As I have aged, what I believed before as normal has ceased to exist. For example, I use to believe that friends would last for a long time or that every one would have a high school sweetheart. Well neither of that existed for me and my mother's words of "there are no true friends in life seems" even more prophetic in actuality.
The same now applies to family members I assumed were always family members. But time, recognition, death and reunitement has proven that those family members were not really related. With Facebook, family reunifications have become somewhat possible for me and it has been good to connect with my cousin even if only over the phone especially because he's only 6 months younger is a the historian of the family in ways that no Mormon or genelogical website can do especially when there are no papers along the way.
Part of the unity urge has been driven by the fact that my father died 31 plus years ago and only lived to the age of 30 so the desire for him is ever present and this clan are the children of his sister who was also from the same father. We are cousins, both my father and his sister had an additional Camacho brother formerly known as Miguel Angel or Mike and he too has now died.
These three sets were the Camacho clan but as my brother Alberto said, we were the better looking ones and we all laugh. However, the clan did not end there but the Camachos did. My father was from my grandmother's second marriage, the first clan of three children were the Guardados, two of whom have already died too (we are bewitched: Jose and Rosa). Then there were four more each from different father's (yes she was) but all were raised that they were all siblings because they came from the same mother and that wasn't questioned but the fatherly differences were ever present. So I could tell the difference but put it to the back.
As we aged, it became ever present that different grandfathers made us all different, because we developed into unique families however, amongst the Camachos we knew were were bounded because of the same grandfather/grandmother. Besides death and time we associated more with my mother's clan because out of fear from the Camachos however the Segura cousins could also be dangerous which was ignored by my mother because it was her family but the Camachos were related to me so I sensed that difference. Not that I wanted to hang out with them either because they were crazy but they were all I had from the death of my father. I felt amputated and worse, my appearance came from the Camachos not the Seguras, if I looked like the Seguras maybe I would have felt different but I didn't have my mother's good looks. I had the Apache's look especially the ugly ones so how could I negate my blood if I looked like them. The eagle looking semi crossed eyes and nose, high cheek bones, fat and dark black hair were always reaffirmed by southern Mexican females who would say "your not my type of guy". Or the man from Jalisco telling me, "you look like you are from Sonora", I looked Yaqui Indian to him. We have chubby faces.
But time and drama separated us for 20 years and honestly I felt we were excommunicated because my father's half older brother Jose Guardado, died, then the half older sister Rosa Guardado died and a week later, Miguel Angel Camacho died. This family is cursed. And we were not notified about the deaths until after they were buried and weren't really invited. I learned about Jose's death because my eldest cousin from Maine went to visit my sister after the burial and then we learned of his death. Rosa, she was a Jehovah Witness so they only invite themselves and Miguel even less though I knew he was sick and had body parts amputated due to his diabetes complications and lack of attention. He was hacked to death. I'm not quite sure I wanted to attend, but an invite would have been nice. And those younger half siblings of my father by now have been long and gone so that time, lack of acknowledgement have really turned us all into the strangers we have always been, even if we shared memories in the 70's.
However, sensing that the female Camacho might die, curosity, outreach and wanting to see what pictures they had of my father we reunited. I had actually already seen Lorenzo but I wanted more. And we met with only the first cousins from the Camacho's. They were happy to see us as men in our late 30's early 40's and in a flashback we were little kids of time once lived, except our little kids were also partaking in the newness of these people partially confused. It felt good but the reception was not so warm from the Camacho aunt because in all honesty, we hadn't seen eachother in 20 years. We had developed into unknown people even if we were related. I didn't even recognize the half sister Rosa of my father because I hadn't seen her in 15 years when she had black hair and was gray haired. The aunt was not receptive nor warm but she gave my brother a painting of my father as a toddler which I never knew existed. She insisted we take it and maybe felt it was due to us. Even I don't recognize my father in that baby picture.
