I am not your definition of a dreamer.
I am not Chicana, and I honestly would like it if people would stop expecting me to understand a culture that I generally had not been properly exposed to up until my early 20’s. Chicano, Mexican, and Immigrant cultures are three vastly differing and complex identities. I often feel much more solidarity in stories, about other people’s journeys as immigrants from completely different nations, than I have ever felt reading Chicano and Mexican literature.
I feel somber.
I feel disconnected when asked to represent or understand what representation would mean for someone who is not an immigrant. As an immigrant, I was bombarded with clashing messages about what it meant to be me. From the need to recognize differences between nationalities like Mexican, American, and the dozens of nations that are often lumped into Latinidad to having to pick and choose between terms like Latino, Hispanic, Spanish, and Chicano without ever having anybody stand as a representative of those descriptions.
Was my brown skin enough? Did it disqualify me? Does my Spanish Nationality Heritage make me more Mexican or less? Did the features, that so obviously did not match my white-skinned mother’s, change who I am supposed to identify with? Is her “Mexican-ness” as clearly defined as mine is? Why are my features so different? My dad grew up being called “negrito” while my great-grandpa looked “indio”. My cousins have eyes that change color and skin that burns in the sun. I look like I don’t fit any description, and yet, I very clearly have a description. Did it matter that I liked watching American TV or that some days the stories I heard in Rap songs made a hell of a lot more sense than Corridos? Does it matter that I adopted a religion and grasped onto a culture that doesn’t understand or try to connect with my image, beyond my skin color?
I am a brown-skinned, curly-haired, glasses-wearing, short, Mexican nationality, United States Residing “Dreamer” immigrant, who married a 3rd generation Chicano American National with Indigenous Heritage who doesn’t speak Spanish but likes country and rock music in both languages, while I like books, poems, and memes. I feel most comfortable around informal Spanish and least comfortable around English slang. I can’t translate Spanish books into English but I thrive reading English textbooks and filling out applications. I read laws and Facebook comments to understand people's views on immigration topics. I talk and fight about immigrant struggles but I didn’t swim across el rio.
I didn’t make a decision to upend my reality and start anew in a land unknown to my people. I have never been asked to be that brave. I get scared to mispronounce simple sayings and sometimes, my name. I share posts on Facebook and cringe at awkward attempts to connect by people who mean well but won’t see past my skin color and understand the depth of the loss of identity that happens when you come from a people that were purposely torn for the sake of someone else’s growth. A growth we aren't allowed to access. A growth I still have to endure inside my heart and keep from spouting out, lest I seem indignant and ungrateful for the freedoms fought before me. I have to, in every sense, accept and revere American Freedom but I’m not allowed to use it to liberate field workers or students, who know the reality of being smart enough to translate legal papers but without them, can’t keep studying.
I am a child of God. But I’m told I am standing against Him if I speak His very words out of the dusty books ignored by those who’ve never had to question; if their image is His. I am a child of God but unity means destroying my end of the bargain, accepting an unknown culture that swears it’s no longer racist but won't define racism to allow for the systemic sins that still plague us. I am a child of God but not American. Not Mexican. I am a citizen of His Kingdom. A forever immigrant. Torn between tongues and lands but only allowed peace in a suspended reality. A peace that shouldn’t but IS defined with silence and reverence towards symbols of this land and not God’s.
I am not your definition of a dreamer. I am a person. I have a history and a future. I have a destiny. I am me. Even if that means that you don’t like that I won’t fit into your box. That I speak about things that you wish I would stop thinking about. That I will always be more than the ethnicity box I have to check to apply to become justified in this country’s eyes. I am more than this country. I am more than your unwillingness to learn about my image. I am more than the oppression you ignore.
I am.
To you, that, is all.
