After reading Angela de Hoyos' "Arise, Chicano!"
Why didn’t I ever want to rebel against the white establishment? IS it because I didn’t think for myself? Is it because I didn’t consider myself a Chicana? I remember thinking my friends had much heavier accents than me, and how that somehow made me better. How could I ever think that? I definitely need to explore this more.
After reading Jose Angel Gutierrez
I too had the 3-way upbringing...
1) Spanish only at home with the added pressure of fundamentalist Christianity
2) Going to a different school because I was in a G/T class (major Gringolandia), being 1 of only 2 or 3 students who had free lunch and feeling marginalized by it
3) Not fitting in with the neighborhood kids because I was too agringada
Random thought: Maybe because I had a safe childhood? Maybe that's why I didn't rebel against the establishment and I just accepted my submissive indoctrination.
My friend's story She’s 36 years old and she got married a couple of years ago. Her husband makes less money than she does and so she pays most of the bills. She told me she’d like to go on a trip this summer with either her family or with the study abroad program. She said her husband won’t let her go, saying that he wouldn’t go without her-- so why should she go. She feels pressured to look perfectly manicured around his family because they criticize everything about her, and often tell her she’s gaining weight. He on the other had is getting a bigger and bigger belly, and his family thinks he’s gorgeous. Her father always takes her husband’s side. She went shopping to the mall recently and her father asked her if she had informed her husband that she was spending money. Money she earns; money she uses to support her husband. When I witness this, I feel the suffocating thickness of patriarchal rule.
Thoughts about my father:
I often wonder why my father never learned English. I consider him a highly intelligent person-- an expert in his field. I'd like to write a fictional story based on my dad. I wonder if being betrayed by his family influenced his refusal to assimilate American culture. I know it's farfetched, but there might be a connection.
My father was used to being betrayed by his family:
1) At the age of 20+ he went to Cali to work for his wedding. He sent the money to my grandmother to safe keep for him, and my grandmother spent it all-- he didn't even get an apology. He says he had been collecting coins for my grandmother and he simply handed her the jar with the coins when he got to Rio Bravo, and turned back around and went back to Cali to try and work for the money his family stole from him.
2) My dad built my mother a house in Rio Bravo with his own two hands. After about 3 or 4 yrs of marriage and having two kids, they migrated North (into the U.S.) My uncle sold my dad and mom’s house with all their possessions while they were gone.
Some words I encountered in what I was reading...
Pachuco, pachuca, chuco chuca, ruco, ruca, vato, rascuache
Another random thought...
England invaded many countries and had many territories, commiting attrocities and exploiting their people. Today, they let people from these territories into their country as a compensation (maybe for the bad things they did.) The U.S. should do the same with Mexicans. They it owe it to us. ( I have to do research on this because I'm just saying :/)
Anyway... I know this is all random... but they were thoughts swimming around in my head.
xoxo Myra
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