’s Eve; they’re all lonely and lame. Yes, lame. There’s nobody here to share any sort of happiness with. There are a few family members, a couple of cousins who do not even come close to my age. I end up sitting around watching TV or getting on the computer. Oh, but a holiday in Mexico, oh my. I’ve only been privileged enough to spend one New Year’s Eve there and it was the most amazing thing ever. We don’t even need any extended family. It’s just my mother’s siblings and their spouses, a handful of my cousins, and of course, my grandparents. There’s music, there’s food, an actual family dinner, piñatas, candy, punch. The list could go on and on. As hard as you try, there will never be any of that here. Oh of course, we can have piñatas and candy in the U.S. You can find any sort of thing here, but you can’t just walk down to the mall and buy yourself a family.

Even writing this brings tears to my eyes. I know that this hurts my parents as well; I mean after all, they did leave their parents and family to come live here. Sometimes, though, I feel as if it doesn’t hurt them as much as it hurts me and my sister. Maybe we’re just way more sensitive but I feel that they have just gotten used to being without them for so many years. It really makes me wonder, though, did they ever think about the fact that their children would grow up without grandparents and cousins? Did they ever think how much that would affect me? It hurts, all the time. To think that Sunday nights everyone is sitting down in that small town in the mountains drinking coffee while I’m so far away. It makes me cry and it makes me angry. I fantasize about how my life would be in Mexico. I know it would have been an extremely poor life but it would have been a happy life. Surrounded by people who love and care about me. Too bad that’s not my reality. I’m stuck in a world where I really don’t fit in. It’s weird, I stick out when I go to Mexico. Over there I’m the foreigner. The weird American child who “has money.” But here, I’m also this weird child who has this weird accent and eats weird looking food. Where am I supposed to fit in? Did my parents ever think about that? I don’t think so. There is a Spanish phrase that goes like this, “Ni de aqui, ni de alla.” Roughly translated this means, "not from here, and not from there." And that’s exactly how I feel. Where am I supposed to feel completely comfortable? Houston is not a home. There’s no family, there’s nobody to share anything with, but Mexico doesn’t really like me either. I sometimes find myself feeling completely lost in this world. When am I not going to feel this way?

My parents did something amazing for me. They gave me opportunity. I can be anything here if I really want to. I can go to college, get a degree, make money. This is really the land of opportunity. Sadly, though, no matter what I do in this great nation, I will never have my family to share all of that with. This idea has troubled me since I realized that I have nobody here. I don’t know if someday I will be okay with this; for now I just live with it and try not to feel sad when I think of them. I’d rather imagine that someday in an alternate universe I will not have to be separated from them. Thinking about the future scares me. I know that no matter how much I want to, I will never live with them. When I graduate and get a career I will be tied to this country even more. There’s no way that someday I will just leave everything and go live over there. I could if I really wanted to, but that’s not going to benefit anyone.  What’s going to happen when my grandparents die? Are my trips going to stop? Are any of my children going to feel the way that I feel about the homeland? Losing that culture terrifies me.

There are many types of Mexican Americans. There’s the type that can’t go back at all, the type that goes back really often, and then there’s people like me. I go back maybe once every two or three years. It’s not cheap to travel 1000 miles away from Houston. Every time that there’s even a hope that we might actually go, I run to my sister and jump with joy. She always looks at me and says, “I don’t want to go.” Every time I ask why she tells me that she dreads saying goodbye once it’s time to come back. I guess the only drawback to going is saying goodbye. How do you say goodbye to your grandma? I do it with tears. They never fail. How do I know if I will get to see her another time? How do I know that she’s not going to die by the time I come back? These things make it so much harder to leave.  I guess Mexico is kind of like an open wound. You’re there, you’re happy, enjoying yourself, and then it’s time to say goodbye and the wound opens up really big. You cry, you don’t want to leave, and that wound really hurts. Then you come back, and the first few days it hurts, it’s still wide open. Everything reminds you of Mexico and you always wish you were there. But days later when you go back to your routine, you get used to being here again and the wound starts to close. Then it stops hurting so much and only when you mess with your memory does it hurt a bit. And then you go back and the cycle repeats itself. I have a wound, and it’ll be there until the day I die.

Works Cited:

Guevara, Sonia. “Being Mexican American.” Unpublished essay, 2011.