After Ira Sukrungruang
Because my family has been here since Texas was still Mexico. Because Aztlan, the homeland of the Aztecs, covered Northern Mexico and the Southwest region of the U.S. before Texas was stolen from Mexico. Because my family was stolen from Mexico. Because my family fought in every war this country had. Because they hit my great grandparents for speaking Spanish in school. Because only my mom and her aunts speak Spanish. Because, in sixth grade, I traded chongo for hair tie and papas for hash browns. Because at sixteen, the only Spanish left in me is tia and tio. Because at sixteen, my best friend calls me “the whitest Mexican” she knows. Because I let myself be colonized. Because all my cousins speak with accents and I “talk white.” Because I can fake it better than them. Because white teachers taught me how to speak and write “correctly.” Because every history teacher I’ve ever had was a white, Republican man. Because, in 1943, hundreds of servicemen and police terrorized over five hundred Chicanos in L.A in the Zoot Suit Riots, in “a pogrom against the Mexican American community.”[1] Because I had never heard of it. Because I learned of genocide at eighteen and felt the sorrow of hundreds of ancestors on top of my chest. Because I heard a man speak Nahuatl on the internet, a language of the dead, and I cried. Because I heard the dead call out to me, articulating all their suffering and their hope that we could be rebuilt. Because my people were slaughtered by the millions. Because I stand in a long line of generational suffering. Because my grandpa is from Michoacan. Because he is my only link to Mexico and his accent feels like home. Because my grandpa was seventeen when he snuck into this country, stuck inside the dark trunk of a car for over two days before he reached Washington. Because most of my family “Because my aunt stood in front of him, between him and their guns, yelling for his life.”never finished high school. Because they all worked the fields growing up. Because my family has been on food stamps for as long as I’ve been alive, and my sister and I have always shared a room and a bed. Because I know what it’s like to go hungry. Because someone has to pick your fruit and clean your houses. Because sometimes honest work is not enough to pay the bills or feed the kids. Because most work is never honest. Because my people built this country, and this land was ours first. Because my blood is in the dirt. Because dirt covers everything. Because “Latin people are the second-oldest ethnic group in America after Native Americans.”[2] Because the demise of the Aztec empire was “the most successful destruction of a people’s language, culture, and religion in history.”[2] Because my grandma never let my mom teach us Spanish. Because my grandma hates “wetbacks.” Because my grandma hates herself, so she remarried a white man and ditched her Mexican name. Because half of the men in my family have been to jail or prison. Because when you think of a thug, you think black or brown. Because my cousin, half black, seventeen years old, was stopped by cops, cops that pulled their guns out at my cousin right outside his home. Because my aunt stood in front of him, between him and their guns, yelling for his life. Because when visiting my family on Christmas break and the cops drive past me, I’m just another brown boy in a beanie and hoodie, like the tens of thousands they stop every year. Because my high school girlfriend’s mom says, “You must like spicy food, huh?” and in 2016, a kid at lunch says, “Don’t worry, you won’t be deported,” and I want to break his nose. Because in 2016, my sister needs to write character references for several of her friends. Because my anger is so sharp that I can’t breathe sometimes. Because it’s like a hot stone in my chest, or a bullet in the gun pointed at everyone I love. Because I still hear the screams of my ancestors. Because I still hear the screams of my mother. Because I am a no sabado kid. Because I’m the first in my family to go to college. Because I sold out my identity for a chance at the top, for a ticket out of there, away from them. Because at college I have no Spanish, no Mexicans around me, only pale white faces as far as the eye can see. Because all my friends are white, and my white friends take Spanish classes for fun. Because their ancestors are dead and far forgotten and they have no obligation to their people. Because I am different from my family, and I am the one who’s supposed to “make it.” Because I have the hopes and dreams of four generations riding on my back. Because I asked my fiancé if he was ready to raise a biracial child. Because he said no. Because I’m not ready either. Because a Xicana scholar once said she “…had a Xicano child because Raza’s turning white all over the States.”[3] Because I’d wish they weren’t half white. Because I’m afraid of colonizing myself again. Because even though my children will be half white, it is important to me for them to also be Mexican. Because my half white cousins and friends carry their whiteness like a hidden disease, and I don’t want my children to hate themselves. Because my fiancé can never understand the severity of the blood loss, the depth of my rage. Because his bones will never ache with scars of genocide and dozens of languages eradicated. Because James Baldwin said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” Because we feel that rage. Because a white teacher said peace was the answer instead of anger. Because I will always be angry. Because my people have never known peace.