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Am I American or Hispanic?

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Sonoma Valley Sun

By Patrick Garcia | For The Sun

As a young man in my late teens, hope and desire motivated everything. The world was just opening its arms to adventure and exploration and I was ready and willing to embrace the far- off callings of my ancestors. I didn’t know much of my ancestral roots at that time but there was something there that beckoned me to that strange land called Mexico.

I knew that one of my grandmothers was born and raised in Guaymas, Mexico and she moved to western Arizona with her father and sister during the Mexican revolution of 1910. And what about San Jose, California where I was born?

Growing up, I was caught between my American upbringing and the understanding that I was part Hispanic. This duality really didn’t overpower me at the time. But I sensed that at some point in my life I would have to address the issue and come to an internal understanding about myself. Was I really Hispanic or was I just a red-blooded American with a Hispanic surname? Time would tell.

The term Mexican American was just beginning to be used. I knew that there were others of Mexican heritage who were being called a variety of names. Should I take sides? Should I be with them or against them? Would it be better to just ignore the whole thing, or should I assert my ethnicity? Would they accept me in Mexico if I joined ranks?

My mind’s conversion and great interest in Mexico had not engulfed me yet. I was still thinking of ‘we’ and ‘they’. Even though many of my U.S. relatives had the color and features of my Hispanic ancestors, they still had the division of citizenship in their minds. This was passed on to me during the forties and fifties when the United States was a proud nation just coming out of World War II.

As a small boy, I would hear talk about the Mexican workers and how they lived in migrant camps and sometimes they would get into fights with local Mexican Americans. Some of the younger ones were called cholos and they carried switchblades. One of my uncles carried a slash on the side of his face from such an encounter.

Their children would show up at school for a few weeks and then disappear. Many of them could not speak English, and they took tacos to school for lunch instead of sandwiches. Actually, I would trade my mundane sandwiches for a taco made with chorizo and fried potato mixture wrapped in that nice fresh tortilla. (Of course, I didn’t tell my American grandmother, who had raised me from birth, that I would trade her sandwiches for tacos.)

There was also a transition group of Mexican Americans who were settling in the area and living in mostly shantytowns and run down shacks and buildings. In one part of Santa Clara County called Monta Vista, the eastern side of the tracks, white people in the area would call it Tortilla Flats after the great Steinbeck novel about the poor Mexicans who settled in Monterey, California. My mother’s family lived there.

During the first half of the twentieth century, children in school were not permitted to speak their native tongue. Even their parents were verbally punished for allowing their children to speak Spanish. As I discovered later, there was conflict within my own family members, especially when it was so hard for my maternal grandmother to learn English.

While in the Army, my duty on the East Coast, in the southern states and Europe had opened my eyes to a great diversity of cultures and how they viewed the world. My childhood experiences could not answer all the questions that lingered in my mind about the manners and ways of the people I met as I moved from place to place, state to state and country to country.As I met and got to know people from other places and countries, my desire to travel grew.

At the military barracks, I would sometimes stand in front of the mirror and look at my nametag that partially spelled out my ancestry. For sure I was motivated to fulfill my desires and dreams.

It was not uncommon for other Latinos to look at my nametag and start speaking Spanish to me. They expected that I spoke Spanish with a name like Garcia. I was proud of my last name but embarrassed that I could not speak Spanish. I made a promise to myself that I would change that as soon as I got out of the military.

Nothing would stop me from exploring the country where a great number of my ancestors were born and raised, but was so unknown to me. Mexico occupied my thoughts and dreams on many occasions. Little by little, I discovered that three of my grandparents spoke Spanish before learning English, and my mother grew up speaking Spanish before she spoke English.

As luck would have it, I was accepted into a private university in Mexico City that recognized the GI bill offered by Congress to veterans in the United States. The meager amount I received each month would help me live and study Spanish in one of the biggest cities in the world. There was this feeling in me that I could not explain or really understand, but it drove me to pursue the wonderful image of Mexico that embraced me at that time. I could not imagine what was really in store for me.

The day came when I stepped onto the greyhound bus in San Jose, California. The bus would take me to the Mexican border. Eventually I would take one of Mexico’s domestic buses to Mexico City and beyond. Days before, I had collected my worldly possessions and stuffed them in my duffel bag. With the well wishes of a few true believers, I headed for that strange land called Mexico.

After studying in Mexico City for about two years during the late 60’s and traveling throughout the country with friends and family, I returned to California to complete my studies. I chose a new college in Sonoma County called Sonoma State University. I was by then fluent in Spanish. And I also knew that I would never forget the wonderful cultural and historical knowledge the people in Mexico taught me on a daily basis.

And now, in my retirement years, I have a deep love for my two countries, and a passion to share how we have drawn closer as blending nations over the last 250 years. My dreams as a youthful fellow searching his heritage have now come true. I have never stopped learning about my cultures, California and Mexico. And I am sharing more information about who we are and how we understand the world we live in.

Patrick Garcia, a fifth-generation second cousin to General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, is a board member of the Sonoma Sister Cities Association.




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