Hi my name is Claudya and I am a Mexican-American or an American of Mexican descent, or whatever you want to call me. The point is that I was born in the U.S.A. and grew up in California raised by my single Mexican mother and my very large extended family.
I want to tell you that I have never been ashamed of being Mexican, even when people would try to shame me for it. But that doesn't mean that my Mexican family didn't do all sorts of things that embarrassed me growing up. Surely everyone's family embarrasses them at some point or another regardless of there cultural background.
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Here are six things that my Mexican family did that embarrassed me when I was little, but I now embrace:
1. They would throw me boozy birthday parties. By that I mean that when I went to my friends' birthday parties, they were kid themed. Nope, not mine. Sure there was a piñata, there was also a whole lot of cerveza and tequila. The children were far outnumbered by adults and my friends' parents looked a little wary about dropping off their kids and leaving them at my house.
2. The school lunches my mom packed were not cute. She'd wrap a soda in aluminum foil, make me an egg burrito, and pack it all in an empty Roman Meal bread bag. Ugh! My friends had cute lunch boxes or regular brown paper bags.
3. They would talk about non-Spanish speakers right in front of them in Spanish. My face would burn because these people may not speak Spanish, but they can still sense when they are being talked about.
4. I had to kiss everyone. Leaving a place would take forever as a kid because I was expected to go around and say goodbye to every single person and kiss them on the cheek. I swear my lips got cramped on more than one occasion.
5. Life was a musical. I can't sing, but almost all of my family members can and I mean like really sing, like they sound great. Well, that means they aren't embarrassed to bust out singing at any given moment. We could be going through a drive through and if the cashier inspired a tío to sing well then I had to suffer through a serenade.
6. They did not let technicalities stop them. For example, we went to the beach with one of my tías and she didn't have a bathing suit. She looked around at what all the women were wearing on the beach and promptly stripped down to her ginormous bra and old lady underwear. It's true she was more covered up than most, but still!
Now, none of these things embarrass me anymore and actually I look forward to embarrassing my girls with them. I feel an obligation to pass on these traditions, except for maybe the underwear at the beach one. No one needs to see that.
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