Advocacy is nutritious cynicism

When I use my judgmental mind I find myself in the narrow mindset that cynicism is toxic.  Science and the introduction to chemistry teaches me that nothing is completely toxic, only passing from state to state, reaction to reaction, and condition to condition.  I'm today describing how cynicism is what I chose to let it serve in my psychology.  What purpose, what amount, and what concentration or potency will I experiment with?  

I gravitated to the belief that cynicism is negative and painful.  But cynicism inspires my radical thoughts leading me to potent sources of my sadness.  When I get cynical I tend to get curious.  I tend to become doubtful and reactive.  Reactive refers to my impulsivity and impatience.  This is what I understand to be worrisome about cynicism.  I was rarely able to benefit from the cynicism and it contaminated my passion and good nature.  

What I am better capable of today is knowing what the unwanted side effects of cynicism can feel like.  I can also slow the reactions down.  I have built up a contraction for my unleashed adrenaline, not to say I have control of what stings me, but to say I have some governance over my mindset.  I have established a healthier perspective on what is mine to confront, tolerate, and accept.  

Social harmony is a dream I have.  Balance is a core aspect for what motivates me.  Cynicism is a variable in this mix.  In small doses cynicism helps by fueling my curiosity and bitterness in ways that result in productive attitudes.  I have observed how my open mindedness buffers my ability to handle my cynicism and the cynicism from others.  Functioning for self-interest when done in harmony can mean that it is also group-interest, and by inheritance if harmony is behind self-interest than it is likely going to benefit all.  This looks a lot like advocacy.  Cynicism isn't as toxic when in optimal dosages.  It can even be nutritious.

I'm a gift from my family to you, slowly being opened.

My maternal grandparents are a large influence on who I am becoming. It seems funny to think I'm still "becoming". I come from privilege and scarcity. Along with so many more positions of operation that can be conflicting .  This means that I'm limited and liberated, simultaneously.   It's become an interesting dilemma to contemplate on how so much of my early adulthood was centered in an oppressed mentality.  Now I'm challenged by the encounter with genuine creative possibility.  It seems embarrassing that so much of my self, social, and cultural doubt has grown from variations of culturally imposed limitations, including the defiant pachuco.  The Chicano psychology promotes the need for being a radical, counter Anglo culture, or maybe just defiant.  It surely instilled an underdog mentality.

My grandparents didn't and don't seem to struggle with identity.  If they do they do it subconsciously, passively, and for sure not openly.  They label others, but for whatever social and personal influences they don't clearly label themselves.  Their generation doesn't have the identity rebellion that mine does.  They want to declare how American they are.  They have a blind spot for the injustice and limitation that slowly smothered them, possibly through the patriotic propaganda during WWII.  They seemed to have one validating system, family.  They were raised in a generation that inspired the need for a Chicano mentality, but at the same time were falling in love with an idea of being accepted as American.

My grandparents were taught under a regime of catholic laws and the radical authorities that enforced a catholic tradition of shame and guilt.  The penitent facade of Christianity.  The religious attitude that paints with broad strokes, rules that seem to stifle the liberated, creative, and revolutionary mentalities.  A faith rooted in hesitancy, fear, and obedience.  My grandparents are still obedient Catholics, and my culture has exchanged southwestern tradition for new and improved evangelical ways of accessing God.  We have yet to grow in the area of awareness.
Then the 60's happened.  The Vietnam war happened.  Communism happened.  The regularity of T.V. happened.  The birth of inflamed capitalism.  The precipice of the modern age, crawling out of industrial times.  America needed an army to train, a population to sacrifice for the capturing of resources.  America needed pawns to ensure the war strategy of the wealthy.  This was what sculpted my mother and father.

I'm branded American, with a Chicano tattoo, driving a human body

Identity has become a psychological luxury, mainly for my ego, like a safety blanket for my self concept.  I have slowly learned to consider myself human.  This sounds silly.  But I say this to express the complexity for how I diversify my identity.  I have a suspicion that I collect identities, mainly to feel more valuable and wanted.  I am building identities and tearing them down as I am challenged by fear and pleasure, among other motivators.  I am at a point where I identify as being human, expressing through a Chicano lens.  What is a Chicano lens?

