Musings About My Identity
By: Dr. Jesús G. Rodríguez
Tags: Indigenous, Latin America, Mexico, America, Latinos

Personal Experiences with Mexican, American, Indigenous, Latinx & Others

Photo by Author. Painting, Teotihuacan, by local artist.

Denverite, Coloradoan, American, Miguel Auzense, Zacatecano, Mexicano

My name is Jesús, but many of my friends and family call me Jesse. My pronouns are él, he, him, and his. I was born in Denver, Colorado, to parents from a small town in Zacatecas named Miguel Auza, which is approximately two hours away from the capital city of Zacatecas, Zacatecas. The name Zacatlan was given to this place by the Mexica (Me-Shi-Ca), also known as the Aztecs, and it means the place where grass, zacatl, is abundant.

From as far back as I can remember, our family spent the summer months in Miguel Auza. When I started high school, I began to spend even more time in Mexico, where I made many meaningful and long-lasting friendships with the local young people and others from across the United States whose parents were also from Miguel Auza. During this time period in my life, the following three things occurred: I learned that my Spanish was not as great as I thought it was when I was in the United States, my Spanish improved significantly, and I authentically experienced Mexican culture firsthand. Regarding the latter, I learned that it is quite different being Mexican-American in the United States and being Mexican-American in Mexico. It felt like in neither country, both of those parts of my identity could be embraced simultaneously.

Amigx

When I was in high school and visiting Miguel Auza, a co-ed group of friends socialized together but generally aligned themselves and congregated mostly by gender. In the plaza or alameda, you would see a group of young men and young women, separately but near each other. In the group of young men, I can affirm that most of the conversations consisted of helping one build up the courage to tell one of the young women that he liked her. However, in the group of mostly young women, there was always one young man who aligned himself with them named Tony. These experiences are from over twenty years ago, but I vividly remember that group of friends, which included Tony, teaching me about equis (X). They did not refer to each other as amigos or amigas but rather as amigx (amigequis). They were able to apply the nongender conforming equis, seemingly with great ease and fluency. Admittedly, it took me a while to get the hang of the rule. I remember incorrectly applying it to my own name, Jess-equis, and my friends laughed then further explained that they apply the equis to masculine and feminine specific words when in their gender-mixed groups or when referring to another gender-mixed group. When referring to themselves as a mixed-gender group, this group of friends might have identified as Miguel Auzenses, Zacatecanx, and Mexicanx. Whereas all of the young women in the group would refer to themselves individually as Miguel Auzenses, Zacatecanas, and Mexicanas, while Tony identified as Miguel Auzense, Zacatecano, and Mexicano.

They realized that referring to themselves as amigas when Tony was a part of their group feminized him in a way that did not honor his identity as a young man. They also realized that referring to themselves as amigos just because Tony was a part of their group, which is the general rule of thumb in Spanish, would masculinize them and subject them to the language's patriarchal norms. As a group of forward-thinking young people, they challenged these gendered structures and created a language that worked better for their needs. At that time, I had not met anyone who referred to themselves, in the singular, with the nongender conforming equis. My experience was limited to mixed-gender groups using equis to replace masculine or femine specific words in Spanish.

Mexican-American y Chicano

Long before I spent so much time in Miguel Auza, my parents always told me that I was México-Americano and that even though I was born in the United States, they wanted me to have dual citizenship. In the United States, however, I was proudly Mexican. When I would travel to Mexico, my friends would tell me that I was Americano. I struggled with identifying as American, even though I was because being American had been racialized for me. American meant white, and I was clearly, not white. To the Mexicanx adults in my life, I was also not Chicano because I spoke Spanish. They had met Mexican-Americans who did not speak Spanish and self-identified as Chicanos and Chicanas, and that was our context. I would later learn that Mexico's Indigenous people called themselves Mexica, and the word Chicano is a shortened form of Mexicano (Me-Shi-Ca-No). During the civil rights movement in the 1960s, leaders like Cesar Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, and others helped popularize its use with pride for being of Mexican descent while living in the United States. Not quite Mexican, not quite American, but still both.

