There is a saying in Spanish for the children of immigrants, “Ni de aqui, ni de allà “. It translates to: neither from here nor from there. As a mixed child of immigrants, it is hard to feel like you belong in either place.
Whenever I go to Mexico, I immediately feel like I don’t fit in. Most people in my mom’s hometown are 100% indigenous with a short stature, straight hair, and traditional clothing. Most of the American kids who visit have two indigenous parents, so they at least look similar to the townspeople. But I stick out. My dad is from a different region with very different features. Those features being curly hair and a taller stature.
Then I come back to school, and I am one of four students with Mexican heritage. Although, growing up in LA has made me feel like a part of a community. I cannot imagine how hard it would be for people growing up in predominantly white spaces. Sometimes I feel like I am too Mexican, and it is a hard balance.
I think the saying is ignorant. As more immigrants come to this country, there is a community for us to belong to. In cities with a lot of Latinos, a culture is forming. In LA, there is a stereotype of the average city Latino. As much as people want to exclude us from their spaces, we will make our own space and thrive. I am from both here and there.
When you turn 18, 90-96 percent of the time you will ever spend with your parents is over.
When I read that, I was pretty shocked. Logically, it makes sense. Your parents care for you as a child, and then you leave home to lead your individual life. You make your own way and surround yourself with the people you choose. At times, visiting home seems to be an onerous chore.
However, I’ve gotten closer to my family in the past few years. As a little kid, your parents are the people who tell you what you have to do and what you can’t do. The other day, my mother, at the dining table, said she saw me as a friend.
What’s interesting is my sister looked at me, gloating. “A friend? Like, you’re not even a part of the family anymore!”
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I think this meets the word count requirement and this blog is already late.
Recently I have found a special satisfaction in photographing chaos. There’s something about the disordered mass of cosmetics, trash, or whatever else that resonates with me. I see something incredibly organized within these piles, as if they are exactly where they are meant to be. Throughout my life, my parents scolded me for the mess in my room, and I always obediently cleaned up after myself.
But what’s so bad about my disorder? I know exactly which pile contains the needed top or blouse, so what’s the problem with my things being exactly where I want them to be? In essence, our entire life is a disorderly sequence of events and people, from which we choose those that suit us. Throughout my life, I have never been a fan of perfect plans and schedules; they suffocate me. I choose chaos for myself, letting everything be wherever it wants to be, no other way.
If you are under the guidance and surveillance of parents, then I’m telling you: they are really inexperienced.
All parents are parents for the first time in their lives. What do they know? From reading a book about parenting? Let’s say if they did read a book about parenting and knows how to handle you when you were born, but what if you came out to be a troublemaker that caused all kinds of bizarre situations for your poor guardians… well, now they just have to improvise a way to get you to 18.
Why are parents looking into their kids’ diaries and phones? Is taking a peek into their children’s lives that satisfying? Yes, you may not believe it, but if they love you and support you without dropping you by the orphanage, they are deadly worried about you whenever they get a chance.
I asked my mother, who raised me up all by herself for my father’s absence about the reasons for the odd actions of parents, and she told me nothing I could put on this blog. She can’t explain it either. But I know the reasons.
If life were a tortuous road to Rome, if you were destined to walk for 1000 miles to finally reach the destination, your parents would want you to walk 900 less so you could reach that goal in an easier, safer and faster manner. They want you to surpass them, want you to be better than them. (That is, if you’re not an orphan)
So walk slower, because you only walk to Rome once, and who knows how much longer you’ll have a GPS in life?
When I was in third grade, I wanted to go see Kung Fu Panda. All my friends were excited about it, but, when my mom broke the news to me that we couldn’t afford to go, I was heartbroken.
For weeks and months, I was upset about it. Until one day after school, when my mom made enough money, she showed up with the DVD and a stuffed panda bear in hand.
I’ve kept that panda bear ever since. Its name is Bob, and it’s a she. I don’t remember why I decided to give a girl panda one of the most boy names I knew at that time, but I do remember the countless questions I was asked, and the countless times I didn’t care to give an exact answer I didn’t even know myself.
What I did know was that I loved that panda. I brought it everywhere. I brought it to my dad’s home on the weekends, to the occasional family dinners, and to the sunset Malibu car rides.