There isn't an answer to that question.  I claim it like a country claims its borders, it's there but it's not.  It's a luxury.  Latinos, especially oppressed Latinos found a way to unite under one psychological banner.  Chicano has been an illusive concept to describe.  Even having a Latino heritage I could easily find some other Latino to argue its meaning.  It is a culture, an identity, a symbol, a political statement, a movement, a people, and a burden.

I learned how to call myself Chicano before I knew what it meant and how complex it was.  I come from Spanish speaking grandparents.  They were Spanish speaking before Mexican descendants re-rooted in the Southwest.  They didn't unite under a Chicano banner.  They surely never seemed to consider themselves as being Mexicano.  They identified as American.  I reflect and with bitterness describe to them the politics and cultural climate of their early adulthood, trying to paint for them how they were likely manipulated into becoming resources for the American country.  They never thought how a significant and powerful part of America might hate them, use them, and marginalize them.  They were eager to be valued too.  They were happy with the life they were handed, and they would say it was what God needed of them.

My grandparents studied sustainable living before it was an up and coming remedy to climate change.  It was a lifestyle of survival, empirically effective because they survived.  A lifestyle that endured an economic depression, so much that it never registered for my grandparents as depressing.  The Great Depression wasn't a hiccup in their comfort, because they were already accustomed to living in scarcity, maybe more like living within necessity.  Likely a curriculum in sustainability the way Maria Montessori might describe in her Montessori methodology.


I recognize how Anglos, legal immigrants,  have taken this culture that nurtured my grandparents, marketed it, and now call it New Mexico True capitalizing from a history of struggle.  A entrepreneurial vision promoting, something more deeply valuable, deeper than allure, deeper than a scheme to draw tourist dollars and no Culture Tax to benefit the generations left competing to continue to feel valued in America.

The lifestyle I was nurtured in, has become entertainment.  I see how legal immigrants develop business plans that promote enchiladas for $15 to $30, using the term New Mexican style restaurant.  This price is enough to make a whole platter of enchiladas with carne, likely feeding a entire family of eight.  They were wrapping tamales for winter, not so much for Christmas or the Special of the day, but because it was tradition and an efficient way to survive a New Mexican winter.  They had matanzas for survival not for the peda (drunkenness), or more kindly to celebrate.  Our traditions have grown to be a commodity.  My elders never thought to turn their traditions into profits, like Kendrick Lamar beautifully explains, it is like "pimping a butterfly".  Selling culture is the American way, maybe a colonial way, an imperial way, and it may also be, unfortunately, the civilized way.  I am reminded that it is not the Chicano way.  A reminder that my identity can be different.

Richard and Margaret Garcia as well as Abe and Josie Estrada have a heritage and history I cling to, the luxurious identity I see as Chicano.  I use the identity of Chicano to remind me that I am not of the American dream but a human reality.  I was not raised in a culture of entrepreneurial philosophies.  I am rooted in thoughtful and humble traditions.  When I become jealous and itchy for luxury, I remind myself of the beauty my grandparents survived in, never feeling poor and never needing status.  They do although, live needing to be loved, forgiven, respected, and considered.  This is what I like to think Chicano means, a Latin, Southwestern American, New Mexican, and Burqueno way to express being human.

-- Ron Valerio Estrada

I wasn't born Chicano

Learning to believe in one common idea of humanity is a challenge.  Being humanistic is what some might call it.  But because I've been led to separate myself or my groups so often in life, there is a tendency to aspire to be above others, super human, heroic, or outstanding.  There is an innate tendency to compete.  I've been taught that there are certain aspired ways to be.  There seems to be a paradox because some of these characteristics that lead to separation might be necessary, they may be needed for survival.  The ideal never seems to include paradox.

The paradox that describes the human dilemma to be part of a group and the expense of being unique baffles our morality.  It seems as though there's a need for enough immorality in order for morality to be fully effective.  It is as if there are counter intuitive but necessary and limiting reactants in the creation of morality.  There needs to be just enough vanity, egotism, selfishness, and possibly obligation, among others in order for a healthy morality to form.  I picture it as if the righteous need something or someone to blame in order feel alive, while also needing something or someone to point to that doesn't blame, an icon.  Maybe the deviant function out of need to be relieved of the pain from not being afforded the same liberties afforded the moral.  Maybe the moral hide in uniform fearing the pain from being judged.  All I know is that I have struggled to maneuver between unpopular groups, privileged groups, discriminated groups, and the behaved groups.  This identity limbo makes being human not enough, I had to become Catholic, Latino, American, Chicano, graduated, or safe.  I couldn't just be understood as surviving.

