[Music]
hello everyone so I am third / fourth
generation mexican-american I’m third
generation on my father’s side and I am
fourth generation on my mother’s side
but I was raised completely away from my
culture in fact I have never really felt
like I belonged anywhere I grew up in an
affluent home in North Dallas in fact we
were the first minorities to actually
move into the suburb and for a long time
I knew we were always suspect I used to
joke with my dad that they must think
we’re drug dealers or something and in
the 80s my dad had those ostentatious
Cadillacs with the gold package so I
could kind of see where that assumption
might come from I also noticed that the
little girl that I played with next door
it took ten years before the mother
actually came to our front door and
asked my mother out for lunch so growing
up I have never really belonged here and
I have never really belonged there I’d
like to share this quote with you from
one of the groundbreaking scholars in
Chicano Studies this is Gloria and zan
doula and she wrote a watershed work
called la Frontera from the borderlands
and the quote is the us-mexican border
is una juerga Evita were the third world
greats against the first and bleeds and
before scab forms it hemorrhages again
the lifeblood of two worlds merging to
form a third country a border culture
and when you think about the first and
the second generations that come to this
country they very much live in the
borderlands they are no longer part of
their country of origin and they’re not
really considered American yet either so
the term that’s thrown around quite a
bit is the term Chicano so let me
explain what Chicano is to be Chicano
you’re usually from Mexico you’re
usually the first or you’re the second
in your family to
been brought to the US and raised in in
American society a lot of times this
word Chicano has derogatory terms like
Oh my dad used to say oh I’m just a dumb
Chicano what do I know
it for generations it was a way to kind
of you know describe a marginalized
group in the sixties though the word
Chicano became politicized if you know
activists like Cesar Chavez and Dolores
Huerta became a way to rally migrant
workers to fight for rights of
individuals so the term has kind of had
this up in this flow even in literature
Chicano literature most of the stories
are about that first and second
generation experience some of you may
know some of these works barrio boy for
example or the house on mango street and
they talk about trying to live between
these two very different cultures but my
question is what happens when you’re not
first or second generation and what
happens in with those first two they
tend to focus more on assimilating
trying to be more American and they
actually move away from their mother
culture and there is a lot of pressure
to kind of walk away from that if you
saw in the 60s in California if you
dared to speak Spanish in the high
school you were kicked out so in the 60s
and the 70s there was this sense of
shame to speak Spanish in public and one
of the reasons why I was not taught
Spanish at home growing up is because my
parents did not want me to have that
stigma they did not want me to have an
accent they did not want me to be judged
by these outside pressures well when you
think about assimilating the first way I
would look at this is well I didn’t even
realize I had already been assimilated
in fact I didn’t even know I was Mexican
until about sixth grade so but I always
knew that I didn’t quite fit in with
everyone else that I grew up with when I
was 17 my father took me to my very
first trip to Mexico we went to Mexico
City and in fact that summer I stayed
with a family member and so that I could
learn Spanish and I had a very difficult
time I was a very lonely experience I
felt very isolated I could not
comprehend the language as fast as I had
hoped
I also got sick like a tourist and
that’s when you really miss home when
you just want to be someplace
comfortable you want to call your mom I
felt lonely I felt disconnected and I
realized years later that think about
immigrants that come to this country
when they come here
they too feel very lonely they feel
isolated people are judging them because
they don’t speak the language perfectly
they’re not getting every joke they’re
not understanding all of the situations
so I realized that the first in the
second generation and myself we have
parallel experiences while they are
crossing physical borders I was crossing
psychological borders and so I had to
think about the what I had to really do
was learn how to D assimilate I had to
move away from my americanist and find a
way to embrace my my mother culture and
I cannot give you an exact formula for
how to do that I all I can do is share
some of the things that I tried that
have helped me to reconnect with my
cultural background well one of the
first ways that I did that is I started
talking to my family I started asking
them questions tell me about grandma
grandpa tell me about our family history
in college you know I did a family
biography and I found out quite to my
surprise that I was actually related to
somebody famous I found out that my
grandfather was the founding member of
the violas Pancho’s and this is him
right here he’s the chubby guy in the
middle you’ll notice we have the same
nose him myself and my father we all
have the same nose so there’s no denying
this lineage I had no idea and
apparently he had over a 50-year
recording career and at one point this
group sold more albums than Elvis
Presley yeah and yes he’s on YouTube as
well so you can find his music
everywhere and what’s interesting is
that I never met him until a few years
before he died I only met him one time
in my life so that opened the door of
this curiosity and once I found out who
I was and who I was related to that kind
of gave me a better sense of where I
came from and that connection of course
food is another way to reconnect with
the culture my mother certainly did make
some of the traditional meals
she was raised with she taught me how to
make homemade tortillas although my
brother teases me because mine still
look like the shape of Texas they’re not
perfectly round at all I have lots of
practice
to go also through other music and art I
found out my paternal grandfather also
was a musician now he wasn’t famous but
he never could learn to read or write
music but you give him an instrument and
within an hour he could play it and so
he always played at bars on weekends
that was his money for for beer and then
the most important thing that I did was
I started a student Club at Richland
