A Beginning

I have read articles and books about being stuck between cultures and while many of them talk about this struggle, few of them really get that each person who is in a situation like that is essentially creating their own individual cultures. So this blog is my attempt to share my journey in building my own culture, my own rules.

I was born in Mexico but I grew up on the southwest side of Chicago amongst Mexicans whose families had been in the U.S. for more than a generation. Needless to say that their values and beliefs were very different from the ones I was being raised with. So I never really felt comfortable around people of my own culture. I never considered Mexican Americans that were born and raised here true Mexicans and I rarely acknowledged them as anything other than American. I thought I was more Mexican than any of them would ever be because I had actually lived there and my Spanish was flawless. (Geesh, I was a brat!) Looking back, this attitude was partially a reaction to the fact that I never felt that I was truly accepted by Mexicans living here and partially a way for me to differentiate myself from every other Mexican. That was then.

As I grew older I made friends with people from other cultures and other backgrounds and perhaps it was because they were so different that I felt at home in their company. I felt safe. But it was merely a way for me to escape from the problem that this blog is about. How can you be Mexican and American at the same time? I don't know. And that's the point.