This is a letter I’ve written to someone I met years ago when my husband and I were still dating, at one of his family functions.
I want to preface this by telling you that I do know how fortunate and privileged I am. In writing this letter, I am speaking of my experience, and in no way mean to minimize the experience of anyone else.
I’m also not proud of the fact that this is something that still bothers me. What follows is an attempt to give myself a release. To finally let it go.
And now, the letter:
Dear Woman Who Should Have Known Better,
“Shame on your mother for not teaching you Spanish!”
This is what you said, admonishing my mother through me, upon meeting me for the first time. At a family function, no less. I was stupefied, and angry. Red hot angry. Ears on fire and I had to sit on my hands to keep from slapping you angry.
You proceeded to try to drive home just how terrible it was that my mom did not teach me her native tongue, but I was so taken aback that you very quickly started sounding like the adults from the Peanuts comic strips and cartoons: Wah wah wah wah, wah wah.
You were elegant and cultured, and if you hadn’t opened your mouth, I would have thought you attractive. I was caught off guard. I sat there, silently. I did not respond. I regret that.
To this day, more than a dozen years later, I replay that moment in my mind, rewriting an ending in which I said, “How dare you pass judgement on my mother. Regardless of what your circumstances as an immigrant were, you don’t know my mother’s circumstances, and you don’t have the right.”
Since the day of our encounter, I’ve seen time and time again that people who look down their noses at others, no matter what education or career they boast, are really quite ignorant. Maybe willfully, maybe not. Regardless, the outcome is the same.
There are so many things I want to say to you.
I want to tell you that, during the early years of my life, my mother was the only Mexican woman and only Spanish speaker living in a very racist, English-speaking town. If you were in her shoes, maybe you’d have done things differently, maybe not. You can’t know unless you’re living it. You have no right to judge.
I want to tell you that in my small hometown, I was called “beaner” and “wet back” and “okie frijole”. Since you’re a little too highfalutin to know, that means a child of a Mexican and a white person from the southern states, more specifically Oklahoma, where my dad was born. 1
I want to tell you about the time my blonde-haired brother was moved to the back of his 2nd grade classroom and never called on again, even when he was the only student raising his hand, after his teacher discovered he was “that Mexican woman’s kid.” My mother had my brother transferred to another classroom. The teacher did not face any disciplinary action.
I want to tell you that in the summertime my brother’s hair turned almost white from sun and chlorine. From the time he was a toddler, friends and neighbors actually had the nerve to ask my mother, “Do you dye his hair?”
I want to tell you about the little girl who came home from first grade crying tears of frustration because while I loved my mother’s beautiful culture (you should have seen me do the Mexican hat dance) I wanted so badly to fit in, and to be like my classmates. It is so hard to know what to do with those feelings when you’re six years old. And it’s so hard as an adult looking back to know how that must have crushed my mom.
I want to tell you how uncomfortable and confusing school applications, medical forms, surveys, all situations where you have to self-identify by checking the appropriate box, have been. Try checking a box when you are 50% one thing, and 50% another. You feel like a fraud either way. 2
I want to tell you about how shocking it was moving from central California to Los Angeles for college, and having no one make assumptions, or even care, about my ethnicity. I felt relieved, and I felt ashamed of that relief.
I want to tell you that I have spent a lifetime wishing my mother’s family didn’t have to switch to English when they speak to me. They do it effortlessly and happily. They’re wonderful. But still, I wish…
And I’m working on it.
I want to tell you about how, at the height of when I was auditioning commercially as an actor, being labeled ethnically ambiguous worked in my favor. White America wanted to feel like they were buying luxury vehicles from someone Hispanic…just not too Hispanic. And if one could speak Spanish with no detectable Spanish accent, all the better.
I want to tell you that I was advised to use my mother’s maiden name to further my acting career. I love my mother’s maiden name but doing so would’ve made me feel like a phony. Full disclosure, Jo is my middle name, but I feel I have every right to use it, as it is my middle name. Also, intention is everything.
I want to tell you about how now, twelve years after all those commercial auditions, I am no longer Hispanic enough to book those roles selling luxury vehicles on TV. And that’s as it should be.
I want to tell you about the time I went to a friend’s condo in my east LA neighborhood and they told me that the neighbors didn’t like them but wouldn’t hassle me because I’m white. When I told them I’m half Mexican, their response was, “You read white.” The Mexican half of my heart hurt for them. The white half of my heart felt guilty.
I want to tell you it’s all a mind fuck when you’re neither/nor.
But really, telling you these things would do nothing for either of us.
What I want you to hear, and what I want you to understand is this: The next time we meet, whether I greet you in Spanish or in English, I am proudly my mother’s and my father’s daughter. I am a product of both nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures. I have a right to both.
And every time I look at you, I will think:
Shame on you.
You had no right.
Much of central California, just a couple of generations ago, were transplants from the southern United States.
This has gotten better as of late, and a bit more confusing, as a lot of boxes have been added.
And…
What a powerful punch yet such a beautiful heart wrenching piece Jo. I love your mother & I love your father & you are the magic of both 💖 Love hearing your voice and sad that your heart hurts but there is strength in there because of it all. Keep being you x
Thank you for sharing this. Thank you to your Mum and Dad for bringing a beautiful human into the world who shares her amazing words.
I hope writing this helped you let it go, but only for your sake. Let us carry the anger towards her for a while instead xx