I realized that her viewpoint on this grew from her personal experiences in Ecuador, where most are “machistas” and believe that men are superior to women, and thus was just trying to prepare me for her kind of reality. She wanted me and still wants me to develop a career so I won’t have to be dependent on a man. Of course now I know my mom meant no harm and by no means wanted me to settle as a housewife. In my head I would think, if my husband doesn’t bring me food in bed then I don’t want him. During this period in my life I began to question what my ethnicity really represents, thinking that it only encourages girls to be “good wives”.Īs I got older, I began to ignore when my mom used to say things about how my husband won’t like a wife that does this or doesn’t do that. At times when I used to refuse doing certain chores my mother would scold at me and say “you think your husband is gonna cook for you and serve you in bed”. But of course being his big sister I would still make him help me do it anyways. One day, probably out of jealousy, I reproched my mom and asked “why don’t you make Jefferson (my brother) cook instead of me” and she responded “it’s because he’s a guy”. When my brother turned eight, I never really saw my mom make an effort to teach him these basic things which I then realized was for the reason I expected it to be all along. Similarly as the speaker, she would learn to reject her first language, spanish, and be proud to call herself “American over Mexican”(11). ![]() Times like these provoked me to hate my ethnic background and ask “why did I have to be ecuadorian”. This was all confusing at the time since I thought she wanted better things for me. I used to cry to mom to let me sleep longer but all she would do is scream at me and say how when she was in Ecuador at the age of 6 she would wake up early to cook everyone’s meal and clean the house. I would hate this especially since it was summer and while other kids went out and had fun, I would be stuck inside doing these chores. I remember once I reached my preteen years, during one summer, she would wake me up at 7am or even earlier to help her cook breakfast for the family. By the age of 8 my mom would teach me how to cook, do laundry, and clean which I knew was her way of teaching me to be a “good wife” but she would simply say these are basic things I need to learn to live on my own. However, as a latin-american, my ethnic identity is one of the factors that define me and for most of my life I have had trouble identifying with it and seeing its true values.īeing an hispanic female I would always have certain responsibilities to perform. In the poem, Latino-Americanos: The Children of an Oscuro Pasado by Xochitl Morales, the speaker expresses the values of being Latin American and how that has shaped her. I always used to question what she meant by this. ![]() As a child, she would constantly drill these words into my head about how she sacrifices herself so I can be successful someday. ![]() Wise words from my mother or from any mother really who has had it hard in their lives. “Me estoy sacrificando para que seas alguien en la vida y que no estés sufriendo como yo”.
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