Soy Mexicana

This week was the most expected week of the summer. It was my first time in New York City, the big apple. I don’t think I ever dreamed of going there but it has always been a point of interest. However, as the time was approaching I started getting more excited about it. First of all, because we had scheduled a tour in the United Nations, a place I have dreamed working for, or at least work on something similar. Second, a lot of my favorite tv shows happens in New York City; Friends, How I Met your Mother, Luke Cage, Gossip Girl, Daredevil, the Defenders…and the list can go on. The place I had the most expectations was the United Nations since I was little I always saw this organization as heroes and heroines working to change the world. As I keep growing up, I was still able to see more of their involvement in the world and my admiration kept growing. I was a little salty when my city was labeled the most dangerous city in the world for a couple of years and no country or organization cared or tried to do something including the UN. However, I still had the UN in a pedestal, until I had the tour. We learned UN branches, work, and the people that are involved. One of the things that took me by surprise the most was that all the agreements that take place in the UN countries are not obligated to follow them, how everything is just a suggestion. I am not saying this type of system does not work, it just I thought it worked differently. The more I kept learning about them, the more I kept wondering why all my life I had been obsessed so much with the UN when if I really want to make an impact in my country and their policies I don’t have to go through the UN to make them happen. I thought that in order to get to my government and changed it I needed to be part of an international well-recognized organization. Don’t get me wrong, I still respect and admire what they do, and their job is needed, but through them, I am not going to help out and give back to the country.

    By my country I mean Mexico, this year I have felt pretty American, however, through this trip to NYC a regain a lot of my identity lost as Mexican. We had a special guest, who was from Africa but grew up here in the US. She talked about how a couple of years ago she went to her country and felt like she had just arrived home even though that was her first time in the country. She talked about identity, and how in the US she is African American, but in Africa, she is just a person, the label does not exist. And for her, that attributed her feeling of belonging and being home. She also talked about how she has learned so much about home while she was away of it, and I could not feel more identified. The more I have been far away from my country the more I valued it, I know is a pretty messed up country, but I love it with all my heart. A lot of things I gave for granted are livelily noticeable now that I am away. Issues that I ignored while I was living in my country are issues that now I try to learn and read about. I have never been so proud to be Mexican. While I was growing up in Mexico, there were points I was ashamed of being from Mexico and even claimed more being a U.S. citizen even though I never lived there. Now,  I have a weight in my heart to do something for my country. At the end of the day Mexico is my home, that is where I grew up, where my values and character was formed and shaped. It is the country that gave me a loud voice even when I whisper, to listen to Cumbias and dance while cleaning, where I learned that if you cried you have to sing and that if you are happy you sing. That emotions and feeling are meant to be expressed, that even man cried but they still machos. That nothing is granted, and hard work might not always pay off but you still have to keep going, because we do not give up. It is where the mothers are the bosses of the family [las jefas], where doesn’t matter how old you are if you live with your family and you are going out, you still have to ask for permission and answers a survey of where, when, with who, until when and what. Where the most popular songs that every single Mexican knows is about our love for Mexico (Mexico Lindo y Querido, Cielito Lindo ). And I can keep going but I think my point has been crossed.

    I took me traveling to NYC, a city far away from Mexico to recognized how much and proud I am to be Mexican again in public.

Raquel Resendiz

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