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!
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