The Powerpuff Girls, The Jetsons and Scooby Doo were some of the greatest English teachers a Spanish speaker like me could ever have. Their curriculum was riddled with laughter, impossible exploits, and the daunting task of saving the world from the aliens.
My accent is a Saturday morning cartoon.
It often riddles orders with laughter; toiling into a language not its own is an impossible exploit, trying to transform into something powerful enough to save everyone else from the “alien”, from the unfamiliar. And the shame that comes from being made to feel different... that my accent, my culture, my breath were too unreal and did not deserve to be so animated.
Lately, my ethnicity and my accent have become a problem to many.
I first became conscious of the color of my skin around the time that Donald Trump’s campaign first launched in 2015. I was familiar with classism in Mexico, but I had always thought of the United States as being one of the most culturally diverse and accepting countries. Growing up minutes away from El Paso, Texas, where everyone is bilingual and 83 percent of the population is, in fact, Mexican or Mexican American, I never felt weird, questioned, or not accepted at all.
“They are not our friends,” he said. “They are bringing drugs, they are bringing crime. They are rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
I know what they say. That there are two sides to this. Trump and Trumpism’s most generous reading is that these are individuals worried about border security. They just want to see their families safe, terrorists stopped from entering the United States, and laws enforced. It is all so perfectly rational and understandable, and not racist in the least.
My first encounter with racism happened a little over five months after the Inauguration in 2017. My middle school took eight of us on a graduation trip to Washington, D.C., the mecca of American politics. As we left the airport and made our way through the city, I flinched at the sight of the infamous red hats. Hats cannot be racist, right? But they symbolize a certain ideology, and that ideology is racist. D.C. seems to be a popular destination for graduating students across the country, so it was only natural for us to run into other schools during the trip. Every day we would take a bus from our hotel to Grand Central Station. We would leave pretty early in the morning so the bus was usually empty. One day though, we had to take the bus together with a group of high school students. They were all wearing ICE and MAGA hats, either as a joke or out of actual support. Their stares made me uncomfortable. Our group proceeded to walk toward the back of the bus, but there were no empty seats left so we remained standing. They must have assumed that we did not speak English, or downright ignored the possibility that perhaps we could understand what they were saying.
Up until that week, I had never had a slur directed at me before.
“Spics”, “beaners”, “wetbacks.”
It took me a few moments to process what I had just heard. It was a snap back to reality. I was taken aback, but not exactly surprised. “Go back to your country,” they said before we parted ways. I felt, for the first time, that some people would look at the color of my skin, or my birth certificate and name, and wonder if I am really American.
My birth certificate lists my place of birth as El Paso, Texas. Yes, I am American.
But I am also Mexican. My skin, my taste buds and my Aztec blood betray me. I have dual citizenship, both equally as valid and important to me. Sure, I own an American passport, but my culture is more than a label on a piece of paper. I have spent my whole life fearing that I will never be ni de aquí, ni de allá, (“neither from here, or there”). Nevertheless, would I say that this paradox of existence where labels do not fit has given me the opportunity to experience the best of both worlds? Absolutely.
I am a minority, but together with others I am also part of the minority, which adds up to actually being the majority. Our numbers are growing, and that is why some Americans feel threatened and scared, of what they believe is an “invasion.”
Apparently, my language is to be “deported” so I will forget where I came from, trying to translate the catacombs of my parents’ tombs into maybe a diploma and to maybe that white-picket fence. I view letters in a different way than most. Because there are many words in Spanish that do not exist in English, I learn to pack them in a suitcase and forget. I mix up words, I forget words, I merge words. It is strange what our memories hold on to. It is strange what makes it over the border from the left side of the brain, but our minds do not let us forget how an accent is just a mother tongue that refuses to let her child go. The language barrier is a 74 mile wall lodged into the back of my throat, the bodies of words so easily lost in translation.
Still, it is all meaningless in America, because the bullet never asked, “What side of the border are you from?” The bullet does not care about your citizenship status. The bullet is a model minority. The bullet is the hate spewed every day on television by a president who knows absolutely nothing about being a minority and will not denounce white supremacy. I wonder if what he is really saying is: “We don’t want Mexican Americans in this country, because they are not real Americans.” When I listen to the people chanting “Build the wall!”, I wonder if what they are really saying is “Keep Mexicans out.”
“How do you stop these people?” Trump was asked at one of his rallies.
“Shoot them,” he replied.
On August 03, 2019, the once metaphorical bullets transformed into real ones — escalating from aggressive looks and threats and occasional slurs to real bullets from an AK47. That summer, a man drove all the way from Dallas to the Walmart at 7101 Gateway Blvd. W in El Paso and killed 23 people. His manifesto, which he called “The Inconvenient Truth,” announced that his attack was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” His writing echoing Trump’s language, repeatedly referring to “invasions,” “aliens,” and “rapists.”
He drove all the way to that specific Walmart due to its closeness to the border and targeted Mexicans. He committed a domestic terrorism attack because he had been influenced to believe that one nationality is worth more than others. Out of the 23 people that he shot, 13 were American citizens. His bullets were, apparently, lost in translation. Because, what does a Mexican even look like? Or an American? Or a Mexican American for that matter? Does it even make a difference?
I am a human being, first and foremost, regardless of where I came from, my fight is for life, for the right to exist in this multicultural melting point of a country. I wonder how I can fight for the right to exist when I often fail at fighting back against those who constantly question, target and deny my identity because it is too confusing or inconvenient; when I am the one trying to water down my accent and make my skin look lighter and less morena. The answer is simple, I should not have to explain or prove myself to have the right to exist.
The inconvenient truth is that in a nation of conflicting ideals, what makes America great is an act of resistance. To take the risk to claim our space, be visible and proud. To celebrate our cultures without fear. That is patriotism to me.
We internalize racism while people in the White House want to build a wall that is already built. We protest racism while practicing it like we are training for points, but we are failing to understand each other. Too American for the Mexicans, too Mexican for the whites. I am bicultural, not assimilated, but sometimes, I wished I was. When I wished my skin was not brown and that I did not have to fight to legitimize my identity, or fight to feel safe. I am tangled through trenzas, like Spanish and queerness, trying to understand the skin that makes me, but I am finding empowerment, because who knows what it means to be really Mexican or American anyways. Too spicy, not too exotic. Strict parents, sangrona, broken English, no broken pride. I am American. Soy Mexicana.
Comments