It was around me when I was happy and when I was sad. I held onto it during the silent nights. I held onto it with the grip of my small, but tight hand while trying desperately not to feel alone with my family in the other room.
In a time of darkness, that stuffed animal was the last dwindling light source. It held every bit of my fighting innocence that diminished within me as I grew up, but, as I carried it with me through my life’s adventures, I carried bits of my childhood along with it.
When I moved in with my dad, I brought that stuffed animal with me.
When I went to Argentina for the first time, I brought that animal with me to the hotel, on the plane, and in my backpack on tourist trips.
Every trip I took to Mexico, I’d bring it with me.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
When I went to boarding school for the first time, it stayed on my bed. When I went home for weekends, it came with me in my suitcase. When I went to OVS for the first time, it came with me.
After I got back surgery before sophomore year, with all of my emotions ridiculously heightened from the the extreme pain meds that put me under, I had a mental breakdown for hours because I thought I had left this panda at OVS. It didn’t stop until my uncle lifted up my blankets and handed it to me.
I was fifteen then.
Then the Thomas Fire came. In a panic, I only had thirty minutes to pack anything valuable to me. Without hesitation, I grabbed my panda and threw it into the bottom of my bag. The dorm parents told us we would only be gone for the night, but I couldn’t risk it. I cried when I thought I left it at school, I couldn’t imagine what would happen if it burned. I had to bring it with me.
It seems ridiculous how emotionally attached I am to an inanimate object now that I’ve grown up, but it’s still important to me. It stays on my bed and it no longer goes on trips with me; I no longer rely on it. I don’t hold it when I fall asleep. In fact, it sometimes slips onto the floor guiltily in the middle of the night. But, whenever I’m distraught or alone, I grab onto it and hold it as tight as I can.
It may still be a stuffed animal, but it’s so much more.
It’s the last thing I have from my mother. I no longer have photos in my possession or objects from her and, despite all the tragic, dark times, this bear represents one of the few good memories I have of her. It symbolizes the goodness in her which faded away over time, but is still kept as a stored memory I hold onto – literally.
It holds my innocence. My ruined, diminished childhood innocence still stays safe inside that stuffed animal I look at every time I make my bed and I still smile about it.
The panda symbolizes my childhood. Without it, the last remnants of it would vanish.
Were you really a father to me, or simply a mere memory.
Of someone I dreamed would be.
But this letter isn’t a poem to you.
I wrote one to mother months ago, and every week I’ve been pondering whether I should write one to you. I never know what to say to you, or what memories to reminisce, simply because there are none.
Yes, you were a father, but biologically only. You weren’t a father until you had to be. Until, you got the call that mom had died, and you suddenly had to drop that neglectful act and realize you had two kids to raise whom you left behind.
But according to you, you never left us behind, did you?
You’d send $500 a month to keep us barely below the poverty line. You’d take us on Sundays to shopping malls and Jamba Juice trips in hopeless attempts to buy our love and respect, but those are feelings that cannot be bought.
They are earned, but you didn’t earn them.
Yes, I loved you the way any daughter unconditionally loves their father, but there was nothing else to love.
You missed dance performances for business trips, and movie nights during computer drifts.
I have no memory of you besides the fragments of moments spread over the years of my childhood, a childhood I long to forget.
Do I miss you? I wish I could say yes, but there’s nothing left to miss. Yes, you were better than mom, at least at parenting, but at least mom was there. At least she left knowing that she’d always be in my mind.
I wish I could pour my heart into this letter like I did for mom, but I simply can’t. She changed my life, but you weren’t around enough to do that.
I know you tried your best. I really thank you for that. You did everything you could to keep my childhood intact.
You were pure at heart, but for a child who was ignored desperately, pleading for an escape, it would never be enough.
As much as I loved you, like any daughter loves a father…
The soft pangs of the notes filled the air, swirling up from the grand piano all the way around the curving stairs and straight to the top of the high ceiling of the hallway. The girl sitting on the black leather bench had wispy blonde hair, her feet dangling far above the pedals.
She shared the small seat with her mother, a woman appearing to be in her forties. She had short dark brown hair, and her makeup was applied deliberately, giving her face a slight orange tint. As she pointed to certain keys and moved her child’s small wrists up higher, her brow creased and defined the onset wrinkles there.
