Growing-Up Grown

Published in DailyGrito

I graduated college, an increasing rarity for Latino males. Now, I reside in the so-called “real” world.

It is not uncommon for the children of Latina/os to be a family’s translator. As far as I can remember--at the age of ten--I was arguing with the electric company, ordering cable, fighting parking tickets in court, doing income-tax returns, cooking and cleaning the house. Many of us have been in the real world all our lives. The infantilization of outspoken young people is certainly responsible for making these experiences invisible.

As a non-English speaking Latina, my mother began to work as a bartender in the early ‘90s. Soon after, because of economic need, she began working as an exotic dancer in the highway crack-dens of Northern New Jersey. One of the most spectacular memories of my childhood took place at a court in Paterson N.J. I was sixteen or so. I had known for years now that my mother was a dancer. She asked me to go with her to court as she had had a “problem” a couple years ago that needed resolution. She explained to me that as she was dancing, and an undercover cop (enjoying the show nevertheless) had slipped a dollar into her belt (this is illegal). She was arrested, and needed to clear her record before applying for citizenship. I thought it was going to be another quick-ten-minute-argument with the credit card company. Come to find out, she was charged with a felony for prostitution and clearly had no idea what had gone on.

By sixteen, I was working in Newark as a piano instructor, taking the 39 Bus in the late and lonely nights of Penn station. By seventeen, I was applying to college, (by myself) filing FAFSTA, while the only instruction I had from my mother was, “good men go to college.”

Despite her hard work and dedication, my mother was always at odds with this country -- both culturally and financially. In search of providing me with a middle -class lifestyle, she sacrificed much of her selfhood. We originally lived in West New York, NJ, and lived a very modest lifestyle, because of our search for Americanism, she decided to moves us out of W.N.Y because there were “too many Hispanics”. Internalized racism is a hugely damaging element in immigrant culture, the obsession with arriving at American--whatever that means--often makes us work against our interests and turn on our communities.

With the job situation worsening for my mother, and the excessive demands of a young son, trying to invent himself in our world of fast-pace demand and consumerism, everyday life became unbearable. We fell into debt, and lost everything, months before I left to attend the University of New Hampshire.

I agonize over the fact that my mother’s financial situation was in such despair at the time of my entering college. My mother was left in the street, her car repossessed, her apartment lost, her furniture on the curb, her life destroyed. But, her son was attending an American university. My education would not have happened if I did not have my grandmother's financial support. Making the reality this: many Latino/s who do not have the privilege I had, could never aspire to go to a place like the University of New Hampshire, especially now, when they are nearly private because of the “live free or die” nonsense that runs that crazy state. The people of New Hampshire are wonderful, and I enjoyed my time in the state, but their idea of funding public education is profoundly misguided.

I struggle with the fact that after 25 years of my mother coming into this country she still does not know English. She understands here and there, but I never made an effort to teach her. Now, I write about her experience in a language that she cannot read. This is a tremendous tension for all of us who write in English about a community's interest who does not understand the language. Especially because it is difficult to see where the line is between me using my mother's experience as yet another way to exploit the experience of Latina women, or as an honest gesture of my love for her and respect for her life.

I might now be a “proper” member of American society, yet my mother is left with nothing.

Despite it all, the day before graduating college, I sat on my porch in Dover, New Hampshire, and watched the sunrise as the bitter cold of New England pulled at my skin. Looking outward, I felt fear--fear of graduating without a job, of bringing the romantics of my adolescence to an end, panic of not knowing, of moving-in with my mother, of having no direction.

I am slowly realizing my foolishness, and assessing the reality now, that I can live a comfortable life because of her sacrifice. What is even more difficult, is that her sacrifice comes with purely authentic love, and that she did all she did happily. And that, is truly something worth noting as an “American Dream”, millions of Latino/as parents want the dream for their children and a nightmare for themselves. We can surely do better.

All became relevant--painfully relevant--to see the face of unimaginable joy and euphoria on my mother’s face the day I graduated. She will forever be a warrior, and I am proud to be a product of her greatness. The opportunity to obtain an education needs to be widely available, as it will help use work collectively for a more just future. That is our duty and responsibility above all others.