As always, a beautiful and inspiring post. I join you in remembrance.

thank you, my friend. :)

i should have mentioned that also—on this day—this comment i keep in moderation and mention in the post complains of my banner which reads "smarter than ten aryans" and tells me i'm racist for that banner and suddenly i am in love with the tagline again. it will never be changed. unless it's to "stronger than."

My maternal grandmother was a Lithuanian who lived in the US for her adult life, but never spoke the English language in any meaningful way, yet communicated to me, starting from when I could crawl, using basic words and gestures, the lifelong mania I have for plants, growing, cooking and eating, and never mind the exceptionally strong genetic strain I inherited from her. She was a natural anarchist, always doing everything she could possibly do to live successfully on her own including shoe repair and clothes making as well as raising and growing a large amount of her own food on a tiny lot with a short growing season in a Pennsylvania anthracite mining town. I never need iconoclastic inspiration from books or other sources, Grandma established that pattern in myself and other family members in an indelible way by just being and doing, as she had little ability to make any speeches in English. I mention this as a salute to grandmothers and also as a suggestion to all grandparents that they can influence the future, so please do.

beautiful post Nezua.

there is a lot of love from me for all of my ancestors. I know that their love is with me as well and is enough to counter the hate that's out there.

My name is after two great grandmothers - my dad's grandmother Mary Jane and my mom's grandmother Alice. Alice was born Alexandra, by the way, and was a beautiful and kind Greek lady. I love that I'm reminded of them when people say my name, just like your name reminds you of your ancestors.

Shalom Shabbat & XO, Nez, from a fellow mischlinge.

The herbs are bitter but the mortar is sweet, and building new things now.

malicia mary alice who has one of the best nicks ever. thanks for the reminder of the love still with me, that's true. yes...names can be important. so true. thanks for telling that story here.

shabbat shalom, therio. thanks for the link! :)

Hello Nezua:

I've been lurking here for quite some time, but this post and the poem "Yo Soy Joaquín" has made me think about alot of things about my life, heritage, and my place in this world, so I wanted to share...

To give you a bit of background:

My maternal grandfather is a Keetoowah Cherokee and Choctaw indian. He was able to trace his lineage back to right after the Trail of Tears...My maternal grandmother was from Reynosa, Mexico. I don't know much about her, accept that most of her family were migrant workers, back to at least two or three generations with hardly any roots. I can't remember much more about either of them, because my mom cuts ties with the family when I was around 11 or 12 (I'm an old man at 38).

This, of course, makes my mother Indian and mexican...as for my father, well...everytime I wake up and look in the mirror I see a caucasian face...so I'm pretty sure he was that...what his heritage is, I do not know, as I have never met him.

I tell you this to say, I know very little of any one aspect of my heritage...The indian part of my heritage wants to pretend I don't exist. The mexican part of my heritage sees me as nothing more than a half-breed gabacho. The "white" side of my heritage doesn't even know I exist.

I was never allowed to openly learn to speak spanish, as my grandfather and mother felt it would help me blend in with society much easier. I was not taught anything Cherokee, as I was considered only 1/8th or less, and therefore not truly indian...the Chocttaw side of my family was marginally kinder to me, but other than that, I was just a little white boy living among indians and mexicans that didn't want me...I was called "jaybird" by my family...A jaybird lays its eggs in other birds' nests, not even raising its own young. My mom had me, then dumped me off on her family so she could run around as a groupie and get high...I guess the name was apt.

I grew up in a boys home from the age of 12 to 18...after that, I've had no contact with my family...I don't even really know where they are...as a young man, I tried real hard to fit in somewhere. I tried church, social groups on campus, anything. It seemed I was always rejected in one form or another. The Latino student groups laughed at me, the normal "white" student groups would make racial jokes about mexicans, not knowing I was one...when they did find out, I seemed to be less welcome...I was always afraid to go to the reservations near where I lived and try to connect there, as I assumed they would be hostile to my intentions. I learned early on that lots of caucasians liked to claim indian heritage by going to the reservations and annoying the shit out of those who were...

