a reflection.
"For most of our lives the lesson is to love ourselves even more deeply, especially because we are the survivors of colonization...that's our fight against injustice!
Patrisia Gonzales, Chicana-Kikapu writer
I never imagined that when I'd graduate from college I'd be back to where I started, the small cowboy town of Brawley, California.
I am sitting in front of this here computer clicking and typing away in a now desperate quest for a job.
Sending resumes, cover letters, references and going through the tedious process of job applications in general, no callbacks from anyone.
I am extremely confused because I felt like I was their "strong candidate."
During this period of my life I have had more time to be very reflective and think about ways to connect my situation to a larger, much broader and blurry social spectrum.
I went back to my 8th grade yearbook, flipped pages and saw a picture of myself.
I was smiling proudly (yet I remember on the inside thinking, "I better come out good this year!"). I thought about how much learning and growing I had to do, how assimilated I was.
Yes, I was an assimilated Latina.
My Catholic upbringing instilled shame about my womynhood, believing that it was my "God-given right" to prevent other womyn from making choices about their bodies, and never ever truly getting to admire, love and get to know my body.
On top of that, I thought that everyone had equal opportunities, some people were just lazy. I felt that peoples' identities had nothing to do with their status in society. I felt that, my family was middle-class just because they were hard workers, and nothing more. I thought that affirmative action was a bunch of boloney that favored skin color over capacity.
It's hard to look back at the little girl and not be angry and heartbroken.
Angry for depriving myself of my own Mexicana roots and culture, trying to fit in with and be accepted by the majority.
Giving preference to the European Claudia and not the Indigenous Mexicana Claudia.
That's my scary past that I am facing and healing from.
Up until last night, I would always avoid the topic of affirmative action, especially with confused and angry White folks who "feel cheated" out of opportunities for being White [as I am typing that statement I find it hard not to think of the irony of it].
I really didn't know what to say to them.
Last night, I reached a particular section of a book I am reading The Latina's Bible by Sandra Guzmán: "Finding Professional Success: The Get-Ahead Guide for the Nueva Latina", where she discusses social inequality:
"Many people here refuse to accept Latino's as America's legitimate children, and that is their problem. We're here (many of our families have been here for a lo-o-o-ong time!), we're not leaving anytime soon, and we are entitled
One enormously effective tool for getting what we're entitled to has been affirmative action; unfortunately, it's also an era of real confusion and pain for many of us. Many college students suffer subtle and direct taunts that they got to college because of affirmative action; many plague themselves with self-doubt about the same question (yet another version of no me lo merezco)...Mujeres, we need to have a comeback for those cabrones and cabronas who refuse to accept that we are capable and smart and that we belong!
Whether about college,a job, lo que sea, my advice to those who sneer is this: Tell 'em straight to their faces that Anglos too get places through affirmative action. It's called who you know-padrino privilege, white privilege. People rarely talk about how those in other quotas, the ones dictated by class, skin color, and economic advantage, almost ensure educational success for whites and a foot in the door when it comes to the job hunt. And we almost never talk about the most secret white quota of all, the "legacy"-the set of quotas that just about guarantees children of alumni or politically connected padrinos admission to out great education institutions." (Guzmán, 255-256)
There I have it.
Now I have no excuse to silence myself against those who tell me that my race and gender took the place of a "more qualified" white male.
Right now, at the age of 22, I am at one of only 2 gyms in town, exercising, not for a cuerpazo that fits a distorted beauty ideal that is being sold to me by rich white old dudes, but for my health, because I love myself, and partially because I have a lot of free time in my hands at this moment in my life, I am seeing the reality of how painfully conservative the town I grew up in is, as Glenn Beck's mierda blares from one of the TVs and several white people, are listening intently.
I openly complain about the bullshit he's saying, "Who believes this bullshit?! A reality show would be more intellectually stimulating than this fat white fuck!"
It feels great. The shocked faces...did she just...say that?
Yes. I did.
Then enter two familiar faces.
Why, those were a couple of the popular kids back in school.
They're wearing over sized sweatshirts (it's about 95˚ F outside) ashamed of how large they have gotten, slaving away on the elliptical because they made the mistake of narrowing themselves down to their appearance.
How many fat kids did they taunt back in the day?
My gordita, curvacious and proud self shines through in confidence that I have given myself.
Confidence and self-esteem that are not acquired through others' affirmation, especially that of boys.
I look back and think about how much I've grown and how much I have yet to grow.
I am ready to look at that little girl, take her hand, tell her that looks don't mean much when that is all you have, affirmative action is a small bargain to ask for against hundreds of years of injusticia, and we don't have to assimilate, when we can acculturate.
We can love our bodies, appreciate our womynhood, value choice, own our sexualities, touch and explore ourselves, flirt, engage in our own pleasure, AND be spiritual, whatever spiritual path we may choose!
