journal entry #3A

"Cultural schizophrenia" is a concept that I have been struggling with all of my life.  I do not think I will ever overcome this state of being.  I was born into a working-class, Chicana/o family on the Texas/Mexico border.  From the moment I was born, I experienced the stigma of the "other."  My paternal grandmother, upon seeing me for the first time, lamented that I had such "dark, Indian" skin just like mother and her parents.  Why couldn't I have been blessed with the lighter (not necessarily light) skin of my father and her, particularly of her mother.  My great grandmother, Eva Archuleta, was very light skinned, blonde, and possessed green eyes.  No matter.  My maternal grandmother, Elisa Villanueva, was dark as night and adored me.  However, I still straddled a nepantla identity because of my linguistic drawbacks, the fact that I was heavily influenced by U.S. popular culture, British new wave music, my burgeoning homoerotic desires, and the fact that no one mentioned why my immediate and extended family lived on an Indian reservation.  I will never forget the year of 1983.  My mother, now a single parent, moved my sister and me to a "better" neighborhood.  White supremacy dictated that she believe that an environment with more White people would be better for me and my sister.  Therefore, she uprooted us and tore me away from my grandmother.  I went to a new school where no one code switched.  There were houses with an upstairs!  Houses with pools!  Moms who did not have to work!  Dads who stayed!  My first day at Glen Cove Elementary has affected me to this day.  When I took out my burrito of beans refried in chorizo and covered with cheese and onion from its foil cocoon, the other kids stared at me.  They all had white bread sandwiches in plastic bags.  Brett Harlow, a classmate from a very wealthy family, (I mean, his mom didn't work and drove a Porsche), started laughing at me, "Ha, ha, ha!  Beaner! Beaner!  All you Mexicans can afford is beans!"  The other kids, especially the whitewashed Chicanos, laughed with him.  I remember that burrito was made with all of my grandmother's love the weekend before.  She had made the flour tortillas from scratch, along with the beans refried in chorizo because she knew they were my favorite.  She knew my mother couldn't cook and made me a few burritos for my school lunches and an after school snack.  Upon hearing these kids' mocking, I threw away the burrito without taking a bite and ran out into the playground.  I never told my mother or grandmother what happened.  But I started taking disgusting bologna sandwiches the next week.  Because of incidents like these, from the age of 11 to 15, I prayed to be White, going so far as to claim an "Ingles" identity.  I wanted to be British.  There are British Chicanos, que no?