Clashing Cultures...a valuable learning experience

I recently have had the opportunity to get to know a fellow student from another country. We mostly enjoy our conversations but at times we have offended eachother. What I think is wonderful about this is that we both have our strong views on some issues that could potentially get our conversations heated but we have been able to have dialouge about our differences and somehow find a better understanding of each other. It's interesting to hear how other countries view us "Americans". Sometimes I feel slight jabs and I have learned to discuss these with my friend and luckily he is open to disscussion and we able to learn from each other. I am so grateful to have this friendship and experience. It teaches us both about acceptance and helps us find genuine love with one another and that is a beautiful thing!

Post Traumatic Funk

I have been a long funk...funk brought on from realizing some things about our world and about myself. Ugly things that I had chose to deny because it hurt too much to think about, things I felt too ashamed to admit to myself. I have negative residue left from my family upbringing and experience in the education system. Being in school has been a dream come true for me yet it has been very challenging to me not only academically but emotionally. I believe that things happen the way things are supposed to happen even if we don't quite understand at the time. In different classes and in different ways my thoughts and memories have been awakened and provoked. It has been enlightening at times and very painful at others. As I sit in my math class I have the memories of feeling like the dumbest kid in the room. I feel so bad about myself in this class that I do all I can just to keep my composure. I talk to no-one, I just sit for 2+ hours feeling overwhelmed scared and stupid. How can I spend so much time on this subject and still not understand? This makes me mad. At who? I don't know... I just know I feel like I want someone to blame!
In my Spanish class I feel embarrased that I am  43 years old , a full blooded mexican and I am just learning Spanish and it hasn't been as easy as I thought. I feel angry at my parents for denying me the right to speak Spanish as a child. They felt it would be best for me to only learn English and to not have an accent but now as an adult I have been left with a big void in my life. A big void, where my identity should be.
In my writing class I have been reading and researching assimilation and it's effects and this has brought up a slew of memories and feelings.
Growing up I was presented with one model/idea for my future in this world. Get married, preferably to a white man (if you can be so lucky)buy a house and have a baby. Oh yes, and live happily ever after....of course.
I made it a quest to find this white husband before I was 18 . I had to find this husband while I was young because I was told it would be harder for me to find a husband the older I got because I would lose my looks as I aged.
I never wanted to get married but I did always feel a desire to have children so I thought that I could sacrifice my  feelings about how I felt about marriage to please my parents and have a family. I thought eventually I would grow to love this man. I didn't. I never felt happy in marriage , only trapped and limited yet I kept on with the charade as I saw others also in unhappy marriages and started to think that it is just the way things are...messed up. I could not have children so we adopted and when they asked us for race preference I said that of course we do not have a preference...afterall, we just want to be parents. when we were told that we most definatly get a child of color I  changed my preference to a white baby.
I have blamed my parents for wanting me to be a "white" yet now I am realizing that I too wanted to be "white". My husband was my trophy. To show the world that I am not a worthless lazy Mexican. I wanted to be excepted in the white mans world so badly and my white husband and my white baby were my "ticket in".
I didn't want to admit that I too had denounced my own heritage. I didn't wan to admit that I spent countless hours in the shower scrubbing my skin raw so I wouldnt be so brown. I didn't want to admit that I would've never dated anyone of color....especially a Mexican.
What could make someone be so ashame of their heritage. Be so shame that instead of teaching and passing down beautiful family traditions to your children you hide them and replace them with  versions that "everyone" will except in this "land of the free" ?!?!?!
HATE. Hate is what drives people to do such things.
A long time ago my parents experienced such hate because of who they were. People spit at my mother when she was holding me as a baby, that's how harsh things were in their day.
I am the product, the result of what happens when you steal someones identity.
It causes a world of pain.
Even so...
I am so grateful to be experiencing this awakening within myself even if it's painful.
I am so grateful to be free from the obligation I  felt I had to my parents and to this world.
I am so grateful to be in college and to have my mind and heart ripped wide open...in the best way.
I am so grateful for the discovery I am making of a girl who has been a stranger to me all my life. ME!
I am so grateful for the pain because it means I am still alive!

Why My School Is Not #1...