Then as I was changing my son, a hand stretched across and stated, "nice to meet you". It was my father's youngest half sister Angie who I hadn't seen in 20 plus years and 1-2 times in 30 years. I found it odd I did not get a hug or share a moment in the past as she's only 8-9 years older, I remembered her, how could she not remember me. I felt it was a sympathy shake but that confirmed for me what I have always known is that those half siblings of my father are not really my siblings first because they were of a different father and that difference only developed through the years proven by the fact that we don't look a like.
Yes, I understand it's all in the mind and attitude but there is a difference that cannot be denied that we are just too distinct even if they all came from my grandmother which I don't deny they have a bond but that bond does not carry over to me much like my cousins' cousins are not related to me. And this is hard for me to say because I have an older sister from a different father but this has always been an issue of divide because she felt she was different and now that she has young adult children, she feels that because my niece and nephew are not Camachos that they are treated less than. Even now that there are 10 Camacho grandchildren, my sister has stated enough times that there is a distinction of treatment from my mother and my brother's but we did the best we could in terms of inviting them to places or spending money on them when they were kids though we never received the same in return. Even my niece and nephew feel that there is a distinction side themselves away from us but not because we exclude them. If we battle it's personality clashes.
And when I least expect it, I get a slap in the face that only proves my point. At my maternal grandmother's funeral in Mexicali, my sister out of the blue states, "let me introduce you to my niece". I was shocked by that because my sister was never raised by her father and never had contact with them then 40 years later, I'm introduced to her niece. I was blindsided and jeolous my sister belonged to somebody else and was never truly my sister by mother/father.
That hurt but I brush that aside and acted normal because our communication still continues but down deep inside I know the difference and realized I never had a Camacho sister because we were all male offsprings from Julian Padilla Camacho.
As for my father's family, I only have 1 aunt that still lives.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
US Born Means Something
A few weeks back I came across an article written by Sara Calderon in newstaco.com on the difference between US born and Mexico born and as she pinpointed there is a difference for all reasons. Yet the part that got my attention was the response by people on facebook especially the Mexico born. Some of the comments read, "you think you are better; this is White wash; what happened to you; unemployment has really messed you up" and the list continued.
I was actually surprised because I actually thought that Calderon's article was stressing something vital which is quite easily sweeped under, which is the belief that Mexican Americans and Mexican Nationals are the same. And in the eyes of White people that might be the perception especially from universities that prove that there is no distinction between US born and foreign born but I guess the 14th Amendment does not matter. University ignorance is so prevalent they just lump undocumented Mexicans, legally admitted, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Cuban all as one. Though we the actual people they profess to be teaching about distinguish instantly. If Puerto Ricans and Cubans who are island brothers don't share the same culture even if they speak the same how is someone from the deserts going to share anything with a Latin America.
Yet as I have aged into my mid forties the characteristic of being Mexico born in my eyes has become that much more prevalent simply because being Mexico born and central and southernly born implies for me an entirely distinct cultural animal. Though this is not a new feeling, it has always been present since I can remember. The first actual cultural fact is the culture into one is born and due to the fact that the majority of Mexico born are not born in Baja California but from hundreds to thousands of miles away in lands I never saw until I was 18 years old and have never seen because most people come from small cities or pueblos I'll never see because I don't have a personal or family connection to. Those differences were even visible with cousins born in Baja California just across the entry point to Baja California because somehow we were of a different culture and we were though we shared many common cultural norms beyond just family and they seemed to be copying US customs too from the cholo dress to love of trucks, danish pastries to the constant usage of English in their Spanish. And grammatically they spoke correctly using raite, pichell, marketa, pickup, carro to Anglocizing their nicknames, Antonio to Tony, Maria to Mary, Pedro to Pete and Miguel to Mike. Nobody thought of it until southern Mexicans showed up and began correcting them and us on the US side to an abnoxious point. Hence if I noticed differences with people within the same region and similarities, I really noticed the differences with people from Sinaloa south.