Let the healing begin! Adelante, mujer!
Patrisia Gonzales, Chicana-Kikapu writer
I never imagined that when I'd graduate from college I'd be back to where I started, the small cowboy town of Brawley, California.
I am sitting in front of this here computer clicking and typing away in a now desperate quest for a job.
Sending resumes, cover letters, references and going through the tedious process of job applications in general, no callbacks from anyone.
I am extremely confused because I felt like I was their "strong candidate."
During this period of my life I have had more time to be very reflective and think about ways to connect my situation to a larger, much broader and blurry social spectrum.
I went back to my 8th grade yearbook, flipped pages and saw a picture of myself.
I was smiling proudly (yet I remember on the inside thinking, "I better come out good this year!"). I thought about how much learning and growing I had to do, how assimilated I was.
Yes, I was an assimilated Latina.
My Catholic upbringing instilled shame about my womynhood, believing that it was my "God-given right" to prevent other womyn from making choices about their bodies, and never ever truly getting to admire, love and get to know my body.
On top of that, I thought that everyone had equal opportunities, some people were just lazy. I felt that peoples' identities had nothing to do with their status in society. I felt that, my family was middle-class just because they were hard workers, and nothing more. I thought that affirmative action was a bunch of boloney that favored skin color over capacity.
It's hard to look back at the little girl and not be angry and heartbroken.
Angry for depriving myself of my own Mexicana roots and culture, trying to fit in with and be accepted by the majority.
Giving preference to the European Claudia and not the Indigenous Mexicana Claudia.
That's my scary past that I am facing and healing from.
Up until last night, I would always avoid the topic of affirmative action, especially with confused and angry White folks who "feel cheated" out of opportunities for being White [as I am typing that statement I find it hard not to think of the irony of it].
I really didn't know what to say to them.
Last night, I reached a particular section of a book I am reading The Latina's Bible by Sandra Guzmán: "Finding Professional Success: The Get-Ahead Guide for the Nueva Latina", where she discusses social inequality:
"Many people here refuse to accept Latino's as America's legitimate children, and that is their problem. We're here (many of our families have been here for a lo-o-o-ong time!), we're not leaving anytime soon, and we are entitled
One enormously effective tool for getting what we're entitled to has been affirmative action; unfortunately, it's also an era of real confusion and pain for many of us. Many college students suffer subtle and direct taunts that they got to college because of affirmative action; many plague themselves with self-doubt about the same question (yet another version of no me lo merezco)...Mujeres, we need to have a comeback for those cabrones and cabronas who refuse to accept that we are capable and smart and that we belong!
Whether about college,a job, lo que sea, my advice to those who sneer is this: Tell 'em straight to their faces that Anglos too get places through affirmative action. It's called who you know-padrino privilege, white privilege. People rarely talk about how those in other quotas, the ones dictated by class, skin color, and economic advantage, almost ensure educational success for whites and a foot in the door when it comes to the job hunt. And we almost never talk about the most secret white quota of all, the "legacy"-the set of quotas that just about guarantees children of alumni or politically connected padrinos admission to out great education institutions." (Guzmán, 255-256)
There I have it.
Now I have no excuse to silence myself against those who tell me that my race and gender took the place of a "more qualified" white male.
Right now, at the age of 22, I am at one of only 2 gyms in town, exercising, not for a cuerpazo that fits a distorted beauty ideal that is being sold to me by rich white old dudes, but for my health, because I love myself, and partially because I have a lot of free time in my hands at this moment in my life, I am seeing the reality of how painfully conservative the town I grew up in is, as Glenn Beck's mierda blares from one of the TVs and several white people, are listening intently.
I openly complain about the bullshit he's saying, "Who believes this bullshit?! A reality show would be more intellectually stimulating than this fat white fuck!"
It feels great. The shocked faces...did she just...say that?
Yes. I did.
Then enter two familiar faces.
Why, those were a couple of the popular kids back in school.
They're wearing over sized sweatshirts (it's about 95˚ F outside) ashamed of how large they have gotten, slaving away on the elliptical because they made the mistake of narrowing themselves down to their appearance.
How many fat kids did they taunt back in the day?
My gordita, curvacious and proud self shines through in confidence that I have given myself.
Confidence and self-esteem that are not acquired through others' affirmation, especially that of boys.
I look back and think about how much I've grown and how much I have yet to grow.
I am ready to look at that little girl, take her hand, tell her that looks don't mean much when that is all you have, affirmative action is a small bargain to ask for against hundreds of years of injusticia, and we don't have to assimilate, when we can acculturate.
We can love our bodies, appreciate our womynhood, value choice, own our sexualities, touch and explore ourselves, flirt, engage in our own pleasure, AND be spiritual, whatever spiritual path we may choose!
Let the healing begin! Adelante, mujer!