Ricardo Chavira Chicano

The Making of a Mexican

I am an ethnic Mexican. My ancestors, dating to the late 1700s, were from Chihuahua, Mexico. This is true of both sides of my family, making for a 100 percent Mexican bloodline. I am also a third-generation, U.S.-born American citizen.

So, what’s with the title? I will explain later.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I am an authentic American, no question. But my ethnicity sets me apart from European Americans. In 1950, the year I was born, “white” folks comprised fifty percent of LA County’s population.

European Americans comprised 89.5 percent of the population nationwide, making the United States a really white country.

Starting as a young boy, this overwhelming demographic dominance played with my head. White people were everywhere all the time. In TV shows and movies, white folks filled almost all the roles. On our family outings in LA, most of the people we encountered were European Americans.

The real-life European Americans and those we saw in TV series appeared well-to-do. Apparent proof of this was demonstrated on Halloween. At the time, we made sure to go on trick-or-treat runs in Glendale, a white upscale city adjacent to Los Angeles. Residents there handed out full-size chocolate bars, bags filled with M&Ms, and coins. Our neighbors gifted us bubble gum, candy corn, or penny candies.

Mexicans were poor and usually unskilled laborers. In movies and TV shows, Latinos were sinister or buffoonish. Ricky Ricardo’s rat-a-tat Spanish outbursts were inherently comical. The Bill Dana Show featured Latin American bellhop Jose Jimenez, whose heavily accented and tortured English was supposed to be hilarious.

We Mexicans and Latinos, in general, seemed almost insignificant in the world. Solidly underclass and ridiculous was who we were.

Imperceptibly, I wanted to wash away my Mexicaness and be a regular white boy. 

My father, a World War II vet and hardcore Mexican nationalist, acted as a counterweight. Time and again, he harangued me and my brother about the need to embrace our Mexican heritage firmly.

My father said we should learn Spanish, honor Mexican culture, be proud to be Mexican and love Mexico and its people. He even reminded us that where we lived was once part of Mexico, but European Americans stole it. We were not interlopers.

Then, he seemed to contradict himself by telling us that we were full-fledged Americans, conferring on us all the rights due to citizens. We were Mexican by blood, Dad said, and American by birth.

He pressed me to speak Spanish, arguing that fluency was indispensable to our cultural heritage.

I resisted learning a foreign language that would be useless to me in Southern California. Dad predicted that I would encounter monolingual Spanish speakers, and I would be ashamed of being unable to talk to them. I always replied that they ought to be embarrassed by their inability to speak the official language, English.

Mastering Spanish would underscore my Mexicaness. By telling myself I was a regular American, I would become one.

Then, in the spring of 1960, my father announced that summer, we would take a road trip deep into Mexico. It was a done deal.

I dreaded the upcoming vacation. My knowledge of Mexico was limited to trips to Ciudad Juarez. El Paso natives, Dad and Mom, went to their hometown with my brother, and I frequently spent much of their summers there.

 We always went to Juarez, a place I found exotic and exciting. The open-air markets smelled of mangos and corn tortillas cooking on grills. Smoke-spewing buses and traffic unbound by rules gave Juarez a jarring quality. It was a totally different world just a few hundred yards away from El Paso.

I concluded that Mexico would be a succession of Juarez-like towns. My brother and I were told nothing about the trip. All we knew was that Mexico City was our destination. Our grandparents would travel with us.

We departed LA one afternoon aboard a 1959 Chevrolet Impala. Somehow, the six of us, plus my baby brother, squeezed in. Six weeks later, we had visited ten Mexican states and the capital, El Distrito Federal.

Everything I saw, from the behemoth Mexico City to the majestic pyramids of Teotihuacan to the stunning beaches of Acapulco, was unimaginably captivating and enthralling. It should have come as no surprise that we would mingle with millions of Mexicans. Yet, I was stunned to see so many people who looked like me and my family.

The journey turned my world upside down. Mexicans created this vast, fantastic nation. I saw poverty, children working or begging, and the grittiness of an undeveloped country. However, I saw far beyond that.

I saw home. Mexico, not Los Angeles or the United States, felt like home in every way.

European Americans now seemed alien, not people who I aspired to be. Mexicans were my people; I knew and adored them and my land.

I have traveled to every part of Mexico, and my hundreds of trips and years of living there have strengthened my bond.

A few ancestry DNA tests concluded that I am predominantly Spanish. However, my two trips to Spain did not spark a sense of connection. I saw people with whom I shared facial features and language. Yet, I felt like a foreigner.

Again, I trace my ancestors back to the late 1700s in Chihuahua, Mexico. They lived in various parts of what was then a Spanish colony. Camargo, Chihuahua, is 547 miles from where I am sitting. Many others lived even closer to where my family and I live.

This proximity to my ancestral homeland is rare for most Americans. Their ancient roots are often in one or more European nations, places they have not visited.

Throughout my life, I have encountered Mexican Americans who keep Mexico at arm’s length. They don’t speak or understand Spanish, even if they are children of Mexican immigrants.

By contrast, Irish Americans are fiercely proud of who they are. Saint Patrick’s Day parades in Manhattan are huge, raucous, somewhat boozy, and colorful celebrations of Irishness.

Jews, Asians, and many other ethnic groups work assiduously to preserve and strengthen ties to the lands of their ancestors.

Too many ethnic Mexicans seem ashamed of who they are. Just like the old me, they are on the fool’s errand of magically blending with white America.

They end up being an oddity, people who fervently want to wash away their Mexicaness instead of proudly accepting it. 

So many of my people turn their backs on who they are. It is a sad spectacle.