Lost and found...

Where I am from, we weren't taught our lingo
but we learned a slang that carried the essence of what was. I am bitter about the expectations I have for myself to learn Espanol. I am restless with doubt that I will ever be fluent.
English is a language for superficial business, but Espanol is the language of my soul, like a lost puppy picking up the scent of home, my language is a distant desire.
Now I am told I should know it, by gente that are fortunate.
Fortunate because now its cool to know the flow.
They don't know the struggle, the history suffered to undue the latin-ness.
They don't know how hard, those who have passed, have worked to set the stage for Latinos of today.
At times I see it as them selling their souls. They didn't respect their own tradition. They were embarrassed of our lengua. Then reality sets in and I realize that even I move to judgment when I hear the moch in mine and others accents. My accent is me, I am embarrassed of me. I am embarrassed of my lack of excellence and precision. I am gradually undoing this gringo mentality. The gringo characteristic of conditions and criteria. I am embrace my indigenous quality of acceptance, of all, not just the pleasant. In this I recognize the strategy for survival that my grandparents felt a need to endure in order to fit in with this newly arriving gringo institution, economy, and values, a gringo culture not too distant from my own ancestral privilege imposed on the Pueblo, Apache and Navajo people of the original Neuvo Mexico.

It is with great reward that I digest the shame of loosing my language, in order to, generations later, know it is always a commitment and learning process away.
To those who use it as a tool for pride, I say "es una cosa es habla la lengua pero es un otra cosa para apriciarlo".



There will be no undoing my white-ness but resurrecting my brown-ness is difficult. My questions focus around what it is to be brown. My answers are not validated by my communities and this leads me to believe that my work is in building a new answer key. What I see being reflected from the streets is resistance to potential. Refusal to process pain. A adolescent pride in something hateful, violent, and destructive. I see a need to fit in, be noticed, and respected. I see hope in some and despair in most. I am no longer struggling to be a baller, high roller, jefe, or statured. I am now struggling to be what my ancestors hoped I would be, humble, serving, principled, faithful, respectful, and loving. It feels like what I am trying to be is isolated.