American

I am a hip hop aficionado and have been that way for as long as I can remember. Hip hop is an important part of the American and English speaking part of my culture. My grandfather babysat me, and while at my grandparents’ home, I spent most of my time rummaging through my uncles’ collection of cassettes. This cassette rummaging is a story of its own. Still, if you have read this far, I want you to know that some of our favorites included: Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Eric B & Rakim’s Paid in Full, Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded, De La Soul’s 3 Feet High & Rising, The Great Adventures of… Slick Rick, NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, LL Cool J’s Radio, RUN DMC’s Raising Hell, Gang Starr’s Mr. Nice Guy, and Big Daddy Kane’s Long Live the Kane (my dog’s namesake: Big Daddy Cain).

Hispanic

Although the former list of albums is not exhaustive, I mostly wanted to point out that I didn’t have an experience with the word Hispanic until Kid Frost, a self-identified Mexican-American emcee, famously released the song La Raza on his album, Hispanic Causing Panic. Viva La Raza was a rallying cry used by Chicanos to celebrate culture. Hispanic refers to someone who is a descendant of a Spanish speaking country. In that song, Kid Frost said, “It’s in my blood to be an Aztec warrior, go to any extreme and hold no barriers / Chicano, and I’m Brown and proud.” That song was different from the hip hop I was accustomed to, both in what it sounded like as well as in terms of content. Still, I remember being drawn to the use of Spanish in the song and the cultural references he made to being Indigenous and Brown. Before La Raza, I hadn’t heard anyone rap in English and Spanish. However, in any case, Hispanic was still not a term I was hearing anyone refer to themselves or others except when listed as an option on official documents where you were asked to identify your race and/or ethnicity. At that time, I recall that Spanish speaking stations referred to their viewers, including my parents and my family members, at large, as Hispanos.

Latino

About one year after hearing La Raza, Cypress Hill, a hip hop group that included a Cuban-American and Cuban-Mexican-American member, released their self-titled debut album, which included a song called Latin Lingo. The song was not one of my favorites in terms of what it sounded like, but it was the second bilingual example of hip hop I remember being exposed to. At that time, I also hadn’t heard of people who looked like me called Latins or Latinos, as Cypress Hill had referred to themselves. For what it’s worth, generally speaking, Cypress Hill sounded more like the hip hop I was used to than Kid Frost did. In early 1998, the world was introduced to my favorite artist, Christopher Lee Ríos, better known as Big Punisher or Big Pun, a Puerto Rican from the South Bronx, New York City, New York. In his rhymes, Big Pun embraced the term Latin, Latino, and Spanish, as well as Puerto Rican and Boricua, in a way that I hadn’t really heard before. Specifically, he wasn’t making songs about being Latino per se. Still, he let listeners know he was Latino throughout much of his music. His big break came from a hit single called Still Not A Player. The opening verse included several examples of translanguaging and Spanglish, for example: “Puffin’ the lye, from my twinzito / Up in the Benzito, with my Kiko / from Queens, nicknamed Perico.” The song closes with the now-famous outro in Spanish, “boricua, morena.” In Big Pun’s mainstream introduction, he made those cultural connections I had come to be drawn to. He continued to do so throughout the rest of his album, sprinkling Spanish references and Puerto Rican pride here and there like in the song Beware when he says, “Puerto Roc style” or in his song Super Lyrical making a quick reference to the son of God as, “Jesús” (hey-soose) or in Dream Shatterer when he says, “I’m the first Latin rapper to baffle your skull” and “you ain’t promised mañana in the rotten manzana.” Big Pun became my favorite emcee because of his lyrical ability. The Latino affinity was a bonus.

As a hip hop aficionado, the Latino affinity was fundamental, though—representation matters. I was so proud of Big Pun, and I felt like he represented me, even though he was of Puerto Rican descent and I am of Mexican descent. In my eyes, we were the same, and Latinos' shared identity solidified that connection at the time. At this point, I self-identified as Latino, Chicano, and Mexican interchangeably.

As I began to learn more about myself, my ancestors, and the historical experiences of those like me in the United States, I began to feel that Latino also missed the mark on who I am. Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and other languages are each direct descendants of Latin. From Mexico through Central and South America and most of the surrounding islands, Latin America was dubbed this by the French to differentiate it from other parts of colonized America, particularly the north, which was largely colonized by Great Britain. So, Latino (masculine) refers to a man who is a descendant of a country where one of the Latin descendant languages is spoken, which mostly refers to Spanish because it is the official language of most countries in Latin America but, it also includes Portuguese in Brazil and French in Haiti, for example. This is an important distinction from Hispanic, which only refers to descendants of countries where Spanish is spoken.

