Amerindian

  There are about a million bits of me that are all sorts of different flavors. I guess that's part of the reason people don't know what nationality I am when they look at me. And the answer is probably a little bit right in almost every case. Yes, I'm....Spanish, Irish, Italian, American Indian, Mexican, English...and bits more pieces in smaller portions. A dash of this and that. It makes my children a hodge-podge of even more ingredients. We are truly American. Products of the melting pot.

All that being said, I have a special connection to my Native American heritage in particular. My great-grandmothers family were full blooded Apache. Their particular tribe is still on the reservation in Southern New Mexico and one day I'd like to go back there - and take my children - so that we can reconnect with the earth where our people are from. From what I can tell from the photos of the area on the Internet, it is at a higher elevation where there are pine forests and a ski lodge during the winter.

I have studied these people enough to know that their connection to certain things in this world is definitely still reflected in me. There are features of mine that are very strongly Apache and easily recognizable if you know what to look for - and in other ways I look nothing like them. But I "remember" their music, I love their food, I honor their traditions, and I proudly claim my Apache heritage whenever asked. We (Native Americans in general and Apaches in particular), of course, have a bad rap in the areas of both alcohol consumption and anger management. But anyone who knows me will tell you that I normally don't drink at all - rarely have more than one - and I've only been Drunk twice in my life. I just don't have a taste for it. In the area of anger management - I'm as cool as a cucumber. Jenn has seen me really angry only two or three times ever. Toni recently saw it for the first time. Some have never seen me upset and they've known me for years. You have really got to try hard to cross me into a fit of anger. I can throw around a few coarse words, but angry? No, thanks. I'm on a pretty even keel, even if I am upset. So, there you have it - the most sober and huggin all over you Apache you've ever met. That's me.

Apaches are usually pretty formal with gender roles and proximity of space with non family members. Not me. I'm all up on you. I rarely adhere to personally space rules and sometimes make others uncomfortable with my lack of what they think is a basic understanding. Oh, well. I figure life's too short to not be dishing out the love. For entirely too long, I was in a relationship with someone who was not this way - he was very stand-off-ish and everyone in their own space. I hated it, but became accustomed to it over time. I won't do that again - lesson learned. The girls, luckily, are usually climbing all over me to the point of me having to peel them off. I'm blessed.

And all of it wouldn't be possible without my Great-Great Grandmother Trancito. She was a fiesty old woman who spoke no English and was always in the kitchen or with her yarn in her lap. She lived and lived and lived some more. She was alive until I was in high school - no one knows how old she was because there is no official record of when she was born on the reservation. But let me tell you, Chica looked like she had been here for at least a hundred years. I thank my lucky stars I have her blood flowing through my veins. Thank you, Grandma. I miss your face.

My girls know this heritage thoroughly. Julia has more Apache in her attitude than the rest of us combined, but I know she comes by it naturally, because I see that old ladies glint in her eye.

Now, let's turn the page...

My Great Grandfather (who married Trancito's daughter) was a man named Leopoldo. He was born in Juarez, Mexico in 1906 and died just a few years ago here in Fountain Valley, Ca. (Hello...the people in my family live Forrrrever...sweet).

Back up a step - did you see where he was born? Juarez, Mexico. He was just a boy when his family left that town and came across the border to El Paso. And when he was old enough to work, he joined in building the railroad and followed it all the way to the Pacific. Long Beach, to be specific, but I digress...

My Papa Leo was born in that town more than a century ago. Today, that region is a battle zone. The drug cartels and their corresponding agents are waging war on each other in the streets. While Mexico has a long and dirty record for corrupt cops and government, this is different, this is a faction of the underbelly that is fed by that corruption. The citizens are being held hostage - unable to go to work or school or even down to the store for fear of being caught in the crossfire and not knowing who (if anyone) to trust.

This is an article about our Presidents trip to Mexico on Thursday; http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/obama.mexico/index.html?iref=newssearch

I have no brilliant answers. But I must put this information into the collection conscious of as many people as possible. The citizens there are suffering and something must be done. Innocents are dying.

These are also my people.

I am Mestizo. Spanish and Native. Amerindian. A product of the fabled Aztlan on both sides of my mothers family - the area of the planet that is currently the American Southwest, but was once Northern Mexico after the Spanish conquest, a land that would provide for the nomadic tribes that wandered through the harsh desert and before that, just earth under the stars and sun belonging to no one.

I am American. Melting pot style.

We are all in this together.

People of the Sun by Rage Against the Machine 

***photo of an Apache girl that I swiped off wikipedia :)

Comments

[Toni]

Love this history lesson of "you". Yes, I recently saw this "anger", but I was completely in awe of how you kept it all in check. I could see the wheels spinning inside that brain of how you were taking it all in and analyzing the entire thing. Kudos for being a cool cucumber! This is a trait that I wish I had. You are an amazing girl with mad skills!!

xoxoxoxoxo

[jenn]

I think it a great thing that you can take the best parts of the melted pieces and make the most of your life and be an individual. Take it from me, drunks come in all shapes and sizes and I don't think there are any known cases of unabomber types that are Indian. It is kinda cool how we come from different sides of that track (my great grandfather was there at the stand down of Sitting Bull)and now we get to go down the same track. peace and love baby, peace and love.

[jenn]

...we get to go down the same track together. bah

[jenn]

Wait, are you descended from the Quillette wolves? If so, let me know when Ed-word comes around.