Pieces: Part One

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me knows that I come from a biracial family. I am exceptionally proud of the fact that I grew up in a house where five languages were spoken, although my friend KP argues that ASL (American Sign Language) doesn't count as a "spoken" language. Between the two of them my parents speak Spanish, German, Latin, ASL, and occasionally, English.

When I was younger I rather enjoyed shocking people by telling them that my grandfather was an illegal alien and swam the Rio Grande to get into the United States.  Dozens of times. I particularly enjoy a retelling of the story of my little brother telling his elitist, old money, private school, classmates that his grandfather was a "wetback." 

I also enjoy telling people that my mother's family are ethnically German... in every way. We used to joke that it was illegal to show any emotion other than vague tolerance and muted boredom at the dinner table. Similarly once a child turned ten it was no longer permissible to be show physical affection to said child, by anyone.

On the opposite end of the scale my Mexican Family consider it a great insult to enter a room without kissing all relatives on both cheeks and hugging everyone. Additionally it is psychologically impossible to have a conversation without the use of raised voices, emphatic hand motions, and gasps of surprise at every tedious revelation. The greatest social insult would be to NOT talk and touch to anyone but to glare at them somberly from the corner.

AND YET, the one thing that has stayed with me more than anything else that my Mother told me as a teenager, is that my brothers, my sisters, and I got the best of both worlds.  I didn't believe her... then.

Coming from such a wealth of background that made up lots of tiny pieces of my whole, one can only imagine what it was like leaving the nest.  Such a strange new world of people who came from only one or two race and it made me laugh.  To be fair it doesn't take much to make me laugh but when I realized my Mother was right I didn't laugh at all. In my early years she would tell me that coming from such different cultures that she felt we always got the best of both worlds- the hands on parenting with steady consistence rules and expectations from my German family and the constant affection and entertainment from my Mexican relatives.

And then I moved to Texas.  I've written in the past about my love for cowboys and meeting a real life John Wayne was one of my big motivations for moving to Texas. Well I met one... two years ago... and I learned an important life lesson. Some cowboys are jerks.

To read the second part of this post click here.