When doing this project, I felt like I got the chance to connect more with my parents. There were some misconceptions that I had about how they were raised and what exactly their childhoods were like and by asking them questions about their culture I got the chance to clear some of them up. The lives they had in Mexico that I saw in my head were not the lives they really lived. I thought my dad had farmland but then he told me about the systems they had in place where people had to rent land in order to grow their crops. The space you had was what you could afford and I thought it was really eye-opening. I also thought my mom was raised to be a mom, not realizing that there wasn’t really much of a choice. There weren’t many job opportunities, especially in the village that both my parents are from. Women only had the option of being mothers. It’s a reminder on how much people’s lives can vary depending on where they are born, even if its something as small as a different borough or entire continents.

Me: “Okay Pa so do you know what I’m asking you to do? Did you understand?”

Dad: “Of course! Yes.”

Me: “Okay first question. Why do you speak English?”

Dad: “Look at it this way, it’s a way for a person like us…. To learn the language of the country where you live at gives you more opportunities. I had more opportunities to communicate at work with people and learn easier. If you speak English, you get more money and have higher value.”

Me: “What did you work as in Mexico?

Dad: “When I was young I used to help build houses. I was a helper. I cultivated corn, beans pumpkins, peanuts, sesame seeds, jamaica leaves using my own seeds on land that I rented. Rented? There’s a better word for it.”

*goes on a tangent about what jamaica leaves are called in English which my mom says is hibiscus flower*

Me: “What did you do here in America?

Dad: “I do a whole bunch of things. When I first got here I was a dishwasher. Then I was a stockboy at a Korean deli. You know, I put things on shelves. Then when I started learning English I became a busboy. As I learned I became a food runner and then a barback.

*goes on a tangent about what a barback does and how they help the bartender*

Then I became a waiter. Oh, put that I was a pizza man too somewhere between.

Me: ”Ok what do you do now?”

Dad: “I’m a food prepper.”

Me: “How about music? Did the music you listen to change at all?”

Dad: “Nope.”

Me: “It’s stayed the same since you were a kid right?

Dad: ”Yes.”

Me: “Ok, how about religion?”

Dad: “I’m a catholic. Hasn’t changed.”

Me: “Do you think you have the same faith now as you did then?

Dad: “Eh.”

Me: “What about food? You used to eat more culturally right?”

Dad; “Yes. Now you guys are spoiled. You eat from so many cultures, vietnamese, columbian, chinese….

*goes on to list as many cultures as he knew.”

I cook a lot of whatever. I am versatile when I cook.”

Me: “What was it like coming here?”

Dad: “I was 17 years old when I came here. I stayed until I was 24.”

Me: “And then you went back right?”

Dad: “I returned and I met your mom. I married her and then I came back with her when she was pregnant. Here she became your mom.”

Me: “Okay something boring. Did you ever wear any cultural clothing?”

Dad: “No. Nothing.”

Me: “Not even something like a sombrero?”

Dad: “Nope.”

At this point my Mom walks in, from here our conversation is in spanglish/spanish. I translated it with a lot of artistic liberty.

Me: “Mom how come you don’t speak english?”

Mom: “But why!? It’s not necessary.”

Me: “Oh wow.”

Dad: “She never had a need to. She doesn’t work. She doesn’t socialize with people who speak english. At home we speak Spanish to her. She doesn’t need English. Obviously she’s learning more now because we speak English around her. She knows more than what she used to. She didn’t need English like I did.”

Me: “True. Okay Mom why did you stop making the ofrenda?”

Mom: “Because I don’t know if I was making it right. There’s a way to make it and I don’t want to do it if it isn’t proper. Also there’s no space. You need a table or a corner to do it right.”

Me: “Did you make one when we were younger? I only remember a few times you made one.”

Mom: “No. I only started making them when your uncle passed away. It was only for two years that I made them. They took up space we don’t have so I stopped.”

Me: “Did you make them in Mexico?”

Mom: “No. My mom made them. She knows how to make them right.”

Me: “Ohh. Pa, what about culture? What is expected of you guys in Mexico?”

Dad: “Well, the Mexican mentality of the husband is to….”

