And she places her hands upon her small hips, already enraged by the fiery conversation, “I am Mexican, duh!” then she walks away.

It’s close to 6:00 a.m. and Monday morning is just beginning, as she walks into the living room shivering. She hears the clang, clanging of the pots in the kitchen, breakfast must be done. Looking over at the kitchen table, she sees those two ocean blue eyes smiling at her.

“ Como amanesistes ?”

“Bien Grampa”

Is what she replies.

“ Ven , tu chocolate calenté esta listo ”

Her almost favorite words.

“ Anda y aprende el televisor .”

She runs to turn the TV to her favorite show, "Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood," and she’s just in time.

A few more shows pass and Gramma is ready do to her hair, “ Ven mija , la trenza .”

She walks slowly over to her gramma dreading the pain she is stumbling into. After sitting with her legs crossed “Indian style” for ten miserable minutes, it is finally over, and after what seems like hours, her hair mimics the same perfect French braid of all the other little Hispanic girls. Next, it’s time for her to get dressed. After wrestling with her jeans on the floor, she walks over to where she has just plugged in her curling iron. Even at age seven she begins her firm grip on independence. She curls her bangs and meets her grampa on the front porch. The bus is ready for her to get on, so she kisses her grampa and waves good-bye.

She gets to school and although she is in the first grade, she’s treated like one of “them.” Her pale skin, light- colored hair, and green eyes make it seem so possible. She begins to tense up, unable to speak words in either language. Soon her palms become moist with nervousness, and what she tries to hold back, she can hold back no more. She must let those kids, the dark skinned ones, the ones with the same familiarly perfect braid whose only difference was being darker, know that she is one of them. Beginning to move her lips, she stutters, and her words are nothing but what seems to her as a mumble. But with amazement on their faces, the only words they speak to her are “You can speak Spanish!!!” And she places her hands upon her small hips, already enraged by the fiery conversation, “I am Mexican, duh!” then she walks away.

This was the subject so touchy to her. She could no longer count the incidents on her fingers and she knew their wouldn’t be enough room to count on her tiny toes. Yet being only so old, those are the words she had already spoken too many times to so many people. And some how, by the end of almost everyday, she would fight that battle of languages, only trying to prove her background, her culture.

Anxious, she waits to see her grampa drive up, she knows there’s errands to be ran. Once they reach their final destination, the grocery store, she knows he will hand her that certain candy. “Ten toma la paleta ,” and its then that she knows it’s hers. Ready to go home, she sits in the car as her grampa loads up the trunk with all of Gramma’s special herbs and spices.

Upon arriving home, she races to the door, already smelling the aroma of una cena hecho de mano ; Gramma sits her down and helps her eat. She looks down at her plate, it’s her favorite, huevos , frijoles, y papas all tightly rapped up in a steaming hot hecha por mano tortilla. Since her day is almost over, she is ready to be bathed and put into some warm pajamas, so she begins her walk down the lengthy hallway. As she places her hands around the shower knobs, trying to get a firm grip, she doesn’t realize how grown up she already is, taking a shower without being told is something that not every seven year-old can do. She gets in the shower, washes her hair, then her body, and its then that she hears the grita .

“ Ya estas lista niña ? Los novelas están impensando !” Gramma yells. She slips her pajama top over her long hair that is still dripping wet and hurriedly runs to watch the soap operas she still hadn’t quite got the hang of. While she is still trying to comprehend the sappy love scene that had just occurred, a commercial comes on that she can speedily repeat. She bounces to the catchy jingle and starts “ uno ochocientos dos treinta y cuarto veintisiete veintisiete .” She has seen that auto insurance company communicate their low prices a multiple of times. Happy that she can repeat the catchy tune, she finishes trying to understand the show. By the time it is over she’s still full of energy, and yet her gramma has been worn out from a day of cooking and cleaning. As she enters, what in her eyes is a sacred bedroom, Grampa’s hands which had been aged and tattered from the years of field work, are steadily unfolding the bed sheets.
As she crawls into the neatly made bed, she wonders what time Mom will get home. She still hasn’t heard her car pull in and being that it is only around 8:00 p.m., she won’t hear that car pull in, until way after she is dreaming of all the things she wishes she’ll become. Lying in the dark, after much tossing and turning, Gramma would eventually say,
“ Ay niña a pasiuate , y duérmete ya !”

“ Pero Gramma no tengo sueno ”

Will be her excuse. Frustrated her gramma gets up to get out blankets and lay them on the floor, there the two together, fall fast asleep.

A few love wrapped years pass and now at the age of ten, the girl soon realizes her grampa is becoming ill, and visits to the hospital began to seem normal. She shows no fear as she walks through the two glass sliding doors and she already has memorized where his room is located. As she approaches the white mess that is supposed to be his bed, she takes a big hop and leans in to give him a kiss and a big hug. She wiggles her nose to the irritating feeling of an unshaved face on her delicate skin, but still manages to crack a smile. She was in a hurried rush, for today was Thursday, and that meant that tomorrow started her time with her father. She stays for as long as she can bare looking at the horrid green walls of the hospital. Finally, her mom walks in and that smile once again creeps onto her face. She jumps up to give Grampa a quick hug and a fast kiss as to avoid the hated un-shaved chin.

