Here Lies a Mexican: A Memoir

by Fatima Zarco Gomez

 

Shame crept into my life and silently wrapped its black fingers around my heritage. There have been many times I’ve tried to scrub away my brown skin and countless moments where I’ve shied away from wearing braids to not look like “la india Maria.” No, I could not tell you how many times I had been ashamed of my heritage, but I could tell you why I was.

         As a little girl, I was the ultimate definition of a well-mannered Mexican child. I was a poster girl in my family for what a child should be: silent, still, clean, and funny.

Jaja que graciosa

Ay habla muy bien.

Que linda la nina.

Yet, slowly I began to realize that my poster was only being shown to my family–my culture. My picture was only made for Latin Americans. The once long silky black hair I sported might as well have been tar compared to the gold-blonde strands that pranced through my small school. Yes, my skin did not match with the fashion trends of 2011, and at eight years old, I knew I didn’t fit the Anglo beauty standards. Nevertheless, the shadowy figure of shame didn't swallow me just yet, as there was still a place for my poster elsewhere.

         As any average Mexican household is, we were avid churchgoers. Every Sunday my mother would round up the house and ensure everyone was in order. She’d sit me on her stool in front of her old mahogany vanity–one of the most expensive things she owned–and only after she pulled, yanked, stretched, and gave me a homemade facelift did she then slather me with a canister of gel. All this so that I wouldn’t risk embarrassing her or my father by looking like a mugrosa when I ran around. Aside from my pristine appearance, I knew all the prayers and biblical stories in Spanish and English through and through. I had proven myself worthy of my father’s love and mother’s praise. There I was the best and the brightest. There I had the most beautiful dress, shoes, and hair. There I was made room for but, outside of the church grounds, beyond the stone wall that my dirty friends and I so often jumped off of, there was no room for me.

         Once Sunday passed, it was back to reality and the truth of it was that I was not the best or brightest. I sported clothing from the thrift store and pulga. I even had the wrong skin color, but above all these atrocities, I had a dirty mouth. Yes, I remembered when my third-grade teacher first pointed it out!

         “¿Cómo haces tu pelo así?” le pregunte.

         “No se, mi mamá me lo hace,” ella respondió.

         “Yo quiero mi pelo como el tuyo. Lo quiero–”

         “Hey! You’re not allowed to speak Spanish here, ya got it?” Mr. Anglo interrupted.

         I was dumbfounded. I had never been told not to speak, but I remembered glancing at my foul-mouthed friend next to me, and I noticed this was not the first time he had made his ignorance clear to her. Her bouncing curls, which we had just been raving about, couldn’t disguise her face when the corner of her lips softened. I watched in confusion, still reeling in from the interrupted thought, and peered up at my teacher. I examined his silver see-through hair and humongous glasses. He was my teacher. My educator, my leader, my wisdom-filled adult, my guardian for the day, my teacher! Oh my god, I knew it was wrong, so wrong, yet I heeded his word and kept quiet. Oh, how easy it was to stay silent.

         I spent the remainder of the day focusing on this task. No Spanish. In fact, I didn’t remember any lessons from that point on. This order troubled me so much that I told Mamá. As I came in through the door, tired from the day, I hoped she would rectify a wrong, that fiery justice would be served as was per usual when her darling daughter was bullied, but instead, she sighed. Nodding her head she looked and shrugged her shoulders. A small ridicule of the teacher was given, but it was private, and the larger lecture she gave was that sometimes teachers just work that way, and I needed to listen for now. Suddenly, my mother seemed incredibly small. She was no longer a fiery ball of justice nor a picture of strength. She was a victim. So I sat there, quiet and still, and watched this small silhouette of a woman shrink and put newly washed dishes to dry in a deafening silence.

         Following this, and by the recommendation of Mr. Anglo, I had been put into a program made for foul-mouthed children like me. This program took the recommended children–all of whom were Latinos–and pulled them out during class hours to be taught an old lesson again, but in Spanish. I thought to myself,

         Why am I being put in this?

         My reading skills are great and I speak English just fine.

         Is it because I'm Mexican?

         Is it because I spoke Spanish earlier?

         Or is it because my parents used to be immigrants?

         Still, I had been put into an English Language learner program. I did not understand anything except the fact that I was different, and for that crime, my punishment had to be separation.

         After this incident, I learned two things: Spanish, bad. English, good. I had to better myself and become smarter for the sake of my family and my future. Therefore, I leaned into my love for reading and writing. I studied alone for vocabulary tests and aced every single one. I became a star reader, the fastest typer, an excellent English student, and I scrubbed my foul mouth clean.

