When I look at who my grandparents were, and for a few remaining, are, I realize the analogy should reflect how who they are coming out of their 1930's-ish New Mexican and South Texas cultures is respectable. I can picture how the bucket came to us. The industrial revolution, came radioactively. The bucket arrived infected with Tuberculosis. The crabs came from the American East bringing this mentality of caste. I think the crabs that escaped their mediocrity bucket, felt a strong need replicate their bucket mentality here.
Now we are being labeled as subversive because many of still aren't fully on board with this form of capitalistic or individualistic mindset. They often call us communist because it is a lazy way of dismissing how important our faith requires us to be communal. The bucket is so much more like a container we were seduced to see ourselves in. It makes me think, one consequence of the great American expansion was to persuade our modest ways of sustenance to be undesirable, and how it ought to transition into a more ambitious competition for prosperity. Did we get pulled into a bucket?
The atomic weapon brought America to New Mexico. And New Mexico's high desert air seduced the Tuberculosis refugee. The same Spanish individualism thought that this part of world now know as New Mexico was gold garden. I am learning and seeing through a different lens that informs me of how fortunate I am to be nestled in this liminal place where we are boring enough to not be desirable, perceived to be inadequate enough to be overlooked, and yet still not subservient enough to be accepted. As a consequence to this fable we rebel by sabotaging ourselves with delinquencies.