Friday came and she got up, went to school, and was ready on the porch when Dad pulled into the driveway, later that day. She wouldn’t have ever guessed, as she takes a step into her dad’s car, what the day would bring her, since it was St. Patrick’s Day, her favorite holiday. Having a mother that always works and a father that lives in another house wasn’t unusual, and the word divorce, by now, is well engraved into her vocabulary. It’s now later on that afternoon, and she realizes she has received a missed phone call. Her father reaches over and hands her the cold blue pager he has attached to his black belt loop. Looking at the mysterious number, she looks up at her father.

“Maybe it was your mom trying to call?”

“Yeah I’ll call it back and see”

She says as she runs to the back door.

Tripping onto the two steps that lead to the silver screen door, she reaches for the rusty handle and gives it a fast jerk. She sees the phone lying on the deep brown wooden floor, walks over relentlessly, and picks it up. She looks over at the pager and cautiously dials the somehow familiar numbers. After a couple rings a familiar voice answers the phone,
“Hello?”

She pauses, wrapping her mind around the familiar voice,

“Hey David, it’s me, you called?”

“Yes, you might want to sit down okay, I have some bad news for you.”

The girl, puzzled sits straight down on the hard floor.

“Okay, what’s the matter?”

“Your grandpa just passed away.”

The whole room suddenly turns blank, she isn’t sure if she had heard right but she doesn’t dare ask for a repeat of what was said. Tears begin to flow, and her mind is paralyzed with thoughts as she has already begun to walk to the back porch where her dad awaits, covered in grease. He looks up at her rosy face suddenly tense, as she hands him the phone. It seems like forever that she waits for her dad to get off the phone. Finally she hears the click of the hang up and immediately he is at her side. The scar left with her is that of two warm hands touching her face, a smile that was from ear to ear, dancing lessons on top of his shoes, (cause she wasn’t quite as tall as Grampa) that lasted for hours at a time, and her second tongue, Spanish. Along with all this, she found apart of herself that she would always stand up for.

The girl proceeds growing up. She now discovers that she is top of her class and that it means something. She is Hispanic and hardly anyone knew, yet she comes home everyday speaking Spanish better than English. The looks she receives start making her think, and she quickly decides to take a stand. “Soy Mexicana! No piensas que no te puede intender. No mires que soy del mismo rasa? Y tengo el piel guerra pero eso no tiene nada que decir . No estoy gringa y si te puedo intender.” Now she understands, being Hispanic wouldn’t just mean speaking Spanish, but she will have to get to know her culture.

She begins taking trips to where her roots began. And upon arriving in the city of Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon in the country of Mexico, she is greeted by smiling faces all around her. “Ay mija , ya hace mucho tiempo que te ay mirado . Que guerra , y que bonita , igualita de Chili (her mom),” are the responses that her anxious mind absorbs. An everyday routine of waking up to the sister of her gramma (who she had to leave behind) is formed and soon a bond, a connection of the heart, is created. The trips are now made as frequently as possible and leaving her home is even harder for her every time. But one thing starts to sink in, this is her family. These people who live thousands of miles away, this new form of lifestyle so different from what she knew, so full of respect, so full of love and care, so full of all that she has ever wanted, and now she has come to realize its always been hers.

She will not have to come home and fight battles of cultural diversity anymore, she thinks to herself as she steps off the turquoise porch of her tia’s house. She’s fourteen now and she knows what it means to have Hispanic sangre run so thick through her petite veins. Family is being Hispanic, being loved for who you are, not what color your skin is, and having parties with her family so they can just be together, are all pieces of her Hispanic culture woven together in a quilt of comfort and security that she wraps tightly around her. All the little things Gramma had taught her, and all the old traditions that were performed became apart of her and transformed the meaning of being “Hispanic” into more than just a culture, but a love.

She soon realizes that all the times she sat with Gramma in the kitchen making tortas, tacos, and tamales actually meant she could make a homemade meal. Things work differently in her house, as she notices this. Women keep more than the house running, they are meant to keep the family together. Not only do they show support, love, and pride in their children, but they keep the traditions going. From making the tamales para navidad to sewing el vestido para los clases de folklórico , a mother is very important in Hispanic culture. Fathers, fathers show harsh love. They have to be strict to show how respect must be given to every one willingly, and what I have came to know is that without the two combined, my Hispanic family is nothing.

Everyday I wake up, sadly not to my loving grandfather, but to my grandmother who is now becoming old and frail. I know after all the years of taking care of me, it’s my turn to take care of her, I only wish Grampa could be here so I can help take care of him too. I still learn from Gramma everyday, and she doesn’t forget to remind me that I live in El Valle, the Valley, and to forever call it home.

I’ll never forget growing up in our small town, all the orange groves and foggy fall nights, playing in the vegetable garden and then getting my ear pulled by Gramma, and the most precious of all, seeing the sweat drip off of my grampa’s dark brow after a long day of endless work he had done in his yard, just as he once did in the fields he had picked in, many many years before.