I hate not fitting in anywhere...I hate the whole concept of race. People talk about their "culture", but what they really mean is their skin color...I sit, alone, and watch the different "cultures" fight and tear each other apart over trivial bullshit and I wonder how much longer till the next riot or civial war.

I would love so desperately to embrace one aspect of my heritage and have it accept me. I've always wanted to travel to Mexico...see the land of my Abuela. Or just once take part in a ceremony with my granfather's people.

Hell, I can't even find anyone to celebrate 4th of July, Christmas, or Thanksgiving with...

well...sorry for the pity party...I guess the poem just got me thinking. I have so much rich heritage, but no one to share it with...what's one to do?

well, my friend. thank you for laying that down here. i really relate to a lot of it. the yearning, the ambivalence, the shame, the pride, the questions, the loneliness. and i greatly appreciate the trust and honesty.

this blog is part of that question you end with. part of the question...part of an answer, maybe.

i think sometimes people mean "skin color" and then sometimes they mean "culture," too. i have a lot of thoughts about this, but really, when you think about how the nation, this nation, mexico, most nations came to be; when you think about colonialism and slavery and misogyny writ large through history and carved out in name and law and religion and color and geography; when you look at the history of the world, well. if we weren't still fighting about cultures clashing or changing or which one gets subjugated, i'd be shocked. this is a long conversation, and its a bloody one. and yes, that is unfortunate. or so it seems to me.

i don't think it has to be a pity party. i totally feel you. i don't feel completely settled in any one area of my ethnicities. because it is blended with the others. and there seems to be gray areas about how they meet up. which is what increasingly begs the question of the validity of tribal affiliation of course, in such a day as this one, when we are all so far from the start, mixed with each other, and seeing things a new way because of that. which is, i think, what "The United States of America" and the whole "melting pot" idea tried to be? which is also why some people hold even tighter to tradition and culture. on the horizon seems to be la raza cosmica, a time when we are all mestizo of some sort. i used to smile at the idea when younger. before i tried to affiliate at all with any of my roots. before i knew there was a phrase that came close to describing the notion. but we all see it. and some react violently, some don't care about such a thought, some welcome it....

the final query you end on also is one, of course, that a person has to answer for her or himself. but maybe it can be "everyone" instead of "no one." sometimes i'm an optimist purely out of necessity.

i think that first we have to connect with each part of ourselves in whatever way we feel compelled, and then decide what it means. and then, when it is no longer a reaction or a blank spot or a painted on decal we can turn to others and know how we meet, and can be more grounded in our meeting.

it occurs to me upon editing this comment that bob marley said this, basically. "and when you know your history, then you will know where you are coming from/then you wont' have to ask me/who the hell do i think i am?" something like that. so there you go.

what you speak of is something i speak of time and time again here (which as a reader/lurker, you probably know). the biggest part of it, tho maybe not always spelled out as such. america is a land of tossed away culture, stolen culture, manufactured culture. and this creates lack of meaning and ritual and tradition and identity and purpose and affiliation. maybe no one person's fault...but a collective happening, and surely with many causes. i make a broad statement of course, and it can't apply to everyone. but i see it a lot is what i mean. you and i, at the very least, testify to this. we can look at our individual families, but we see these instances repeated on the whole in many cases.

we can't fix all of us, and i guess that's not the best goal. maybe we are lost causes! i don't know. maybe not. but i think we have to think of the children. make sure they learn the right history, and have tradition, and ritual, and are anchored to family and feel there is a deep connection with the earth and with other people and with their family and to time. that they have stories aside from those that G.E. and Disney and Time Warner would tell them. ones that create alternate images as to what is important and who is important and what type of living is best than the ones broadcasted through our saturated media cycle. these stories build us and create much of the foundation that moves our lives and shapes our effect on the world as we grow and live in it.

this is what i've come to feel and think about it so far. i haven't always done this, and a lot of it i'm still finding out. but today, this is my answer for that particular illness in our society. i'm good like that. always coming up with cures for the world. ;)

mexico's not so far away, también. and it's never too late to learn spanish. tu sabes? you'll falter, feel foolish, and people will make fun of you on the way. but that's what people do! that's what we do. our movement has to be motivated by real need or purpose, or it easily gets deflected. societal physics. ;) the examined life, which to me it seems you are living. we'll get there. it's about the movement you intend, sometimes. the angle of your lean. what you do in a moment, and how it builds on the last. so maybe we won't get there. but it's good to have a vision in the heart of what it might look like when we do.