College where I teach and in fact it
started with this student here this is
Raoul he’s kind of our founding father
as we like to call him he came to he was
one of my students in my history class
and he came to my class to my office one
day and he said miss Navarro there are
no clubs that represent Latinos on
campus it was very indignant I said okay
so let’s start a club and that’s exactly
what we did in the beginning we had no
idea what kind of club we were gonna be
we had to figure that out and I noticed
that in talking to my students they had
similar struggles that I did they felt
very lonely going to college when you’re
the first in your family to go to
college family members don’t understand
what you’re going through many of them
like myself were not taught Spanish in
the home so they could relate to someone
that had to deal with that stigma and
that challenge others I have doctor
students I have international students
who also when they come to this country
fill lonely and isolated and I found the
best way to really embrace my heritage
was to give back to a group of students
that are also looking for this
themselves and so we have started doing
a lot more cultural events our biggest
one is in the fall we make the sugar
skulls for a Dia that allows worth those
so we talked about Day of the Dead we do
a presentation and we’ve learned to
honor the loved ones that have passed on
from us and through that process now
we’re every year now we’re honoring them
we’re making the altars were teaching
other people about our cultural heritage
this semester we’re going to do single
DeMayo we’re gonna make the pinatas
we’re gonna make the paper flowers
and so there are many aspects many ways
that you can try and reconnect with your
culture and one of the benefits is doing
this with my students I’m seeing them go
on to graduate I’m still in touch with
many of these students seeing them move
on to bigger and better things but they
still have this grounding of where they
came from and who they are now I’d like
to end with a poem by Gloria Gloria and
Zen doula and she says to live in the
borderlands means you are neither
hispana India Nagata Espanola Niigata I
dismissed ISA mulatto
half-breed caught in the crossfire
between camps we’re carrying all five
races on your back not knowing which
side to turn to run from to live in the
borderlands means knowing that the
Indian you betrayed for five hundred
years is no longer speaking to you that
mexicanas call you hit us that denying
the angle inside you is as bad as having
denied the Indian or black sadly Gloria
ends and Allah is not with us anymore
she died from complications to diabetes
but she was not worried about the future
she said there will be a fifth race in
the future and it’s the cosmic race the
home of epsilon which is the ancient
home of the Aztecs
she said someday we will be so blended
that we won’t have these distinctions of
us versus them legal or illegal American
or non-american we will be so mixed we
will be mestizos and so my final quote
from Gloria she says to survive the
border lands you must live scene front
at us be a crossroads and my challenges
to you as as you live your life you
yourself must be a crossroads thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
hello everyone so I am third / fourth
generation mexican-american I’m third
generation on my father’s side and I am
fourth generation on my mother’s side
but I was raised completely away from my
culture in fact I have never really felt
like I belonged anywhere I grew up in an
affluent home in North Dallas in fact we
were the first minorities to actually
move into the suburb and for a long time
I knew we were always suspect I used to
joke with my dad that they must think
we’re drug dealers or something and in
the 80s my dad had those ostentatious
Cadillacs with the gold package so I
could kind of see where that assumption
might come from I also noticed that the
little girl that I played with next door
it took ten years before the mother
actually came to our front door and
asked my mother out for lunch so growing
up I have never really belonged here and
I have never really belonged there I’d
like to share this quote with you from
one of the groundbreaking scholars in
Chicano Studies this is Gloria and zan
doula and she wrote a watershed work
called la Frontera from the borderlands
and the quote is the us-mexican border
is una juerga Evita were the third world
greats against the first and bleeds and
before scab forms it hemorrhages again
the lifeblood of two worlds merging to
form a third country a border culture
and when you think about the first and
the second generations that come to this
country they very much live in the
borderlands they are no longer part of
their country of origin and they’re not
really considered American yet either so
the term that’s thrown around quite a
bit is the term Chicano so let me
explain what Chicano is to be Chicano
you’re usually from Mexico you’re
usually the first or you’re the second
in your family to
been brought to the US and raised in in
American society a lot of times this
word Chicano has derogatory terms like
Oh my dad used to say oh I’m just a dumb
Chicano what do I know
it for generations it was a way to kind
of you know describe a marginalized
group in the sixties though the word
Chicano became politicized if you know
activists like Cesar Chavez and Dolores
Huerta became a way to rally migrant
workers to fight for rights of
individuals so the term has kind of had
this up in this flow even in literature
Chicano literature most of the stories
are about that first and second
generation experience some of you may
know some of these works barrio boy for
example or the house on mango street and
they talk about trying to live between
these two very different cultures but my
question is what happens when you’re not
first or second generation and what
happens in with those first two they
tend to focus more on assimilating
trying to be more American and they
actually move away from their mother
culture and there is a lot of pressure
to kind of walk away from that if you
saw in the 60s in California if you
dared to speak Spanish in the high
school you were kicked out so in the 60s
and the 70s there was this sense of
shame to speak Spanish in public and one
of the reasons why I was not taught
Spanish at home growing up is because my
parents did not want me to have that
stigma they did not want me to have an
accent they did not want me to be judged
by these outside pressures well when you
think about assimilating the first way I
