This is the first time that I've intentionally blogged just for a carnival. Fab asks some really great questions to get us all started. And of course, I've blogged about my desire to get more involved in Latina issues/community before.

But I'm not sure that I've ever blogged about what I'm actually looking for. So here it is:

31yoLatina ISO safe space to discover/reclaim Latina heritage and give back to the Latina community despite lack of Spanish skills.

And because I've been to utterly horrible at finding a safe place in real life, I've started to find bloggers who seem to love me despite my lack of Latina street cred as well as a few bulletin boards. So here I am. Still discovering all the wonderful things that makes up being a Latina after all these years. I wonder if this is just a little bit what indigenous children feel like after they were forced from their parents into a white home? I know it's not the same, but in order to 'fit into' this country, my family made the decision to not be as Mexican as we could had been. As Mexican as other families in the community.

I reflect on this fact of my life as this country is going thru a 'debate' on immigration and what speaking a native/heritage language means in terms of citizenship or loyalty. Wrapped into this discussion is also a revisiting of why or should we teach multiculturally. Should we have classes in high schools about Mexican history? Should we allow our children to learn Chinese in 4th grade? Most of the reasons why we should are couched in that we are a global world, a global economy and for this generation to be competitive, we need to give them those skills. Why we can't just say that it would be good for us to know where our ancestors came from is beyond me. To know that we all had a similar journey to this country? That a lot of us faced the same discrimination? I loved seeing photos of Irish and Mexican activists at the immigration marches.

You really do miss something when you ignore your background. Whether it is food or knowledge of certain holidays, you do miss it. This must be what fuels some people to spend lots of energy and money on tracing their family back generation upon generation. What is the story that we're missing?

OK, I've rambled on enough. This was meant to be a good blog post, but now it's just a ramble. Thanks for still reading!

Labels: latina