The Making of a Chicana

I am first generation Mexican-American that was raised in an agricultural area…There were lots of white kids at my school. Mostly kids of citrus farm growers.

After school, we would buy candy at the convenience store near by and there were Mexicanos shopping there after their long day of picking oranges. The kids would say Oooh the dirty Mexicans are here! They would call them names like beaner, ditch digger or wetback….. And right in front of Me!

They would Catch themselves and say, Not You Though. Your not like a Real Mexican.”

Translation: Real Mexicans were dirty, less than, not worthy of respect from a child.

My teachers publicly corrected my accent, they Anglo-sized my name, they showed frustration with me.

I felt like something wasn’t fair – but my parents were too consumed with survival to get involved in the education of or emotional survival of their children.

My parents were an industrious, young, good looking couple. They were the first of the whole Hernandez family to purchase their own home.

I should have been proud of them. But because the kids made fun of all Mexicans, and they were Super Mexican—I was ashamed of them as a child. – That is the only thing about my childhood I wish I could change.

Things got more complicated when in junior high I was bussed to an even more rural, less integrated school. There I was put on a non-academic track. My counselors would put me in the required courses and all of my electives were centered around making stuff—wood shop, mechanics, cooking, sewing…I took Home economics (twice).

I was clearly being trained for a service job.

I didn’t think it was fair, I didn’t think it was right, my parents wouldn’t dare contradict the school officials and so I stayed the course.

As a child I was unable to intellectualize the discrimination that I felt. I knew I could do more but I was put on the track to no-where.

In my world, the only Latinos I saw were in a subordinate position. There were no Mexican heroes, no one around to show us our history. No one to tell us our self-worth.

My self-hatred found relief when in High school, a friend invited me to church.

For the first time I heard that there was a God, that the creator of the Universe created me for a purpose, that he knew my name, that he saw me, that I wasn’t alone. That I can do all things—thru Christ who strengthens me.

That message didn’t change my circumstances… – but it changed me.

I was empowered.

With my new love of self, I took a chance and applied to college…And I actually got accepted.  Probably the most unexpected event in my life till that point.

In college, for the first time I heard about the shared struggle of Chicanos, of Blacks, of marginalized people groups in America.

I learned that the racism, discrimination, the oppression, the negativity that I grew up with, was not exclusively mine.

It was a shared experience by people of color and even to a much greater degree.

I remember looking up from my Chicano Studies textbook and saying, “why hasn’t anybody told me this before?” How could all of this history been kept a secret at me!

I felt like the history I was taught in was a fraud—a farce.

I was pissed.

I was indignant

I grew hatred.

….But I disliked the feeling of being mad and distrusting.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, I knew that the greatest commandment was to Love God and love my neighbor as my self. Even if my neighbor was unkind.

So, I channeled my passion into activism and served as an organizer for the United Farm Workers for a few years. –I joined just a couple of years after Cesar’s death.

Those years were formative, I worked along side people who had chosen to live an uncomfortable life to serve invisible farm workers. We were bold, we were anti-establishment, and we were fearless. We were serving those that served us and feed us every day. — It was meaningful work.

But working for farmworkers wasn’t going to pay the bills.

I left that life to pursue a career in the public sector and the legal field.

And For years I suppressed the passionate activist in me –

I suppressed that righteous indignation for Injustices, I straightened my bent towards activism because I didn’t want my employers to think I was some Militant Chicana.

Is it possible that so many years of playing respectability politics had gone by, that I had blocked the most formative years of my life from my immediate memory?