would look at this is well I didn’t even
realize I had already been assimilated
in fact I didn’t even know I was Mexican
until about sixth grade so but I always
knew that I didn’t quite fit in with
everyone else that I grew up with when I
was 17 my father took me to my very
first trip to Mexico we went to Mexico
City and in fact that summer I stayed
with a family member and so that I could
learn Spanish and I had a very difficult
time I was a very lonely experience I
felt very isolated I could not
comprehend the language as fast as I had
hoped
I also got sick like a tourist and
that’s when you really miss home when
you just want to be someplace
comfortable you want to call your mom I
felt lonely I felt disconnected and I
realized years later that think about
immigrants that come to this country
when they come here
they too feel very lonely they feel
isolated people are judging them because
they don’t speak the language perfectly
they’re not getting every joke they’re
not understanding all of the situations
so I realized that the first in the
second generation and myself we have
parallel experiences while they are
crossing physical borders I was crossing
psychological borders and so I had to
think about the what I had to really do
was learn how to D assimilate I had to
move away from my americanist and find a
way to embrace my my mother culture and
I cannot give you an exact formula for
how to do that I all I can do is share
some of the things that I tried that
have helped me to reconnect with my
cultural background well one of the
first ways that I did that is I started
talking to my family I started asking
them questions tell me about grandma
grandpa tell me about our family history
in college you know I did a family
biography and I found out quite to my
surprise that I was actually related to
somebody famous I found out that my
grandfather was the founding member of
the violas Pancho’s and this is him
right here he’s the chubby guy in the
middle you’ll notice we have the same
nose him myself and my father we all
have the same nose so there’s no denying
this lineage I had no idea and
apparently he had over a 50-year
recording career and at one point this
group sold more albums than Elvis
Presley yeah and yes he’s on YouTube as
well so you can find his music
everywhere and what’s interesting is
that I never met him until a few years
before he died I only met him one time
in my life so that opened the door of
this curiosity and once I found out who
I was and who I was related to that kind
of gave me a better sense of where I
came from and that connection of course
food is another way to reconnect with
the culture my mother certainly did make
some of the traditional meals
she was raised with she taught me how to
make homemade tortillas although my
brother teases me because mine still
look like the shape of Texas they’re not
perfectly round at all I have lots of
practice
to go also through other music and art I
found out my paternal grandfather also
was a musician now he wasn’t famous but
he never could learn to read or write
music but you give him an instrument and
within an hour he could play it and so
he always played at bars on weekends
that was his money for for beer and then
the most important thing that I did was
I started a student Club at Richland
College where I teach and in fact it
started with this student here this is
Raoul he’s kind of our founding father
as we like to call him he came to he was
one of my students in my history class
and he came to my class to my office one
day and he said miss Navarro there are
no clubs that represent Latinos on
campus it was very indignant I said okay
so let’s start a club and that’s exactly
what we did in the beginning we had no
idea what kind of club we were gonna be
we had to figure that out and I noticed
that in talking to my students they had
similar struggles that I did they felt
very lonely going to college when you’re
the first in your family to go to
college family members don’t understand
what you’re going through many of them
like myself were not taught Spanish in
the home so they could relate to someone
that had to deal with that stigma and
that challenge others I have doctor
students I have international students
who also when they come to this country
fill lonely and isolated and I found the
best way to really embrace my heritage
was to give back to a group of students
that are also looking for this
themselves and so we have started doing
a lot more cultural events our biggest
one is in the fall we make the sugar
skulls for a Dia that allows worth those
so we talked about Day of the Dead we do
a presentation and we’ve learned to
honor the loved ones that have passed on
from us and through that process now
we’re every year now we’re honoring them
we’re making the altars were teaching
other people about our cultural heritage
this semester we’re going to do single
DeMayo we’re gonna make the pinatas
we’re gonna make the paper flowers
and so there are many aspects many ways
that you can try and reconnect with your
culture and one of the benefits is doing
this with my students I’m seeing them go
on to graduate I’m still in touch with
many of these students seeing them move
on to bigger and better things but they
still have this grounding of where they
came from and who they are now I’d like
to end with a poem by Gloria Gloria and
Zen doula and she says to live in the
borderlands means you are neither
hispana India Nagata Espanola Niigata I
dismissed ISA mulatto
half-breed caught in the crossfire
between camps we’re carrying all five
races on your back not knowing which
side to turn to run from to live in the
borderlands means knowing that the
Indian you betrayed for five hundred
years is no longer speaking to you that
mexicanas call you hit us that denying
the angle inside you is as bad as having
denied the Indian or black sadly Gloria
ends and Allah is not with us anymore
she died from complications to diabetes
but she was not worried about the future
she said there will be a fifth race in
the future and it’s the cosmic race the
home of epsilon which is the ancient
home of the Aztecs
she said someday we will be so blended
that we won’t have these distinctions of
us versus them legal or illegal American
or non-american we will be so mixed we
will be mestizos and so my final quote
from Gloria she says to survive the
border lands you must live scene front
at us be a crossroads and my challenges
to you as as you live your life you
yourself must be a crossroads thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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