Another Move Another Parting and Another Time to Grow
As short as I am I find that despite the number of years that I am here on this earth I can continue to grow and learn. Of course some of what I learn is very heartening such as the following link from Richard Rodriguez, whose writings endear him and separate him from my sense of Latinidad. During the latest anti-immigrant movements, Rodriguez spoke out: This essay on npr seems to support my contention that those of us who are children of people not born in the US have many conflicts which in time must be healed. Rodriguez' recent writings seem to indicate that he, like so many of us in similar positions, have reached the age when we can unite our beliefs. It is in part a process of what my Mother used to call the ancestors calling to us. "La Sangre Llama" she would say meaning that sooner or later those of our ancestors must be heard, heeded, and in a very real way incorporated into our very beings.
Toni Morrison might call this the process of rememories or our due to our ancestors who had worked so hard to survive the trials of their lives to make it possible for us to live a better life today.
Unlike Rodriguez and Morrison, I haven't felt for a long time that I've written enough about this reconnection, although I've taught it a lot in many classes. Now that I've been given the opportunity to not work at yet another institution, I feel that mi gente are telling me to get a life that requires living on less and writing more. However, I would like my writing to help the many of us who are hybrid americans and to be proud of being thus. The thrust to assimilation is damaging to families and to the individual psyche and thus does not work. In a recent talk, my colleague Francisco Noe Tamayo, Jr. indicated the personal family tug of war between his son and his dad because of the demand for assimilation and loss of home languages. These situations should not take place for all humans deserve the respect and allegiance of family first and nation later.
Bueno more later
Toni Morrison might call this the process of rememories or our due to our ancestors who had worked so hard to survive the trials of their lives to make it possible for us to live a better life today.
Unlike Rodriguez and Morrison, I haven't felt for a long time that I've written enough about this reconnection, although I've taught it a lot in many classes. Now that I've been given the opportunity to not work at yet another institution, I feel that mi gente are telling me to get a life that requires living on less and writing more. However, I would like my writing to help the many of us who are hybrid americans and to be proud of being thus. The thrust to assimilation is damaging to families and to the individual psyche and thus does not work. In a recent talk, my colleague Francisco Noe Tamayo, Jr. indicated the personal family tug of war between his son and his dad because of the demand for assimilation and loss of home languages. These situations should not take place for all humans deserve the respect and allegiance of family first and nation later.
Bueno more later
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