I want to blame this on the colonial ways that some of my ancestors passed down or were imposed by. The tendencies of my communities appear to be influenced by a colonial heritage.  In the colonial or civilized arena, equal is a foul word.  It is challenging to be from heavily dogmatic systems that praise champions, yet preach conformity. It is discouraging to chase equality in a world that fears unity.  Unity might mean that we have to share, connect, and even let go of our self interest.  The colonial world cannot do any of these well.  So for so long I have attached to the concept of being Chicano, and I am slowly embracing that before I chose to be seen as Chicano I was Humano.

Hombre's Nombre

Valerio!  That was the name my family used for a majority of my childhood.  I was named after a great uncle.  The stories I was told of my namesake were short and sparse.  I recall that he lost an arm.  He was a stoic and rugged man.  He is remembered by my grandpa for his ability to roll a cigarette with one hand.  My grandpa describes how he liked to scare him and his siblings by grabbing them and wouldn't let them go, emphasizing how they teased him.  Painting a picture of a tangled and teasing game of roulette.  My name, was one of the first expressions of the polarity in my self concept, hinting at the liminality of cultures that would become my cultural labyrinth.

I was named Ronald Valerio Estrada.  I was raised in social divisions and cultural contrasts.  My first form of discrimination was that between being Garcia and Estrada.  There was prejudice in my name.  I carried names that reflected, represented, and embodied the divided jurisdictions of my developing identity.  My mother's family called me Valerio, pronounced Va-led-e-yo.  Ronald was my dad's name.  Ronald was an American name, the prelude to a greater division that would be a backdrop for many insecurities.  Being Mexican-American brings complexity just like being Garcia-Estrada did in my childhood.  Ronnie, was the name of Ronnie Lott, a class act linebacker for the 49er's, so I had a bias towards being called Ronnie.  But for my maternal family it was a reminder of disparity, my father gap, and divorce.  Before I was brown, while I was prenatal, I feel like my surrounding were disjointed.

Was I a mistake, a blessing, an accident, or passion's fruit?  I think I was likely a little of all these.

I enjoyed my name because nobody else in the neighborhood had my name.  It was easy to say at my school and by my teachers.  Nobody ever messed it up, like my primos who always had to say their names twice.  We were used to saying our names with an appropriate pronunciation.  When outside our neighborhoods, my primos and peers usually had to say their names twice.  Then, it was restated with linguistic distortion, the American accent.  With my name there wasn't that shaming encounter with the outside worlds.  Thinking about my name takes me to some quality memories.

I had the privilege of having a young mother.  A mother who, in my hind sight, was still a child herself, on the way out of her childhood home.  I think about my daughter, now 16 approaching 17, having a child and it makes me admire my mother even more.  I was an addition to an already large family.  I could not have been hoped for, but at the same time I feel like I may have been a small source of hope.  I came too early, I changed my parents lives, and I have to accept that when and how weren't my decision either.

It makes me wonder how scared she must have been.  I was scared at 24 when I learned of my first child.  I think about how handcuffed she might have felt.  She wasn't given the liberty to be a free little girl any longer, likely surprised.  I couldn't have been planned, hoped for, or anticipated.  I think that it may have been more a perplexing collection that included worry, fear, and a touch of resentment.  I know there was some excitement and preparation.  I sometimes worry that my first identity might be something along the lines of disruption.  I find it relieving to accept that my conception must have brought disruption before joy, even if I was absolutely wanted.

My conception without the authorization or consent from the religious or familial systems my parents were bound to, may have meant that much of my parenting was prepared in shame.  I was valued, but possibly with the residue of regret.  I am afraid to ask these questions of my parents, because I fear they wouldn't be able to express the remorse for their lust or passion.  And at the same time, I value the way those prenatal emotions taught me to fear and tread lightly, while at the same time trusting to be cared for.

I was not born Chicano, I was born Ronald Valerio Estrada.  I was born into undeclared prejudice, but non the less I can reflect and see how my father's line and mother's line were my first subjection to cultural judgments, moral dilemmas, and prejudice.  I did not have to wait long to find out what it is to identify.

