Reaction #3

It’s 1920 and you, Alonzo Vasquez, are a Mexican immigrant to the United States. While you love your new country, it is very important to you that your family remember and honor your culture and traditions, many of which are tied to your homeland. You are increasingly worried that your children, in the process of becoming “American,” are ignoring the importance of their heritage. Why is it so important to you that your family retain some cultural connection to Mexico and your Mexican heritage? What evidence is there that your children are being wholly “Americanized?” What conflicts has this created between you and your children?

I'm so tired of these Americanization workers coming into my home and telling my family how to live. Why do these people think we do not know how to act, as if we are not civilized? They tell my wife how to cook and clean, how to care for our children and how to be a good American. They come to my work and make me attend classes on how to be American. They insist on teaching me English but I see no need to learn it. My wife and I get by on what little we know. I cannot believe how they intrude on us, barging into our home like we have no rights. They have filled my wife's head with so many lies that she is starting to believe them and I see her slowly trading in our customs for theirs. The groceries she brings home consist of "healthy American foods", the songs she sings are silly American nursery rhymes, and even her clothes are changing. I am not pleased at all with this; next she will be going to work for them in their homes like some slave. The children see their mother and think they should also conform. My youngest ones do not know our culture very well and I am afraid they will go blind to it completely. How dare these Americans try to take our heritage! I am not displeased with my new home but I will not forget where I come from. I am proud of my ancestry. And now I watch my little ones start to drift away. I hear them repeat the English words of the songs their mother sings. I see them pushing aside their books from home and instead diving into American ones they bring from school. I heard about Mexican schools coming up around California, I am considering switching my children to them. This way they will keep their native language and learn our history. My older children are almost dead to me. My daughter is engaged to some American boy who hardly has a job and she wants to work to be independent. How foolish of her, she knows she needs to stay home and care for her family. After much argument we are no longer speaking. My eldest son is no better. He went off to Texas to work; I think he will marry soon as well. He speaks English fluently and tries to get me to converse with him in English but I refuse. I hardly hear from him anymore. Sometimes I feel things would just be better if we returned to Mexico but the conditions there were not what I wanted to raise my family in. It pains me to see them turn their back on our culture but maybe they will appreciate it more as they grow older. Perhaps I will return to my homeland and let them stay in America and live the dream.

-Alonzo Vasquez