The Rightful Attraction...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | In another world, perhaps the Mexican-Americans of this city and other communities in the Rio Grande Valley would, well, be. . . back home. In this case, home as in neighboring Mexico. It just seems like they would.

Modern life and borders aside, perhaps they would be if the change was minimal. It is.

Mexican-Americans often disdain their ancestral country in ways that other ethnics in America do not. One rarely hears an Italian-American damning new Italian immigrants or anyone back in the home country. The Irish don't do it, either. Nope on the Germans and Asians, too.

Mexican-Americans have no problem separating themselves from Mexico.

Should they?

The beauty of the Texas-Mexico border is that it affords residents of both sides of the Rio Grande a golden opportunity to share a culture. Share as in food and celebrations. And, yes, much more. You've heard it said: The lowliest Mexican-American feels he's luckier than any wealthy Mexican. Just because he lives on the northern side of the fabled river.

But what a missed opportunity, we say. There's that beautiful word again - opportunity.

An afternoon in any of the cities and towns on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande yields entry into another world altogether, one allowing for quick inclusion of the Spanish-speaking Mexican-American. Yet, there is an unmistakable disdain on the part of the new Americans. Why?

On the U.S. side of the border, life is largely a life defined by the Anglo culture. In all aspects of life. There are more opportunities, that is true. But the price of assimilation is your brain. Like, forever. In the Valley, you can be Mexican but only to a certain point. Societal requirements sooner or later force you into the Anglo world. Walk across the bridge into Mexico and you lose all of that in one split second. You're there as a Mexican-American, but all they see is a Mexican. In a good way, by the way.

Given a choice, or given no border, Rio Grande Valley Mexicans would likely rather melt into their ancestral culture than hang with the so-called Texas Cowboy Way. What an option! I wonder if any Spaniard who moves across Spain's northern border into France loses his or her ethnic identity as fast as South Texas Mexican-Americans lose (give up) theirs here. I sincerely doubt it.

Mexican-Americans are a whole other fish in the sea.

You enjoy the local use of Spanglish and the however-small distinction in Mexican food. You look and see area Mexican-Americans seem somewhat happy (it's a culture BIG on family, they'll tell you). And sure, there are the festivals, the dances, the Quinceaneras, the music, the church - most that not all that different in the way Mexicans across the river also celebrate and enjoy their lives.

The Rio Grande Valley is Mexico.

There is no doubt about that. Not if you're going to be real about it. Loyalty to your country is also front center, but down deep inside (if the Gods allowed it) you know exactly where you'd belong. A river separating two chunks of land does not erode community, and Mexicans on this side of the Rio Grande are no different than Mexicans on the other side. In fact, they are too-much alike.

Is there regret, moments when a Mexican-American might reach down deep in his or her feelings and say, "What if I had grown up and lived my life in Mexico?"

It happens. I know. I've asked myself that very question. And I've personally lived and moved across both countries, not just in the RGV here of late. Perhaps a deeper study is what's needed. Everyone takes for granted that a Mexican-American is a happy Mexican.

Is he? Is she?

I say most Mexican-Americans would live a genuine Mexican life if they could. Assimilation for any species is not easy and maybe even too much to ask a human being. Yet, that's what is asked of a Mexican in this country. As a kid, I was swatted by the principal in elementary school for speaking Spanish on campus. That went the way of the Dodo Bird, but that was my assimilation. Was it necessary? No, of course not. English is just another language, after all. And I was born here, on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande! Yes, it was more the Times we lived in than anything else. But spanked for speaking a language that was really my own? Criminal, I know.

The other day, a friend I often see at the restaurant I frequent in McAllen told me he had days earlier moved to an apartment in Reynosa, Mexico - across the river, barely 11 miles to the south of where we dined. He said it was cheaper over there. All-around cheaper. He's a Mexican-American and, well, there was nothing in what he was telling me that sounded foreign.

The simplicity of the move was striking. He peeled off a few things he was now doing in Mexico that he couldn't do in McAllen. I marveled at his words, but I also knew that anyone researching the symbiotic relationship found here would have said, "Bravo!' and applauded. My friend was the quintessential Mexican & American - which, I'd say, is the proper, more-correct assignation. He is able to live both lives, here and then there, yes.

There was no frown, no anger, no pain and no words of abandonment in his sentences. He had, for all intents and purposes, merely moved, as they say, "across town".

Someday, someone will write to this topic in long form, a book maybe. It'll wrap-up this idea of a people with two countries so at hand that to see it any other way would be to lie to yourself.

Nearby Mexico - so nearby!!! - is so entwined in the area's Mexican-American existence that no border could ever completely unwind it. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans know that.

I am convinced they do...without reservation...

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