For the past year I have been going back and forth trying to
get comfortable with my Americanization. Being irritated with my parents for
allowing it doesn’t make them weak, it only requires me to be stronger. I
dislike when people assume I speak Spanish, but that depends on who is asking.
If a brown woman approaches me speaking Spanish I am embarrassed to explain “No
habla espanol”. I am embarrassed that I have linguistically assimilated. If a
white person assumes I only speak Spanish, I am offended that I am only allowed
one dimension. Angry to be pigeon holed. If they assume that I am bilingual two
things happen: I get embarrassed that I am not bilingual, thinking to myself I should
be, but I also wonder why they would assume I would be when I am in America
where our government and school system require that I speak English. Even if it
isn’t in stone, it is what is demanded, if not through policy then merely through
the paths allotted to attain the “American Dream”. Assimilation is taught to be
required, so why is anyone surprised. Isn’t my monolingualness what white America
has worked for? I am a good Mexican, a model minority. “SPEAK AMERICAN” is the obnoxious
equivalent. That is a blatant fact to me; I am the embodiment of it.
I have heard white men and women comment on how well I speak,
and I’ve heard my past Mexican boyfriends’ parents praise their son for finding
such an articulate, educated woman to spend time with. I receive positive attention for being Americanized
and rarely encounter (until recently) a push to be anything other. Never to be
a Chicana, never to learn Spanish, never to follow my blood through history to know
what happened to us. Nothing. It was of no concern, because I was where I needed
to be, on the way to the top, going through the motions, graduating, each step
of the way, slowly passing up my ancestors in education and class while leaving
them and my culture behind. Forgetting how and why I am able to be where I am. Cultural
genocide at its finest.
Wait . . . that’s actually
not completely true. Whenever I was confronted with my Americanization by some
BROWN people it was with disapproval, not understanding. Only hash judgment followed
by feelings of guilt. To those brown people, I am one to play victim and complain,
since to them what I really was, was a sellout. A weak sellout. I hate being
called that. But I’ll call my parents that. I’ll call Bill Cosby that.
If I hadn’t recently read Paulo Freire I would be tempted to
continue the cycle of condemning those who chose to assimilate to give their
kids or themselves a better life. And I still slip up and do it sometimes. Freire
mentions that the oppressed can find false liberation through the perpetuation
of oppression. The oppress oppressing the oppressed. Assimilation happens
sometimes in the act of the oppress oppressing each other, in the shaming of one’s
own culture, and in forgetting one’s culture, and in my case,not understanding
why some might have chose to assimilate. Even if assimilation is initially required
to succeed, the problem comes when you are taught to forget. No one should be
praising me for properly assimilating. No one should be condemning me either.
It should be recognized and rectified with remembrance. It is cultural genocide
to forget, and my ancestors past is already fading from the books and my tongue.
To assimilate, as I have seen it in America, is different
than just absorbing. I am not saying absorbing another culture is a problem.
But the kind of assimilation I see in America, Americanization, seems to require
you to replace your culture with American culture. I believe that’s how white
people in America became white people. Americanization calls white people, whites,
and not Polish-Americans, Irish-Americans, or German-American. But people of
color can never assimilate in that way. Even if our culture and language is
replaced I cannot escape the skin I’m in. I shouldn’t feel like I have to, right?
Then what is the difference between language and culture. It is easier to
replace my culture through education, media, and other institutions. It is less
obvious, less racist, then requiring me to eradicate my difference by altering my
appearance: dying my hair, changing my eye color, and bleaching my skin.
Although people have tried.
Someone had mentioned the complications of the portrayal of
minorities in the media as being white washed or stereotyped. If we look at The
Cosby Show critically, someone could call it white washed. Or someone could say
that calling it white washed is racist and denying the portrayal of black
families as happy, financial stable, “well spoken”, and academically successful.
It is the same conflictions I am faced with when asked if I speak Spanish.
If Bill Cosby had not assimilated (and condemned Ebonics),
then he wouldn’t have been allowed to be seen. He would have denied the black
community a visible and successful role model. If my parents hadn’t assimilated,
maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in this class talking shit. But what I want to do,
and what I am not always so keen to be able to spit out is to say
Bill Cosby is not
wrong, my parents are not wrong, but
they are also not right. I will no
longer condemn them, but American assimilation, Americanization, should not be
praised or accepted as a necessary evil.
What I will do is not only acknowledge americanization, point
it out and recognize the values, incentives and forces behind it, but work to
reverse the idea that it is necessary. The ideology and acceptance of changing
your language, forgetting your culture, and even denouncing your own to succeed
should be eradicated. Although I am not saying absorbing another culture and
langue is bad, is matter of fact I believe ideology should be promoted.But
American assimilation, Americanization, is not meant to be an absorption. It is
not taking in another culture to add to your library, but a replacement for
whatever it was you were before. You
have a right to your language. The problem is not your language, your skin; it
is not your culture. The problem is with the eyes, ears, and minds that the
judge it. It is with those who cannot accept with the same respect difference
in religion, cultural practices, skin color, or language. I will not be afraid
to offend my oppressor, and I will no longer accept American assimilation as a
necessary evil.
It is not necessary.
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