Almost Mexican

 Aliens? Mexicans? The aliens are Mexican? What aliens? What is happening?

My 5-year-old mind spun as my mother rolled down her window to yell profanities at the people holding signs on the corner of Rancho California and Ynez roads in Temecula, CA.

"We're not f*cking aliens! Leave us the f*ck alone!"

This is what my now 25-year-old mind can recover from my memory. My very much light-brown hair curtained over my prevalent whiter-than-sour-cream skin, freckles, and curious green eyeballs as I peeked out the window at the angry people crowding around the duck pond. 

And that was how I found out I was, to any degree, Mexican. But first I thought we were being invaded by extraterrestrial creatures and was terrified at the prospect of being one of them. I was 5 after all.

What I recall myself envisioning. The imagination of a 5-year-old is quite colorful.

This is a part of my identity that I have suppressed most of my life primarily out of confusion. Much of it was because of conflicting reactions toward the information I presented to people. For example, in 2nd grade, I had a best friend named Danielle Gonzalez. I met my maternal grandpa for the first time in years around that time, and was so excited to go back to school and report to Danielle that his last name was Gonzales with an "s." 

"No it's not!" She spat defensively.

"Yea it is! I'm Mexican too!" I whined.

"Stop lying! You're not Mexican! You're a liar!"

Danielle didn't talk to me anymore after that. She rarely even looked at me unless to glare.

At the same time, I was always confused as to why my other white friends didn't know what chonies were at sleepovers, and I didn't find out that panza was not actually another foreign adaptation to the English language until I was 11. However, I would go on to almost pass the Spanish placement exam in college and was still able to bypass the second language requirements for my degree. I scored just 9 points below the passing score for Spanish II, and so the dean of my department waived it anyway.

Don't get me wrong--I cannot speak Spanish very well. Or, more like, I typically won't speak Spanish very well because of my anxiety around speaking Spanish. I have some basic comprehension skills, just from exposure and culture growing up, but speaking Spanish brought me anxiety for one reason: shame around “sounding too white.”

I still carry, sometimes even presently, shame around not being Mexican enough. My mother encouraged me to dance as a child, and some of my fondest memories involve her blasting Nancy Sinatra's “These Boots are Made for Walkin'” on the radio while she danced with me on the coffee table. She eventually, however, upon  me reaching adolescence, told me I was "too white to dance." It took me many years following before I was comfortable in my own body enough to dance again. On the flipside, she shamed me for choosing Chinese classes in high school as opposed to Spanish. 

"What about your heritage?!" She'd say.

Then there was my high school boyfriend's family that was entirely Mexican. Many of them could comprehend English the way I do Spanish, but otherwise wouldn't or couldn't speak it. They would make sure to find ways, or have my boyfriend translate, to tell me that I don’t "look" Mexican and that whatever heritage I did have didn’t count because I couldn't speak Spanish and didn't "look" Mexican. They gladly accepted that my mother looked Mexican, though. The family member I especially remember was my boyfriend's cousin who I shared many classes with. That cousin would consistently make it a point to look me square in the face just to say, with much bitterness in his tone,

"I hate white people."

Which made me feel guilty. Guilty for being white, and for all the things white people did historically. Suddenly I was associated with those people on the corner of Rancho California and Ynez holding picket signs. I was one of those people my mother would screech at from her car window. I was insecure.

To avoid shame, I stopped telling people about my minuscule Mexican identity. That was until I was adopted by my white, conservative, paternal grandparents and some of my differences became apparent. For example, my socio-political stances were quite different from my paternal family's which I stood my ground on even as a 17-year old. My differences were also noticeable in my eating habits. 

"Yer a beaner," my father would say "affectionately" as I spooned sour cream and cotija into a bowl of my grandma's chili, then proceeded to top it off with some Tapatío hot sauce before scooping it into my mouth with tortilla chips. This is the same person who would "affectionately" call his pet cat the N-word with a hard "r" just because she was solid black in color. 

Even when I was immersed in Indian culture, my Indian ex loved to tell people that I was Mexican as a way to explain both my tolerance and immense love for spicy food. It became some common factoid among my Indian family, then, that I was Mexican and that's why I could eat more chilli paneer than some of the other people at the dinner table without breaking a sweat. On that note, though, I was quite comfortable eating North Indian cuisine because of the eating style--tearing pieces of a paratha or naan to pick up the food on the plate before popping it in my mouth for ultimate deliciousness. It was much like how I would eat with my mom's paternal family as well as my Mexican ex's family--a fresh white corn tortilla in hand, ripping pieces to pinch up beans, cactus, or whatever else was on the plate, before devouring for ultimate flavor profile. Akin to home in some ways.

What I wasn't comfortable with, however, was the way my ex would cherry-pick when I got a “pass” for being a little Mexican and when I was just white.

"White people deserve to be enslaved and tortured the way people of color were," he'd say.

"What about me, though?" I'd contest, "I'm white--do you want me to be enslaved and tortured? What about my family?"

"You don't count."

He’d then proceed to shame my family behind their backs, but directly to my face, for their whiteness and how they involved themselves in political affairs as if their individual decisions and actions were somehow my responsibility.

It came to a point where I was so ashamed of my white heritage that I lost ambition for life. I thought if I pursued a career, or took on big aspirations within a community or society in any way, I was taking up space where a person of color should be instead. This was a primary motivation in why I devoted myself to helping my ex, a brown immigrant, with his pursuit of the "American dream.” I bypassed my own desires and used my talents to help him co-found an app. It was my own shame manifesting itself in a way that was not helpful to me or to people of color. To suppress my own desires and self-love in hope that someone else more "deserving" could take my place? That doing so would finally make me “loveable”? Martyrdom at its finest.

Needless to say, I lost value for myself and my life. For my humor. For my voice. For my identity.

Not forever, though. I eventually found self-love and began taking steps to accepting myself regardless of how white or Mexican I am.

So what is my conclusion today?

Am I Mexican?

Am I white-passing or white Mexican or what the hell?

I've come to terms with this: I'm almost Mexican. I'm Mexican-descending enough to enjoy and express the cultural tidbits I grew up with, but not enough to endure the racial profiling and struggles that many Latinx people endure in the US. I will never be stopped on the street and asked for proof of legal residency. I will never be discriminated against, like many do, for being an "alien" or devalued as being “illegal” as opposed to a human just trying to make my way.

With my experiences and identity, however, I can empathize. I can listen and try to understand, and I can use my own voice as an ally. I can also enjoy the things I grew up with without worrying about whether I'm culturally appropriating because, as far as I'm concerned, it's nobody's business if I enjoy some of the things both my mother and grandpa introduced into my life at a young age. 

I can allow myself to explore that small bit of my heritage without shame. I can also be white without shame but still do my part for the betterment of humanity. It’s all part of me, and I’ll happily embrace all aspects of me be they changing or unchanging.

"If you don't get out there and try to solve your own problems, it's never going to change."

- Dolores Huerta

A photo of my great-great-great grandparents, Ruth and Cayetano Gonzales:

It's quite evident where I get my cheeks and lips from. It's Ruth. I got them from Ruth. Thanks Ruth for your very dominant genes.

Listening to: "Escandalo" by La Sonora Dinamita