It was very nice to read what Grancru had to say, and Nez is right, when I was learning Spanish as a 27 year old adult, on the street and on the job, in a Spanish speaking country where I had better learn or I and my family would eat less, I quickly realized that people found my attempts very funny and they laughed at them, but not really at me. Children, when they are learning the mother tongue, make similar mistakes, and everyone laughs. If you, Grancru, or anyone reading here, decides to lessen the lack of communication in the world and do the real work and sweat out learning the new language, just enjoy the fact that people are laughing at you {they will, I guarantee it} and remember that, sadly, in the US, far too many citizens do not bother to cross the language barrier ever in their lives. Studying a language in a book in school is not the same as inhabiting it.
Some persons make the attempt to speak, but the laughing stops them. Don't let that happen. I look back at the words and phrases I once said that were so hilarious, and now, with some knowledge and skill, I find them funny too. I laugh about them even now, 29 years later.
OK, Grancru, you may be feeling some pity for yourself, we have all been there for some reason, but I notice you write well and think admirably. I wish you happiness now and in the future. Here is to all things Cosmica!

Been away from UMX for a bit,

Always good to come back to beautiful writing like this, but even more impressive is this heartfelt comment from grancru.

I think we have a lot in common grancru. Even though my ancestry is as "white" as they come, unlike yours, I was born and raised in Guatemala and spent 18 years there. It used to frustrate me so much that I wasn't accepted as "latino". I even harbored that white resentment against affirmative action for a little bit because I couldn't check latino when I was applying for colleges (real disadvantage that was I found out when I got accepted to Harvard).

Either way, I've never really been accepted in Guatemala, nor have I been accepted here in the U.S. People scoffed when I sung either the Guatemalan or the U.S. national anthem.

But I was lucky. I like to joke that in my early life I was below the poorest of the poor because not only was I born into a farm in rural guatemala without electricity or running water, but the farm was millions of dollars in debt. To be accepted into Harvard at 18 really makes me probably one of the best examples of white privilege out there.

This story probably doesn't mean much to the white person that isn't smacked in the face by privilege everyday like I was and I am, coming out of a community and a country where so many have so little. So initially what I saw as a burden of not being accepted, I grew to realize was a huge privilege.

Embracing my whiteness and the privilege that comes with it and using it to try and support the communities of color that I wanted so long to identify with became my mission in life. And if a community doesn't want support, of course it hurts a little bit, but there are so many injustices in this world that it's easy to find another way to give back. If it's a community that I can't live without supporting or I need supporting, it really depends how bad you want it, and how far your willing to go to gain their respect.

I know when I go back to Guatemala to contribute to the betterment of the country one of the toughest things I'm going to have to contend is gaining the trust of various indigenous communities in the country that would hate me both as a gringo, and as a latin american. That's not a community that I'm going to be able to ignore either because it makes up a majority of the country.

So I'm going to have to go to huge lengths to gain their trust in order to understand exactly what it is they need. I'm going to have to learn several languages, and show my firm commitment to their betterment, by going so far as even being willing to put my life on the line for them.

I don't know if my comment is coming of as arrogant or makes any sense. With these things is always important to be careful the way you word things so as not to come off arrogant, because it is only with as much humility as I'm able to muster that I approach these subjects. But I'm hoping these words contribute to the conversation.

Thank You Nezua, RC, and Kyledeb for the comments and encouragement. I agree that I need to get out find my roots and not just wish I could do it...It's probably fear that keeps me away...or maybe the uncertainty of rejection...

Again, thanks for the input. It really really helps to know that I'm not alone in my thoughts, experiences, and feelings.

Roots Mon!