They were an offsetting pair – the small girl’s fragility was evident next to the woman’s full frame. It was almost as though their appearance conveyed the unsung words of their relationship; the dominance of the woman over the powerless child. And as the small blonde girl clinked away at the keys, her small fingers were barely able to reach the far black rectangles, and so the woman pulled her hands further apart, stretching the little pads of her pointer fingers further than they could go, mounting a tremendous tension of tingling sparks in the girl’s tiny fingernails, ready and itching to explode.
As most of you know, or should know, Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, and as ever, Facebook is lamenting “Single Awareness Day.” Every year, there is a group of people who don’t hesitate to make it known that they hate Valentine’s Day because it makes them feel bad about themselves, when really, if having a relationship determines your self-worth, you should feel bad about your principles.
And then there is the group of people who do have dates for Valentine’s. They fret about the perfect gift for weeks, hoping that they can show their date just how well they know their other half through the present they get for them. This causes people to go all out and spend pretty much all the money they have worked so hard to earn. What should really be a simple romantic holiday has been turned into a commercialized event that makes people feel left out.
Instead of going out and buying the most expensive gift you can think of and still somewhat afford for your date, you should try to hand make something a little more heartfelt. It’s through being creative that you can really show someone how well you know them, and not that you just listen to them talk about something they really really want. And people who don’t have a date should use Valentine’s Day as a chance to be goofy with friends, or have a girls’ night. Valentine’s isn’t designed to rob people’s banks and make others feel bad about themselves. It’s designed for you to be able to show your love to someone – whether it be your boyfriend, parents, siblings, or friends.
This will be the first year that I can vote, and I am very excited for it.
Most of my friends don’t understand why I would be excited and why I care so much, which usually ends with me calling them ignorant.
To set the scene, I have gone over the ballots with my parents for as long as I can remember. They were not trying to brainwash me; they always asked me what I though of a proposition or a candidate before they spoke their mind.
I learned to read the laws and understand them in a greater sense. It was always something I enjoyed and became excited about. I was much more likely to be conversing with my teachers about politics than my peers.
And now I am able to actually vote. It feels like a freedom to me, something that is meant to be cherished. As much as my friends may go on about it not mattering if one person votes, it does. Especially in the primaries, one vote does matter.
I feel that if more children were exposed to politics and encouraged to be informed even though they could not vote, we would have much higher turn outs.
After all, a democracy does not work without voter participation. If we want to keep the freedoms that we hold dear, we must have a voice as a people. That starts, and ends, with have a politically educated youth system.
This weekend, my Mom came down all the way from Santa Cruz to see me and take me out for the weekend. I was counting down the days until I could see her, and when she finally got here, it was the best feeling ever.
Each day, whether it is on purpose or not, I think about my family. My mom, dad, brother, and sister. All of them cross my mind at some point during the day. Even if we are fighting or haven’t talked in a while, I always think about them no matter what.
Before I came to this school, I guess I never realized the importance of family. I took them for granted more than I even like to admit and I did not pay them enough respect. But being away from them for so long has lead me to truly appreciate all of my family in every single way.
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All of the things my parents have done, whether they have been good or bad in my perspective, have been for me, my sister, and my brother. Looking back, I cannot say I would have had them do anything differently. Of course, in some of those moments, I thought I absolutely hated them because of some decisions that were made or rules that were enforced. Some punishment seemed like the end of the world. But my parents had a much different perspective than me, of course – they did things that they believed would be best in the long run rather than short-term.
Time spent apart from my family was, at first, something that I really enjoyed. And to some extent, I still enjoy it. But a larger part of me realizes that in the past years, I have not spent time with them the way that I should have. I spent more time complaining about what we didn’t do and things that didn’t go my way that I have not cherished the memories with them.
And, even though friends can be considered to some people family as well, there are only those few people related to you by blood that are truly of the utmost important. No matter who you spend the majority of your time with, or who has been the most prominent guiding figure throughout your life, family is the root of your existence. Family is the reason that you are on this earth. Family should be the most important thing in each and everyone’s life. They are the people that have made you who you are.
I will never take them for granted again.
Who knows how much longer we have left?
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OVS Journalism Blog 
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