(Intro/Me)
I’m a pretty driven girl, I take chances, I like taking risks
I’m always up for a challenge…
Some days I wonder what keeps me going…
What fuels my engine?
Because there are days that I just want to quit
I want to give it all up
You know pull over and walk in the opposite direction
But when I look back at my options, it was my only way out
UCSB.
What a ride it has been,
A bumpy one, but an interesting one
Every time I start forget
I take a five hour drive, North
Then at 123 miles I turn right
I drive into the valley, the San Joaquin Valley
Until I hit 300 and I’m surrounded by orchards and the smell of animals
(Scrunches face)
Chickens and cows, oh the beautiful smells that I left behind
I finally arrive to my little hometown
The first day always seems so wonderful
I’m greeted by my parents
I see my brother and my sister and my beautiful nieces
Everything seems so perfect and sugar coated…
(Pause)
Then I remember why I left….
(Walk to left pretend that you are opening the door, searching for your key. You open the door; you walk in look up, see your mom waiting on the couch)
Oh Hi mom!
(Mother sitting on the couch, looks at watch)
Burra, siempre andando por las calles de casera
Ya me imagino como debes de adar aya (gets up and points)
Toda loca y nadie para disirte que no (waves hand in no gesture)
[Translation: Always on the streets, I can just imagine how you must be out there and no one to tell you no]
(pause)
(Me)
[aside]
It’s like she is broken record every time that I come back home
Es la misma critica [she makes the same critiques]
(walk back and talk to mother)
Mom I was at grandma’s house hanging out with Susy and Lalo
(Mother)
We should have done what your father said all along
What was wrong with Stan State?
Your cousin goes there…
Your Brother went there…
Why couldn’t you go to Davis it’s closer?
(Me)
Mom, Why are you always comparing me to other people?
Why do you want me to do what they did?
What do you want me to compare you to my tia Rosa?
(Mother)
No, todos mis hijos son del mismo hombre,
A mi me ves en las calles como puta?
[No, all my children are from the same man, do you see me on the streets acting like a slut]
(Me)
Chill mom, you are the one that started it.
(Mother)
No me estas echando nada encara
Y que haces aca tu abuelita’s tan tarde
[Don’t try to throw things in my face, what were you doing so late at your grandma’s house?]
(Me)
I was just talking to Susy.
(Mother)
Hay andale, se te va pegar lo lesbiano
Si, ya no se te pego
[Watch out you are going to become a lesbian, that’s if you aren’t already]
(Me)
You don’t catch that,
Because if we did then we would of all caught it along time ago from Hector.
(Mother)
Ya callate malcriada, vete a leer tus libros
I dont know what they are teaching you in your pinche escuela
No tienes novio, estas igual de gorda, siempre con tus amigos
Aquien se le ocure andar con tantos hombres, y nuino es tu novio
Ya casate, yo a tu edad ya tenia dos hijos, y tu que tienes nada...
I should be comparing you to your tia Rosa.
[Shut up, go read. You don’t have a boyfriend, you’re fat, always with you friends, who does that? Get married already, at your age I had two kids, you have nothing.]
(Me)
Mom, you lived in Mexico at my age.
Things are a lot different now
(Mother as she walks off stage)
Ay Dios que hise para tener hijos tan malquirados
[oh God what did I do to have such horrible kids]
(I walk back on stage)
Me and my mom fight a lot
I really hate it
I can’t live with her more than one day
In high school it was a lot worse.
I was always under house arrest
According to my mother
A girl of my age should at least have a boyfriend if not married,
And she shouldn’t be this fat unless she is pregnant
Oh god if and when I have kids, then she might finally be happy.
She would always find me in my room reading, writing or listening to music
The kids in my neighborhood were not my style
So once I turned eight I stopped trying to get along with them and kept to myself
I live to read and to write.
Music is my drug
And School was my only excuse to leave the house.
Any club, any extra curricular activity you can think of,
I was there.
Anything to get away from her and out of the house.
I know and I respect that my mother has been through a lot in her life.
From domestic abuse to depression, she’s seen and experience so much
But this isn’t about her, this is about me and
How she’s defined everything that I do and don’t want to be.
(Drops arms and head)
(Mother, look up, turns, smiles, extends arms)
Mija, let me make you
Some fresh tortillas.
(Shocked face, hands to face)
You don’t eat tortillas?
Everyone eats tortillas.
Not everyone eats torillas…
Then what the hell do they eat?
(Me)
When I was a little girl my mom taught me how to make tortillas
You get a large Tupperware bowl, and
it had to be Tupperware because she was a Tupperware lady
All you need is two cups of masa, you know Maseca,
and one cup of water, and one teaspoon of salt
Then mix it with your hands.
Once you are done then you take a palm full and roll it into a little ball
You place it in the tortillera and smash it
And then onto the comal, and you have your own home made tortillas
And she would end the session with the words….
You’re husband will love these (tilt face and smile)
(Me)
It never occurred to me that playing house with my mother
Was actually her training me to be a housewife.
The Latina woman,
submissive, obedient, passive,
Living in a dichotomy in which you are either a virgin or the macho’s whore.
Surround by tradition, religion and cultura in a modern day world
My mother, your mother, her grandmother, our cook, our maid, her own children’s slave
The Latina woman, jungles work and family, leaving no time for play
She has too many thoughts running through her mind
Much of which is often left unsaid
Supressed through triple oppression
she is of color, assumed to be poor and she is a woman so
She has no voice, no right; she stays silent
The Latina woman, living on this land once known as the New World
A place called Nepatlan, a place where you are often caught in between
Speaking multiple languages
Understanding and practicing two cultures,
Just so that some how she behaves according to societal norms
The Latina woman, more like Superwoman to me
Although to common folk she is just other brown face doing domestic chores
The Latina woman
(Me)
Me, sure I love to cook; but I love to eat more…
I hate cleaning and I put off my laundry for three weeks straight if I can
I like poetry, I like writing, and I like to pretend that I’m somebody else
I refer to myself in third person when I write my stories
I can be an odd-ball, although I prefer being called unique
Living five hours away from home
I was able to discover a different side of me
The out-going, loud mouth
My sensuality, my independence
My own voice
I am proud to say that I am a Chicana
Not a virgin, but certainly not a whore
I speak Spanish and English
Although I could use some work on either or
I drive a tore up Honda, y se que
No soy nada yo not tengo vanidad
De mi vida doy lo bueno
Soy tan pobre que otra cosa puedo dar
I work hard, but play harder
I love my boleros and corridos but
I also listen to Classic Rock, I love the Beatles
You say you want a Revolution,
Well you know, we all want to change the world,
I like my Pop, because Lady Madonna
Reassured me that being materialistic is fine
And if a boy doesn’t give me proper credit I can simply walk away.
I am not submissive, I am not obedient and I am not passive
No one can judge me for the things that I do.
I’m going to practice the traditions that I like
I’m proud of my heritage
And I know that I will not practice every tradition and no one will force me to
I am Chicana, acculturated, not to be confused with assimilated
As I have taken pieces of my culturas to make one of my own
I am a mescal, mestisa, or Mejicana if you are a bit slow…
I am American, not white nor blonde…just a little bit bold
No wait I am neither, but I am both
I am Chicana, driven, fueled, passionate
You know what MOM,
I have my own voice. My words will not be left unsaid.
People are going to listen, I will be understood.
And it’s okay if is not by you.
I am going to change this New-Old-Fashioned World
For your grandmother, you mother, my mother
For You
I am driven, passionate, and fueled.
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