For one I could never comprehend their word usages because they used words I did not comprehend and them correcting my California Spanish got to my nerve because they felt they culturally superior and they let it be known. I saw this with Mexico born girlfriends and a Bolivian foreigner too. I came to dispiss them because I felt they were all trying to impose a proper way of being without actually accepting me for who I was. I further saw we ate different foods, never quite liked their foods and even then they would try to say that isn't real Mexican food but it was to me California Mexican food and the most obvious difference was space.
Spatially much like the neighborhood definitions of defining ethnicity I saw them not spatially the same as me even with US born with their families originating from Zacatecas or Michoacan for the simple reason that my people were from both California/Baja California border region in Calexico. Even my mother doesn't see herself related to people from Sinaloa or Durango and neither do I. So culturally we are not the same and my grandmother being an Apache Yuma born in Arizona and never denying but stressing that she grew up speaking Apache Kunahuati Chalea Turi and practicing brujeria I was raised with that culture from the desert that did make us different from somebody not born in that region. Even my mother would stress that we were Apache (not her) because of my grandmother and was proven to me when people from Jalisco would tell me I looked like I came from Sonora, Indios.
Even from the US side I see myself different from Phoenix or New Mexicans and much less Tejanos--who likes them-- but when I was warmly received in Zuni or was asked what tribe I belonged to when visiting Acoma west of Alburquerque I can't help to notice I do belong to those desert ranchos where I originate from. Or better yet when I'm not viewed as a Mexican by recent arrivals because they don't view my spatialnicity related to theirs and neither do I. I was even told by Zamora, Michoacan people that my children didn't look Mexican even though their abuela Teresa was born in Los Angeles, their grandmother in Clifton, AZ, their great grandmother in Isleta, Texas and the great grandfather in Safford and they were Apache Mexican Americans. Even my great grandfather was born in Yuma from my Apache grandmother and only my father turns out to have been born in Baja Ca/ the Mexico side for protection. Birth certificates were not given to my grandmother born in Yuma but she didn't learn Spanish until age 10 so Baja Ca was more of a refuge place. Yes being US born does matter and it's not the same as Mexico born much less born 1000 miles south.
And there is also the 14th Amendment but why discuss that, it's no big deal. But the part that irritates me the most is this, who are Mexico born people to judge those of us born in the US? Do we need their permission to express how we feel? Are they the torchbearers of Mexican American culture? Do we need their permission to express ourselves or their reaffirmation because somehow we are Mexicanless in their eyes? Are they our cultural bestowers? Do I only exist because of them? Or as I just heard the other day, "I wasn't raised as Mexican American because my family stated they were all cholos and cholas", like the southern Mexicans knew what that was. Please don't speak for me. I don't speak for you nor profess to know Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit or Zacatecas culture. Plus I don't really like those foods.
Mexico born even if raised in the US need to stop thinking they know how we US born think because you don't, you don't have the same cultural upbringing and definition muchless in my case where as an Apache, I continue to live in the desert no different than my great grandparents or my children. I don't go to the Federal Building to obtain my permission to live in the US, I was born into this animal.
I was actually surprised because I actually thought that Calderon's article was stressing something vital which is quite easily sweeped under, which is the belief that Mexican Americans and Mexican Nationals are the same. And in the eyes of White people that might be the perception especially from universities that prove that there is no distinction between US born and foreign born but I guess the 14th Amendment does not matter. University ignorance is so prevalent they just lump undocumented Mexicans, legally admitted, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Cuban all as one. Though we the actual people they profess to be teaching about distinguish instantly. If Puerto Ricans and Cubans who are island brothers don't share the same culture even if they speak the same how is someone from the deserts going to share anything with a Latin America.