          My school proudly displays banners that say that our school is second in the nation. I wondered a couple things...What's keeping us from being #1 ? AND Who is our school 2nd in the nation to? As in, who is it catering to? What type of student is succeeding? Like other students attending  higher education, I struggle. I struggle alot. Although I experience many wonderful interactions and meet many wonderful people , it is still inconsistent. How can it be that I run to some of my classes because I do not want to miss one second of learning. Feeling so excited and hungry to learn and then go to another making sure I stop by the bathroom before , breathe into a paper bag, and give myself a pep talk. I tell myself "you can do this"! Knowing damn well I cannot. The pit in my stomach that sits there for hours a day. To dread a class so much, to feel like nobody cares if I fail...well, I start to feel hopeless again and it is hard to contain my tears. it's hard to stay strong.
      The feelings I felt as a little girl come back to haunt me. I have been asking myself,"what am I doing here"?  Yes, I want to learn, yes I want to better myself and not just to better myself for me but to contribute something back to this world. I don't often boast about myself but I really think I have great things to offer this world but I need this education to do that. How could I ever think about helping others when I can't even help myself ???!!!
     With all the research that has been done on students, how they learn, the outcomes for minoroties, the outcome for single mothers and higher education...why is it that colleges are not adapting to the needs of the students of today. The unprepared ( for college) student. There are many of us.
     Doesn't a college pride itself on the success of their students? Isn't that the whole point? To succeed in our education so that we may become educated and productive citizens?
Why is it that some of us have to fight and struggle trying to hang on to the "golden ticket" we have been given and instead of having the experience and growth of a lifetime, we suffer. And for me I suffer in silence because I am too ashamed that I cannot  keep up with my peers.
      I saw the president of our school in the hallway the other day...I wanted to ask him if he knew what many of us go through trying succeed here. That I love my school yet I am feeling it slip through my fingers and if it does... what will happen to me?   And how does he feel knowing that there are classes that students fear so much and to ask why?!?  But...I didn't, I just said,  "good morning" instead. I stopped myself because I thought "you  are not going to be able to talk to a person of that level " "what are you thinking"! I actually believed this...why do I feel that way? I am sure he would've talked to me yet I have such low self-esteem right now I put a big road block up for myself. I did this because somewhere along the way I got the message  that I am less than and somewhere along the way I started to believe it.
I know that every experience good and bad is a lesson. I try to take comfort in knowing that this experience was put into my life for a greater purpose and that I will recieve a wonderful life lesson in the end. I always learn alot about myself .
     I find it strange at times that critical thinkining is talked about so much on campus yet there seems to be a lack of critical thinking in regards to why so many students(especially minorities) aren't making it and how  those numbers be raised. So I think that before our school becomes #1 we need to look at student outcomes alot more! We need to talk about it, talk about it some more and then we need to take action. Can you imagine being known as the college that is responsible for the success of "at risk" students. Maybe even have the highest percentage of success with these students. Ones who other wise might not make it in higher education. That to me would be an exceptional school!

An evening of healing...

On my last post I wrote about a really bad day...today I will write about a really good day. Part of my healing in recent years has been emersing myself in my culture and heritage. I had a friend over who shares my heritage and we spoke our language listenened to mexican music and made tortillas from scratch. It was wonderful and I felt proud to be experiencing and sharing our heritage with eachother (she is also discovering her heritage for herself). It gave us a real sense of pride that we didn't experience growing up. To be proud of who we are , discover our traditions and maybe start some of our own. We had a feast.
So I guess the bad days are what you have to have to get the most of the good days. I really apprieciated having that evening after my terrible day.

