Id Really Rather Cite My Friend Chuy From Junior High

I've been working on this dissertation prospectus for some time. Sometimes i'm accompanied by a nice cold beer, a cafe, a tequilita, a corrido on repeat or los primos, hermanos, and friends on facebook. As I finish a thought or a section I drink, say hi to folks and occasional get distracted by a good conversation. 

Today I was fb chatting with Israel and trying to make sense of Mexican identity in the United States. Particularly the relationship between discrimination and the formation of a Mexican identity among the children of migrants. As I finished the sentence I remembered that Smith's Mexican New York made the exact same argument. As as "good" graduate student I cited him, yet  what I really wanted to say was: "For more on the relationship between racialization and identity formation talk to high school youth or children of migrants. While so and so author have made this point, my insight comes from growing up Mexican in Goleta and Pomona, California." I related my thought to Israel and he raised some interesting questions. Should he cite the numerous conversations he has had with his grandfather about being a Bracero? What about the stories he heard as a child? 

And while anthropologist use field work to allow these types of voices to inform their narrative and argument and historians Oral History I'm not sure that is our point. I think its about the marginal space that these voices and actors (our families and friends) and WE occupy in academia. For those of us who want to be objective, but feel our emotions and experiences to be valid, we struggle with what to do with the relationship between our history and our scholarship. While we all agree that our past informs our work, why can't we cite el tio, el abuelo, and the fools from the block instead of books and articles? Why is our language and evidence based outside of ourselves, our communities? 

[it would be lame to not mention the various related conversations and late night with hector, daniel, froy, diego and others in DF]

South el Monte to La Roma (DF)....

I have a tio who I love, almost all the time! He knows more about Chicano/a history and Los Angeles than I do. To make matter worse el tio can dance  TODO! Yes,  TO-DO.

When I was an undergrad at UCLA and told him I was taking Chicano/a studies classes he quizzed me on Luis Valdez... After answering correctly he told me he was part of el teatro campesino...

Lesson learned: el tio lived what I was studying...

Years later when I told el tio that I was earning/writing my masters on La crisis de los 1980s, he recited an immense amount of jokes from the era... luckly, I knew most of them...

When I told el tio I was going to New York to study Mexico he smiled and said, "Sobrino, y por que no te vas a Mexico?" (damn... good question...)

The summer between year 1 and 2 at a carne asada con el otro tio in Pico Rivers el Tio asked "a ver Sobrino, que estudias, QU-E estudias?" 

I humbly replied, "bueno tio, la 'migration'." I was surprised when he said "ese es mi sorbrino. por eso te quiero cabron." With a measure of self-assurance and confidence I began to tell him about my project. It was going well until he asked me if had read La Vida inutil de Pito Perez... Shit! Damn it! I not only had not read the damn book, but had never EVEN HEARD of it... El Tio walked away, got in his car and drove away... 30 minutes later he came back with La Vida inutil de Pito Perez, a copy from the 1950s. The book was originally published in the late 1930s by a Mexican author. Its a great story about a poet who pays a migrant in DRINK to tell him stories about his experiences...

I'm in Mexico City... Just returned from having drinks with Froylan Enciso, Diego Flores Magon, and Daniel Hernandez articulating a transnational project: A Mexico-Chicano/a intellectual/artistic project (more to come on that). After a long night, I return to my residence (Froylan/Guillermo's spot) to find that the novel was written NEXT DOOR!. 

If thats not the circle of life (think lion king). If that not South El Monte-Mexico City. If thats not Chicano-Mexicano connection... Bueno you get it. Shit works itself out. There is a master plan, well at least a transnational one.

Mexican schools are weird.

Sure, I wanted to wake up early. Last night after reading some memorable passages from the short novel, La Piel Muerta, I told myself, “I will wake up early and write.” But what I really meant was, I will wake up at some reasonable hour (10am), shower, eat breakfast and write for 3 hours and then read for 4. A good 7 hours before starting my new French class (7:30pm-10:30).

 

What I didn’t know when I went to bed was that across the street there would be a graduation at 8am. That little boys and girls in blue uniforms would walk to receive a diploma (at least it looked like a diploma) while Radiohead’s Creep played for the entire neighborhood to hear. Yes. Radiohead. 8am for a graduation. As I heard the words, “I wish I was special, your so fucken special, but I’m a creep” I thought of calling my friend Daniel and telling him I had found an elementary that produces the emo’s of tomorrow. WHY else could they possibly be playing CREEP during a transitional moment of Mexico’s future teachers, engineers, politicians? Creep was followed by BitterSweet Symphony and a little girl talking about “our” responsibility. As I prepared breakfast I muttered, almost unconsciously, “KISS ASS.” Maybe I was upset that her words had undone the previous work of the Verve and Radiohead: why couldn’t I remain in the past for a few more minutes! OR at least in bed, sleeping, waiting for a reasonable hour before I got back to being a responsible student.