The Reality
Mexican/American, Chicana, Latina, etc. These are a few identities I’ve been associated with since birth. But, none ever felt like justice in describing who I am.
I was born and raised in a Mexican influenced city called Santa Ana. This was the first city my parents stepped foot on upon arriving in the United States.
My mother was a seventeen-year-old city girl from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, when she first arrived in California. She knew only two relatives who had been living in Santa Ana in 1981 and had offered a roof over her head for a couple of days. She soon found multiple jobs working grave shifts, mid shifts, any shifts, anything to help her provide for herself. She kept this up until she met my father.
My father, on the other hand, had always lived back and forth from his hometown in Jerez, Zacatecas, Mexico to Santa Ana, California. His father and his grandfather both had dual citizenships in the United States and Mexico, so they spent most of their time traveling back in forth due to construction jobs they had in each country. My father grew up in both countries, attending schools in both and working in both, for him this was a normality that he enjoyed having. He finally settled for a few years in Santa Ana, 1982, that’s when he met my mother.
My mother and father lived in the same apartment complex in downtown Santa Ana. My father lived with some of his cousins while my mother lived with her brother and friends.
The moment my father decided to ask my mother out on a date, was when he first laid eyes on her as she drove by one afternoon in her 97' Ford Thunderbird. Just imagine, my mother who was a skinny 4'11 woman driving a big car in which she place pillows underneath herself to see over the dashboard.
My father did not expect her to be so short.
After that first encounter they became inseparable, two years later they moved in with each other and soon after that had my older brother Ernesto. Which resulted in three years later having my brother Damian and their only daughter, me.
For a few years growing up, I remember having both my parents around all the time, it slowly began to change once my father realized he needed to do more in order to provide for us.
He soon began to follow the footsteps of his father in which he would move around with his work, he wanted us to have stability growing up, so he decided not take us with him as he followed his work. My mother was always around since she did not have to work as much as she once did because of my father being able to provide for us.
Despite many relatives who disapproved of my mother being the only parent around all the time, I never noticed my father’s absence. My father despite the distance has always done everything possible to call us multiple times a day, be aware of what we are up to, give us life advice and educate us as we grow. He has never ran away from his responsibilities as a parent. Instead, he sacrificed his freedom in order to give my brothers and I our freedom.
Growing up I remember my parents always treating us very straight forward, always being very honest with us about everything. It created our family to be mature at a very young age, being able to understand “adult problems.” I have always been grateful for my parent’s honesty, it has helped me become a more understandable human being towards others. We don’t always understand why people react a certain way and when you start to understand how they might be having problems at home or work, and become to me more sympathetic towards them and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Like every family we had many difficulties, the biggest one being my brothers having a bit of anger in them against my father. Because they wanted my father to be present more often like a normal family, but as they grew older and began to create their own families they soon understood my father’s sacrifices. As a father he sacrificed his time with his children to provide for his children.
He will not have the memory of my brothers and I sitting at the diner table as we did homework after school or what shows we loved to watch before bed. The smallest memories can also be the most meaningful memories.
In spite of the difficulties we overcame, I graduated high school with honors and captain of my high school’s dance team, while also being accepted to California State University of Fullerton. Now as I start my fourth year pursuing a bachelor’s in Public Relations with a minor in Cinema-Television Arts, I am one step closer to my dreams.
My goal is to work for a film studio like Sony Pictures Production, Walt Disney Studios or Warner Bros. I always love being able to be surrounded by the creativity that it takes to create a movie and being apart of it would fulfill one of my dreams. I myself create short videos for youtube of my many adventures. I guess I can call myself a beginning videographer.
Once I can fulfill my dream of working for a film studio I hope to one day move to New York and work for an in-house PR Firm for a well-known fashion designer. New York has always been a dream place for me to live and work in, being able to combine my love for fashion and New York is my main goal in life to achieve.
As I am soon to conclude my chapter at CSUF I want to take as much as I can from it and educate myself as much as I can.
I know my reality will one day look like my dreams and I look forward to the day I wake up thanking my parents for all they have done and repay them for every sacrifice they had to make.