Drowning on Dry Land

Yesterday I had one of the worst days that I've had in a while. I felt a lot of frustration, sadness, anger, and self-pity. In my first year of college I have had to deal with many challeges. I have realized that I was not even half-prepared to be a college student. Some of my feelings come from realizing that my school life as a child was such a horrible experience. It was worse than I had allowed myself to admit or remember. While I was not "left behind" I certainly was not prepared for the challenge. Having the opportunity to be in college felt like having a winning  lottery ticket and it gave me new hope. As I started being engaged in my classes and connecting with other students and teachers, I felt even more excitement about this new chapter in my life....Yet that hope starts to slip away from me everyday I struggle to keep up with my peers. Isn't there a way that someone like me inspite of all my challenges can be successful in higher education?  Right now it feels like I won said lottery ticket and I misplaced it. I know I am not the only one having challenges but I ask "why do we have to suffer" While I have loved the college experience I also have had intense flashbacks to my childhood. The times when I just sat in class and felt completely lost, shamed to be so slow, and too embarrased of myself to say anything about it. I suffer in silence. I feel like I am drowning on dry land.
My son is always a bright spot in my world with his wonderful questions at just the right time... he asked " Mom, why cant school be fun"? Why does school make me feel like crying sometimes and why does it make you cry"?
Hmmm. Wouldn't it be great if you just knew that although you would be challenged that you would be in an environment where you learn with your peers not feeling as if youre not as good/smart as them. Where you just feel like your teachers will be approachable and we all learn from each other and build friendships and experience growth along the way. I know I get excited about the classes where I feel like I contribute, where I connect with students and have dialouge around what we are studying in class (after class), where my intrests are sparked and my thoughts provoked , where I feel like I am valued for the student I happen to be (challenges and all) and the student I want to become (successful).
I have experienced these kind of classrooms here in college and I am very grateful that I have otherwise I might have given up. To all the teachers who really create an enriching experience, thank you!

Kids ask and say the darnest things...

I am grateful to have a 10 year old who has developed critical thinking skills. I credit this to having always talked to him openly about issues in this world. He has been experiencing his classmates telling racists jokes on playground. He had been coming home and telling me how upset this makes him. I asked him "would you like me to go to your school and talk with your teacher and or principle? He said "NO" he said he was going to think for a while and see what happens the next day at recess. Aparently he heard some more racists comments and decided that he was going to do something about it. He talked to his teacher who then talked to principle who then made some phonecalls to parents of said jokesters . They kept my son's name private and praised him for taking charge and to speaking up.
My son came home and felt really proud of himself for standing up and speaking up. He asked, "mom, where do these kids even hear these jokes"? "do you think thaT they heard from their parents"? I said "perhaps, it's hard to say but it is a possibility as we parents sometimes use bad judgements too and say things infront of our children when we think YOU are not listening"...he said, "yes mom, of course we are always listening, how else do we learn"? "thats why you grownups should try to show/teach us good things that help the world not dumb things that make us act hateful with each other"
YES!!!! OF COURSE!!!! I think that we all should be aware of the kids around us, and to remember that we have the great opportunity to help teach them great things. They will have plenty of the negative around, always but why not make it a point to be  one of the positive influences in their lives. I cannot tell you how proud I am for my son to approach his teacher and discuss his concerns and that she(teacher) reacted by validating his concerns and praising him for doing it.
Sometimes people have asked me if I want to discuss matters of racism infront of my son and I say "ABSOLUTELY".

Do we think before we speak?

Do we think before we speak. Do any of you think about conversations we've had with others and ever wonder if we innocently said or asked a question that would be offensive to another person? Well, I sure have been thinking about this alot lately. I am mexican or as I have been called mexiCAN'T because I do know how to speak spanish. I am currently enrolled in a spanish class to learn the language. I have been ...let's see how shall I put this...nicely? I have been..."entertained" by some of my classmates who have aquired a thick mexican accent since we started the class. Yes, it could be cute...I even smiled once or twice but still I found myself a little more bothered by this than I would've thought.
Afterall, I am a great lover of comedy. I love to joke around and my family and I do alot. We often joke with fake mexican accents (fake because we grew up only speaking english), yet listening to my classmates continually speak in these thick mexican accents and talking about burritos, tacos and siestas well, I didn't think it was too funny anymore. I wondered if the assumption is that all mexicans speak this way and that all we talk about is burritos and crap, I just remembered I have beans and homemade tortillas for lunch! How much more mexican can you get! Why didn't I pack an "american" looking lunch?!?!
Since I started experiencing these feelings in my spanish class it made me think about how I may have innocently offended someone by asking them about their culture because I assumed they were not from this country. I have wanted to become more aware of how I communicate or may communicate with people I meet so that I do not offend someone. Being the only mexican in an all caucasion spanish class has been eye opening. Now it's my turn to open some eyes too ;)
Let's think before we speak, yay!