The Shadow of Cultura

Am I ready to take a step towards accepting my daughters's independence?  If so, then my writing is now directed at me.  I think my opportunities to feed their ideas and mold them will be expressed differently, more passively.  Their lives are now more in their hands than in mine.  And I transition effort into accepting their choices, support their growth, and encourage an adventurous attitude.  In a more significant way, I feel I am freeing them from my biases and any obligation to my value system.

They will never experience the same culture I did.  They will need contemporary tools that will help them learn to be productive people in their culture.  They will reflect and fall back on the wisdom every generation seems to.  But not because of culture, more because of the human and innate ability to seek healing.  I like to say seeking God, the Divine, the Complete, the everlasting fountain.  Maybe even going as far to say as common as all organisms.  Mi jitas, they will face their own social, ethnic, and interpersonal dilemmas.  They may not need to call themselves Chicanas.

I don't value culture in the same ways I used to.  It means something different.  It isn't worth the same to me either.  It is just as important as ever.  It holds a different meaning for me.  It is beautiful and invasive, a paradox.  Culture is a facade established possibly, in a poetical way, to give the soul a face, and the ego fists.  It makes me sad and endeared.  I am curious what is in store for the New Mexican culture.  What will my young ladies call themselves?

What do I call myself?

I am a Latino, with a Chicano lifestyle, from the northern region of New Mexico.  After a history of identity crises, I stand poetically looking down into a menacing canyon, with the sun in my eyes, preparing to shed all the conveniences that have come with belonging to a group of people, land, religion, foods, culture.  I am practicing being real with myself, more fully human.  For much of my life I have felt obligated "to be", maybe more, "to be...long".  I am a collection of labels.

I am changing, always, yet in some aspect solidifying. With the changes in perspective I am also writing differently.  I feel ready to write about the limits, embarrassment, shame, and contradictions that come with applied culture.  It feels complicated having to grow up "brown".  I'll share what I feel has become generationaly irresponsible.  I want to capture in idea the hardship of having clung to a community built on oppressing, and eventually having to cry out oppressed.  I want to tell me, my Chicano story.

The term Chicano has so many meanings.  It doesn't have a quantitative nature.  It is an identity, a philosophy, a movement, a religion, and what ever the person needs it to be.  It has its traditions, conservatives, haters, and abusers.  Chicano in my writing will be the culture I know as the following:

Being labeled a radical American citizen having a consquistador's heritage, while believing I am seen as lower, asked to be accountable, yet perceived with less privilege, a revolutionary without country.

I was born human, nurtured like a villager, raised to be Christian, and taught to be American as translated by a bunch of New Mexicans, a bunch of Chicanos.  With this I can write my story.

Letting Love

I've shared my thoughts through writing, as a way of organizing discoveries I want to share with my daughters.  I have been conflicted by the results of my writing. My writing at times, seems more like an orderless rant. I re-read old entries and see a passive aggressive expression.  Other times, it seems like therapy.  I was hoping for some legacy.  I've watched my writing evolve with the mutation of my thought patterns and emotional synthesis.  

My writinghas had a life cycle.  The mutation feels a lot like the fine tuning of wisdom.  This forum started out sad and grew into resentful.  As I learned more about love and my vulnerability, my acceptance expanded.  Relationships inspired me.  The mistakes made in love, despite feeling genuine, helped me develop a stomach for self correction.   That became the emotional synthesis

The synthesis of emotions feels a lot like self acceptance.  I finally see myself as intelligent, but without a need to teach.  I have reached a point to where my learning isn't as competitive.  My learning is growing passionately.  I don't have a message for my daughters like I used to.  God has blessed me with the luxury of being an example more than a parent.  This stage of my writing will be an effort to write, not to my daughters, but to me.

I am capable of loving and accepting the opportunities to be loved.  I don't always receive love.  But Love doesn't ask to be received because love cannot be rejected.  The ego, the surviving pieces of me, and the judging part of me thought I could control who I allowed to love me.  I see now how love waits.  Love does not creep, solicit, or pester.  Love might invite.  Love might peek.  Love doesn't always have perfect timing, but love doesn't get tired.  So I see how love from me and for me, doesn't die.

How much love is there?

Love leads me to passionate topics.  Love has inspired me to be naked of unnecessary identities. Examples of this include how my views on race, they are being overshadowed by the emphasis on heritage.  My fear of not belonging is being cradled by solitude.  My guilt and shame are trusted allies, treasonously providing intelligence for what my shadow hides from me.  I may not be worthy to write about love, but I am worthy of writing about the love in me.