Indigenous

Some of my ancestors came to this continent as colonizers, mostly from Spain. However, identifying as Latino or Hispanic or Spanish centers whiteness and perpetuates indigenous erasure that I do not wish to partake in or further contribute to. Most of my ancestry is indigenous to this continent and I am very proud of that. Those same colonizing ancestors from Spain planted roots in Mexico and passed their language on from generation to generation. I lament the success of indigenous erasure within my own family tree, which includes gaining a language in Spanish but losing our native language, which was indigenous to this continent, over time, for example. However, being bilingual, in Spanish and English, is an important part of my identity, especially because Spanish is the only language I can communicate with both of my living grandmothers in. It is important to note that there are many things about our indigenous culture which, fortunately, have not been erased, such as the prehispanic culinary culture that we enjoy today like mole, tamales, chilaquiles, sopa de tortilla, and pozole to name just a few. Not to mention the ingredients in our everyday foods that were enjoyed by our ancestors and are indigenous to this continent as well like avocado, chocolate, tomato, maize, and chile. I wrote all of those foods in their anglicized form but each of them is rooted in Nahuatl (the language of the Mexica). Similar to W.E.B. Du Bois’ double consciousness, I grapple with a triple consciousness, at least.

Mestizo

In addition to Mexico-Americano, my mother always told me that I was mestizo, which means mixed. I never quite understood what she meant because both of my parents are Mexican, and my skin tone is brown like the very color of the land on this continent. But when I was in high school, at the recommendation of my cousin Iván, I read Gary Jenning’s Aztec Blood through which I learned about the Spanish caste system in Mexico which included: Peninsulares, Creoles, Mestizos, Pardos, Indios, Mulattos, Zambos, and enslaved Africanos. Later, as an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Zacatecas and took a history class with a man named Don Arturo, who taught me more about Mexico’s history, including the mestizaje. This experience made it make more sense to me, bringing me closer to my native roots.

As a survivor of colonization, indigenous erasure, the mestizaje, and not to mention being a first-generation United States citizen, I am multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual; mixed, if you will. Hence, it is quite challenging for me to check a single box that represents my identity. However, I do have a preference, and in order of fondness, I identify as 1. Latino of Mexican Indigenous descent, 2. Brown, 3. Mexican, 4. Chicano, 5. Latino, 6. American, and 7. Mestizo.

Latinx

Over the last several years, Latinx, usually pronounced in English or Spanglish (Latin-ex or Lateen-ex) has been used as a gender-neutral or nonbinary alternative to Latino (masculine) and Latina (feminine), which are usually pronounced in Spanish. I fully support the use of Latinx from an inclusive perspective, and quite frankly, I have been shocked to experience queer racism (see Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist) on full display from people who make concerted efforts not to use Latinx, even when someone has clarified their pronouns or in a mixed-gender space of Latinx people (Lateen-equis en español). I have heard some people say things like, “I don’t know about Latinx” or “I’m not sure how I feel about Latinx” or “I don’t identify as Latinx” or “I won’t use Latinx” while fully supporting the use of Latino and Latina, making their protests about the X and not about the Latin. In some cases, even going as far as saying that they would use Latin@, which is a way to include Latinos and Latinas, in print, at the same time but still fails to include nonbinary people.

If you are going to refer to someone or a mixed, including nonbinary, group of people as Latin-anything, or you are unsure of anyone’s pronouns, or someone has communicated to you that their pronouns are they, them, and theirs, then I strongly encourage you to refer to them as Latinx instead of Latino or Latina. By no means, am I suggesting that we should all be referred to as Latin-anything; that is for us to decide for ourselves as individuals. But, as my brother Nelson, my primo hermano Rigo, and I have discussed, our issue is not with the “X,” which is more inclusive. Our issue is with the “Latin,” which is Eurocentric and erases our Indigenous identities. I identify as Latino of Mexican Indigenous descent because it allows me to stand in solidarity with all humans who are descendants of the Latin American diaspora.

Closing With An Invitation

I wanted to share some of my own complicated journey, evolution, growth, and overall insights into my experiences through this reflection in hopes that it may inspire more conversations about the exploration of our identities, individually and collectively. !Hasta pronto!