#3: Emma

Emma tells her story of her Mexican American family. I had technical problems with the audio, so please excuse the quality.


Emma's strong American identity reminds me of the moment when, arguing with Indonesians in Bali, I realized for the first time that I was not only Chinese but unequivocally American. She is often read as white and doesn't feel wrongly distanced from Mexican society in California because she is American. She gracefully shares her conversational Spanish with patrons in her retail job and brushes off discriminatory remarks from coworkers. And yes, I hear irony in her references to black and white Americans as, simply, "Americans," in contrast to ethnic minorities like us. Perhaps we'd do better to question who is included or excluded every time this word it used.

Catholicism comes up again and I delight in the casual attitude Emma shows, as in telling the story of her grandmother who protested her leg-revealing summer outfit. Not having grown up under any religious pressure, I recoil when others even use explicitly religious language, let alone impose moral dogma, and perceive real harm as a result of her parents' self-identity of "living in sin" unwed culminating in a financially and emotionally messy separation. Yet Emma engages fully with her extended family, complete with Catholic holidays and rituals, an easy Catholicism that doesn't make the news but guides so many in religious America.

She finally details the difficulty of navigating institutions as immigrants. While her reflection is on academia in particular, I recall hearing my father asking my mother, when preparing to start his first US job, what "business casual" means. Before the internet, how could immigrants possibly know norms and standards like this? First-generation college and graduate school students lack any frame of reference for crucial details like requirements for application, advising conventions, and funding sources which differ between areas of study and schools. Ultimately this is an issue of class and social mobility.

I have to plug this episode of Hidden Brain where a study showing temporary improvement in creativity is shown for people who have dated someone from a country not their own, but not those with friends from other countries.

May we cultivate kinship with those in need by listening deeply.