Yet as I have aged into my mid forties the characteristic of being Mexico born in my eyes has become that much more prevalent simply because being Mexico born and central and southernly born implies for me an entirely distinct cultural animal. Though this is not a new feeling, it has always been present since I can remember. The first actual cultural fact is the culture into one is born and due to the fact that the majority of Mexico born are not born in Baja California but from hundreds to thousands of miles away in lands I never saw until I was 18 years old and have never seen because most people come from small cities or pueblos I'll never see because I don't have a personal or family connection to. Those differences were even visible with cousins born in Baja California just across the entry point to Baja California because somehow we were of a different culture and we were though we shared many common cultural norms beyond just family and they seemed to be copying US customs too from the cholo dress to love of trucks, danish pastries to the constant usage of English in their Spanish. And grammatically they spoke correctly using raite, pichell, marketa, pickup, carro to Anglocizing their nicknames, Antonio to Tony, Maria to Mary, Pedro to Pete and Miguel to Mike. Nobody thought of it until southern Mexicans showed up and began correcting them and us on the US side to an abnoxious point. Hence if I noticed differences with people within the same region and similarities, I really noticed the differences with people from Sinaloa south.
For one I could never comprehend their word usages because they used words I did not comprehend and them correcting my California Spanish got to my nerve because they felt they culturally superior and they let it be known. I saw this with Mexico born girlfriends and a Bolivian foreigner too. I came to dispiss them because I felt they were all trying to impose a proper way of being without actually accepting me for who I was. I further saw we ate different foods, never quite liked their foods and even then they would try to say that isn't real Mexican food but it was to me California Mexican food and the most obvious difference was space.
Spatially much like the neighborhood definitions of defining ethnicity I saw them not spatially the same as me even with US born with their families originating from Zacatecas or Michoacan for the simple reason that my people were from both California/Baja California border region in Calexico. Even my mother doesn't see herself related to people from Sinaloa or Durango and neither do I. So culturally we are not the same and my grandmother being an Apache Yuma born in Arizona and never denying but stressing that she grew up speaking Apache Kunahuati Chalea Turi and practicing brujeria I was raised with that culture from the desert that did make us different from somebody not born in that region. Even my mother would stress that we were Apache (not her) because of my grandmother and was proven to me when people from Jalisco would tell me I looked like I came from Sonora, Indios.
Even from the US side I see myself different from Phoenix or New Mexicans and much less Tejanos--who likes them-- but when I was warmly received in Zuni or was asked what tribe I belonged to when visiting Acoma west of Alburquerque I can't help to notice I do belong to those desert ranchos where I originate from. Or better yet when I'm not viewed as a Mexican by recent arrivals because they don't view my spatialnicity related to theirs and neither do I. I was even told by Zamora, Michoacan people that my children didn't look Mexican even though their abuela Teresa was born in Los Angeles, their grandmother in Clifton, AZ, their great grandmother in Isleta, Texas and the great grandfather in Safford and they were Apache Mexican Americans. Even my great grandfather was born in Yuma from my Apache grandmother and only my father turns out to have been born in Baja Ca/ the Mexico side for protection. Birth certificates were not given to my grandmother born in Yuma but she didn't learn Spanish until age 10 so Baja Ca was more of a refuge place. Yes being US born does matter and it's not the same as Mexico born much less born 1000 miles south.
And there is also the 14th Amendment but why discuss that, it's no big deal. But the part that irritates me the most is this, who are Mexico born people to judge those of us born in the US? Do we need their permission to express how we feel? Are they the torchbearers of Mexican American culture? Do we need their permission to express ourselves or their reaffirmation because somehow we are Mexicanless in their eyes? Are they our cultural bestowers? Do I only exist because of them? Or as I just heard the other day, "I wasn't raised as Mexican American because my family stated they were all cholos and cholas", like the southern Mexicans knew what that was. Please don't speak for me. I don't speak for you nor profess to know Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit or Zacatecas culture. Plus I don't really like those foods.
Mexico born even if raised in the US need to stop thinking they know how we US born think because you don't, you don't have the same cultural upbringing and definition muchless in my case where as an Apache, I continue to live in the desert no different than my great grandparents or my children. I don't go to the Federal Building to obtain my permission to live in the US, I was born into this animal.
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