Me: “Provide?”

Dad: “Yes! Provide. To provide everything for the home. For the family. The mom is in charge of the house, she is the one raising the baby, breastfeeding. It’s natural.”

Me: “Mom was raised to be a mother right? I mean she got married at 17 and flew to the US and became a mother.”

Dad: “Not really. It’s just expected to happen. It’s part of the culture. There aren’t a lot of career options. In Mexico she didn’t work, she stayed in the house with her parents.”

Me: “Okay well I think that’s all I need for now. If I need anything else I’ll ask you later. Thank you Pa.”

The culture we were raised in has a significant impact on the way we live our lives. You can take someone out of the culture they grew up in, but you can’t take the culture out of them. It shapes what they idealize, what they expect of others, the goals they set for themselves, what motivates them to keep going. It’s ingrained and impacts places that we wouldn’t expect. At the same time, taking someone out of the culture can cause changes that are present in the next generation. Their original culture becomes hidden as they try to assimilate to the new culture around them. Certain aspects go missing and may never return.

I don’t know when I made this realization, but one day it just hit me that my dad speaks English. It wasn’t the fact that he could speak English, it’s the fact that he could speak it extremely well. He had a fluency that surprised me. If there was an accent you could hear, it was very slight. The difference between my Dad speaking English and my Mom trying to speak was night and day. I don’t mean to be rude but you can tell my Mom is an immigrant when she talks in English. It is very broken but the good thing is that she has gotten a lot better at it over the years. What’s cool to me though is the reason that my dad can speak English well while my Mom can’t, can be tracked down to the culture my parents grew up in. 

There are different expectations on what you are supposed to do in life depending on your gender. The gender roles of Mexico are a lot more apparent than in America. The man is expected to provide while the woman is expected to create. I always liked this comparison, it’s not an original idea, but someone out there said that the man provides the house and the woman makes it a home. It’s cheesy but I think it’s true. In America, both people in a relationship are expected to share the responsibilities while in Mexico, the responsibilities are split depending on if you’re male or female. The dad has to work like a donkey to make sure the family has food to eat while the mom has to make that food, provide a safe environment for the kids, and to make sure they don’t go dumb by making sure they are educated. I wonder if Mexican culture allowed for people like my Mom to have goals/dreams of her own. Or did all she know was to become a mother? Was my Mom happy to leave everything she knew at 17 years old just to raise a family in a world completely foreign to her? If she was born here she had a real chance of getting a career and making a living on her own.

My dad is expected to work and do what he has to do to make sure his wife and kids have a home to sleep in and food to eat. He used to work at a job that paid less than minimum wage because he was an immigrant. To get a job that provided him with a living wage, he had to learn English. Landing a job at a restaurant where it was expected of him to know English or he would get fired was a surprisingly good motivator to become fluent in English. Knowing English is what gets you respect and provides you with opportunities previously kept from you. Learning English had no impact on his Spanish speaking. I could imagine losing touch of your native tongue could be a possibility, being away for so long while speaking a different language.

           In Mexico, family is the most important thing. Here in America, people are a lot more individualistic. It seems that living in America has affected my parents. They don’t have a desire to reach out to the cousins who live in America and those cousins don’t make the effort either. Considering the togetherness of Mexican culture, this is bizarre. 

          My family didn’t bring their culture to America. My dad never wore a sombrero and my mom never wore a traditional dress. When they came here they only brought the food and their language. The food I grew up with was a mix of Mexican and other dishes my dad saw at his work that he wanted to cook for us. The only traditions I knew were eating tamales during the holidays and the setting up of an ofrenda. The ofrenda only happened for two years of my life when it became relevant to my Mom. After that I never saw it again. I think I just made a realization that my culture and its traditions make a return whenever they feel they want to be closer with each other.

          Overall, I could see that there was a shift in culture between my generation and theirs. They grew up in a Mexican village with not much and were not involved with what would be considered traditional culture. What they brought when they came to America were their beliefs, food, and language. Over time Mexican culture was swapped out for American culture as it was necessary to their survival in this country. Despite being Mexican by blood, I won’t ever truly feel Mexican because of the changing cultures my parents experienced.