         Here lies the Mexican: Fatima Zarco Gomez. Lover of piñatas, reggaeton, thrift stores, and Spanish.

With this, however, came consequences. As I grew out of my elementary years and entered middle school I didn't realize that I had shoved my heritage into a corner of my mind. I felt guilty. So to refresh my memory, and above all, achieve an easy A, I enrolled in a Spanish class in 7th grade.

         Ah yes, how hard could it be? I already know Spanish, I thought to myself. I remember striding in confidently. I was ready to please my teacher and excited to finally have the upper hand. But just like always, I still wasn't right for the role of: ‘exemplary student.’ As the Anglo teacher walked in, she immediately started to slur her syllables as she spoke and an incessant sound like spit being smushed by her tongue and teeth kept coming out. Lentes became gafas, carro became coche, and papa became patata. My head began to hurt and all I could think was oh. Even my own Spanish that I had grown up with was inadequate for this outside world that feigned to be welcoming me in. Of course, I thought. If this world wanted any Spanish at all it would not be my dirty kind.

         Despite this, I had continued to take Spanish classes until my junior year of high school when I became fed up with not knowing what was supposed to be right. In fact, that corner of my mind which was occupied with my culture was now locked up tight. I didn't want it anymore and I didn’t care that I didn't care. So I engulfed myself in my surroundings and tried my best to blend in once and for all. I made all the right friends with all the right faces. I became a cheerleader and dismissed my old friend group. I lost the ghetto accent and attempted to wear the right clothes and say the right things. For a while there, this all worked. I had been a C-grade student on the cheer team with a new group of friends and I loved that everything around me was starting to feel meant for me. But then this bubble popped and I graduated high school.

         I found myself released into the real world where popularity didn't matter and the once comforting bosom of privilege was gone. It was when I first attended junior college that I started to chip away at this persona that I had built for my safety. There was such a variety of people in my classes. There were people with children, married couples, teenagers, people of color, and brave souls with their own unique styles. I remember everyone being so unafraid to be themselves and speak their minds. I caught myself judging others who had done nothing to me and started to feel bad about it. Suddenly my professors began to teach about all the feelings I held inside and explained why I had them. I learned of oppression, segregation, microaggressions, racism, and ignorance. It wasn’t until this point that I realized the reason I had learned my golden rule–Spanish bad–was because others had forced me to. I was a victim of my environment and from there I began to mourn my heritage for the first time in years. I longed for my tongue to curl and create the once beautiful language I had known fluently. I yearned for connection with my grandparents who only spoke my dead language, but most of all, I was ashamed.

         I was ashamed to admit to myself that I was no longer comfortable in what was rightfully mine. This shame only intensified when I went to Lola’s–a Mexican grocery store–and felt like I didn’t belong. I was disgusted by the smell of the raw meat from the butcher, I hated the unshiny and brown spotted fruit, I despised the flies buzzing around the produce, and more than anything else, I hated that I felt like everyone was staring at me. My clothes weren't correct, my Spanish was intermediate at best, and I made the mistake of using the alien language, English. In that moment it felt as if all the women in the store had stopped picking their fruit, turned to face me, and simultaneously chanted, you don’t belong here. As the women spun around me and the chanting turned to screams, they began to blend and, just then, everything stopped. I looked past the buzzing flies, made out the colors of pink and brown to rediscover the panadería. I walked over to peer through the glass and found the conchas I once ravaged. Without warning, I began to scan the scratched trays and finally, right there, I spotted the yoyos mi papá me compraba despues de salir de trabajar. A warmth started to wash over me as I turned around and saw the store with new eyes. I found colorful walls, vibrant music, creative decorations, and the oh-so-lovely smell of guava fruit. I saw brown women with plastic baggies in hand and smiling tubby children who were running rampant around the produce boxes. I saw dirt-covered men wearing neon green shirts who were waiting in line with their hard-earned dollars for a cold beer and a bag of chips or meat. I saw myself. After this, I perused the aisles with enlightened eyes and felt at home.

         With the return of my sight and mind, I reclaimed my culture. I put myself to work and started to sort out the mess inside the box shame had tucked away so long ago. I have begun to relearn my language, detangle the parts of me that are trained with hatred or disgust, and work to find who I was always supposed to be again. So here I sit, with my highlighted blonde hair, hair that I now wish to dye black again, and write of my revival. I write this as a commitment to myself to find what I was once forced to lose. I can not count on my dry brown fingers how many times shame took my heritage and hid it away, but I can say with absolute certainty and pride that nadie me lo va a quitar otra vez.