Proud Pic #1

Title: "Proud of mi gente" taken May 5, 2008 @ the Washington Monument.

So, I'm trying out this new feature where I go through my old pics and post one that I feel like sharing. This one is cool cause, first of all, it was a "Cinco de Mayo" celebration with live music at the mall, featuring the headliners... Oro Solido. LOL... only in the U.S. can you have a Mexican-American holiday celebrated in Truco-owned DC, featuring a Dominican Merengue band from New York... hell yeah, thats what Latinidad is all about son!!!!!

This image brings me a lot of pride and sadness. I was emotionally shook to see so many of my people in DC, where we serve as the cogs and gears that run this city... the cleanliness of your buildings, the construction of your offices, the growth of small businesses, are all done by the sweat, sacrifice, and struggle of our people. So, to see us come out here and have some fun, much deserved.

It also brought to light how culturally lonely I am. I work in a predominantly white, highly educated, office that works for 'diversity'. I went to a predominantly white college for my education, and my mom sacrificed her time to take my sis and me to a predominately white high school, cause that was our ticket to a college education.

As immigrants, we come with the idea of establishing ourselves to not worry about the day-to-day struggles as much as before, we prepare our children with immigrant/working-class/Latino values of hard work, community, determination, and ultimately social mobility. These value sets, created in the world of the marginalized and oppressed, project us to the middle-class, higher educated (which is a misnomer cause my education was just as good as theirs), at the sacrifice of leaving our enclaves, our cultural spaces, and physically... from one another. I'm at my PWIs because my mother/grandparents asked me to, not because whites are better, but because thats where that stability is at. And here I am, doing what i think is best for my community, but I'm physically drawn away from it. This is a second immigrant experience within the initial one of my parents leaving their whole lives to come here, very lonely.

So, after thinking about it, I think its about time for me to come home...