The Mexican American Evolution

Chapter 4 defines critical discourse analysis (CDA)  as “ a set of approaches to discourse analysis focusing on power relations”(52). In conducting one of my interviews I was impatient to do some discourse analysis as Matthews explains which “explores how dominant discourses work through multiple texts to show how identities are established and how knowledges and understandings are taken up as history, politics, justice and ‘truth’”(53). With that said, I wanted to take this blogging moment to get some of the stuff up in my head having to do with this reading and my recent interview, down.

Yesterday I just was interviewing one of my participants for my research. I’ve been trying to find ways to ask my research questions without making it feel like a formal interview. So we went out to eat at this Mexican restaurant Jalisco de Rodeo . I notice that there was a loop of garlic hanging over the door, next to it a glass of water, and a small piece of paper with what looked like a prayer written on it.  We started talking about rituals, traditions and superstitions, and eventually arrived at a discussion over the term  Mexican American and the idea of culture that was attached to his ( my participants) Mexican American Identity.

Now so far with every interview, when it comes to the part where my participants are trying to explain to me their Mexican American Identity, they need me to join in. They want to know how their articulation of Mexican American Identity compares with mine, as if in order to solidify it, it needs to have certain elements of mine encompassed in it.

 My participant knows me, and knows that at this point, I have considered myself predominantly culturally white. He knows I don’t speak Spanish and that it isn’t my mother’s first language either.  He knows this because in the process of explaining what his idea of Mexican American Identity encompasses he has included me in this idea by asking me questions about my language and culture in my immediate family. His idea of what it means to be that doesn’t just consist of HIS experiences as a Mexican American, but those of his Mexican American peers (me).

We eventually got to breaking down the term Mexican American. We discussed how in that term Mexican was the adjective for American. What kind of American are you? A MEXICAN American. We talked about how not every American has an adjective prefix to identify what kind of American they are. Then we arrived at the idea of evolution. How are we as Mexican Americans evolving?

 And apparently, according to my participant, I was this evolution. I am the evolved Mexican American.

 According to my participant evolution is progress and the Mexican American Identity is going to inevitable progress into someone like me. A monolingual, English speaking Mexican American. I right away did not like this idea and I started picking at his words. The words he used to explain this “evolution”. My participant is political science major and is always busting out his dictionary to situate the words we use to see if they are serving to articulate our thoughts. He does this even if we’re not in the middle of an interview. So according to Merriam web evolution is:

c (1): a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : growth (2): a process of gradual and relatively peaceful social, political, and economic advance

Initially my participant was good with this idea. He agreed, this is what evolution is, the change from lower state to a better state. But what that means, was that I was the better state of Mexican American. Me, the culturally white, monolingual, Mexican American, was the EVOLVED Mexican American.

It’s not the first time this idea has been presented to me. It was usually coming from the parents of the guys I dated; I was a valued, educated evolution of the Mexican American. I only know this cause the Southside and Westside mothers always made it a point to tell me how happy they were that their son was dating a “good” girl like me. They didn’t know all the things I did that would probably change their idea of me as potentially “good”,  but what they did know was, I spoke English without an Spanish/Southside/Westside accent, I lived on the Northside (white side/ suburbs), I went to school and I didn’t speak Spanish. In this idea of me being a “good” girl the loss of language was a small sacrifice to become the evolution I am.

Which is bullshit.

After breaking down the words evolution as betterment from a lower state, I pointed out that I considered myself, as he did too, culturally white. It wasn’t until I said this, that he slowly started reevaluating his evolution statement. I explain that if I was the evolution of the Mexican American then that meant we saw white culture as a better and higher standard of culture than Mexican culture. If Mexican is the adjective of American then isn’t what he considered evolution the evolution of losing the Mexican and just becoming American. We talked about how it was inevitable that the later generations ( like the 2^nd generation and on) was going to lose some aspect of their culture. But if we moved away from our culture, what were we moving closer to. And why was the move considered an evolution. This evolution is seemingly synonymous with cultural genocide.

Unfortunately because of my participant familiar relations with me there was a silence that he was trying to maintain. I asked him about 4 or 5 times, what are the later Mexican American generations moving towards when we move away from our culture. My participant thought I was TRYING to get him to say we are moving towards white culture. I know this because he straight up accused me of doing so. But I tried to explain that I wanted to know what he honestly thought, where he considered us to be moving if we were moving away from our culture.

He never answered my question.

This is only my second interview with this participant and I plan to have more with him. I found it interesting to watch him struggle with figuring out in which direction we are moving when we move away from our culture. He had a lot to consider, he considered old rituals and traditions he was glad to move away from, mostly he was referring to patriarchal traditions he found oppressive. I know this was important to him considering he was raised by his mother and is very close with his sister. He also is an atheist and is glad to move away from religious parts of Mexican American culture and identity.