Up until April my blog had been titled. Elenamary– Ni de AquàNi de Allá. In English, Elenamary–from neither here nor there. La India MarÃÂa a famous Mexican actress had a film titled Ni de AquàNi de Allá about a Mexican Immigrant worker in the United States and the government trying to figure out in which country she belonged. In April I was in Miami and meet a nice Xicano. We discussed this phrase and he asked me “Why can’t you be ‘de aquày de allá’?” What in English would be “from here and there”. He got me thinking about it. I know I am both and have always known that but that being the case why was I identifying as neither?
Upon my return from Miami I re-titled my page and now you have Elenamary — de aquày de allá. I am re-claiming both, I won’t be forced to choose or to disown.
I walked up to the counter with Alexi trailing behind me. “Two student tickets please.” I laid our IDs on the counter. The woman took our IDs looked at me, looked at the ID, looked at me again and said “You have to be Mexican for the student price.” I stared blankly into her eyes and countered “I am Mexican, I just study in the US”. She gave me a scowl, her eyebrows lifted and she asked “Why do you study there? You’ve abandoned your country and your people. It’ll be full price. You don’t get the student price if you don’t study here in Mexico.” I forked over the extra money. I wasn’t going to argue.
As we walked into the museum I interpreted for Alexi the parts he hadn’t understood. He put his arm around me, kissed me on the forehead, laughed and said “She doesn’t get it.” For all the grief I gave Alexi for being “white” culturally he knew better than anyone else where I was coming from. He, like me, grew-up torn between two countries, two nationalities, two ethnicities, two languages. The way in which I am a Tortilla-Sandwich (thanks CJ for that term) he is a Spanakopita-Sandwich. I miss my spanakopita-sandwich.