An article on Generation 1.5 Hispanics, written by Jose Villa, caught my attention during my researching, with the following sentence:
Growing up, I never considered myself “American.” Los Americanos were the white, rich people that I heard about in the media, that starred in the cover of magazines, and that I thought lived the American Dream. They were the people that had good jobs, 2 or 3 kids max, their own house, 2 cars, a dog, and a fence. And that. That wasn’t me.
I was the girl who’s first language was Spanish. I was made in Ecuador. I was the first person in my family to be born in the United States. The foods I grew up with were Ecuadorian (or at least Hispanic). The fourth of July wasn’t a day for making hot-dogs and hamburgers. My mother dressed me up as a “cholita cuencana" for Halloween. My family never went on a vacation. My parents’ highest education was high school. No part of that sounded like the American identity that I grew up understanding.
Then, college happened. Making friends with people who didn’t meet that perfect mold I had made for American, white families rocked my world. I mean, I knew that not all white families were the same, and that evil existed in the world, no matter what your color of skin was. But, I just didn’t have that many friends who were Christian or white, and so I honestly didn’t know what to expect.
And when I met other Latinos at Wheaton, I still struggled. Why? Because some of the Latinos I knew were mixed, and I felt like they wouldn’t understand me. Others had actually been born in Latin American countries and considered themselves more Latinos than I. And others were on the journey towards understanding their identity as “Hispanic-Americans,” an identity that I was not interested in sharing.
I didn’t want to add the “-American” suffix to my Latina identity mostly out of fear of losing that part of me. I struggled enough when my mom would say “you’re so American,” after I did something that resembled the majority white culture. I took it as an insult. “O sea, YO, ¡¿Americana?!” No way!! I couldn’t risk losing my heritage!!
But in reading through Orlando Crespo’s book, through the above article, and through many definitions of 1st-, 2nd-, and 1.5-generation Hispanic definitions, I am starting to find my place. It isn’t a 2nd-generation in the way that my brothers are 2nd-generation… mostly because I was the eldest of my generation, having no one to look up to, being the first person in my family to go to college, being an only-child for 13 years of my life (I mention this one because my little brothers speak English to each other, something I didn’t do). And it isn’t 1st-generation, like I oh so wanted to be (because I imagined this to be “true Hispanic”), because I wasn’t born and raised in Ecuador like my parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. And it’s not quite 1.5-generation as most definitions say: “born in a Latin-American country and immigrated to the U.S. at a young age.” It’s more of Villa’s short definition up there. “Ni de aqui, ni de alla.” … But deep down inside, more “de alla,” and on my to understanding my “de aqui" part.
I can’t say that I am now a Proud American, because I’m not… I still struggle with the fact that, as a young lady at my church once said, within my veins runs the blood of both the conquered and the conqueror… But I am learning to accept all parts of me, remembering those childhood memories of singing the star-spangled banner song every day at school, of listening to oldies on the radio before going to bed, of playing hopscotch outside… things that my parents didn’t teach me, but rather ways in which I assimilated.
All this to say, I am still answering the question “what (or who) am I?” It’s comforting to know that I am God’s and that my foundational identity is in Christ. God made me a Latina woman for a reason. I was born and raised in Chicago for a reason.
Sorry that these are unfinished thoughts, but a good amount of my blog posts on this site will be just that, since it’s a journey— being a, what I call, “1.75-generation Hispanic.” :)
I attend a church comprised of mostly second-generation Hispanics, although our parish has a lot of 1.5 and first-generation Latinos [and non-Hispanics, too]. Over the summer, our girls’ small group read through Orlando Crespo’s, Being Latino in Christ, and I learned more about the different stories that each one of us had, as well as about the common history that we shared. I can’t say that reading that book was the beginning of my journey towards ethnic identity, but it was definitely an important step forward.Some are foreign-born and moved to the U.S. as children. Others, however, were born in the U.S. and raised in all Spanish households and neighborhoods, rendering their U.S. upbringing functionally identical to their foreign-born counterparts. They are not second generation but are not first generation in the traditional sense. They are a group functionally, culturally and linguistically in the middle.
Growing up, I never considered myself “American.” Los Americanos were the white, rich people that I heard about in the media, that starred in the cover of magazines, and that I thought lived the American Dream. They were the people that had good jobs, 2 or 3 kids max, their own house, 2 cars, a dog, and a fence. And that. That wasn’t me.
I was the girl who’s first language was Spanish. I was made in Ecuador. I was the first person in my family to be born in the United States. The foods I grew up with were Ecuadorian (or at least Hispanic). The fourth of July wasn’t a day for making hot-dogs and hamburgers. My mother dressed me up as a “cholita cuencana" for Halloween. My family never went on a vacation. My parents’ highest education was high school. No part of that sounded like the American identity that I grew up understanding.
Then, college happened. Making friends with people who didn’t meet that perfect mold I had made for American, white families rocked my world. I mean, I knew that not all white families were the same, and that evil existed in the world, no matter what your color of skin was. But, I just didn’t have that many friends who were Christian or white, and so I honestly didn’t know what to expect.
And when I met other Latinos at Wheaton, I still struggled. Why? Because some of the Latinos I knew were mixed, and I felt like they wouldn’t understand me. Others had actually been born in Latin American countries and considered themselves more Latinos than I. And others were on the journey towards understanding their identity as “Hispanic-Americans,” an identity that I was not interested in sharing.
I didn’t want to add the “-American” suffix to my Latina identity mostly out of fear of losing that part of me. I struggled enough when my mom would say “you’re so American,” after I did something that resembled the majority white culture. I took it as an insult. “O sea, YO, ¡¿Americana?!” No way!! I couldn’t risk losing my heritage!!
But in reading through Orlando Crespo’s book, through the above article, and through many definitions of 1st-, 2nd-, and 1.5-generation Hispanic definitions, I am starting to find my place. It isn’t a 2nd-generation in the way that my brothers are 2nd-generation… mostly because I was the eldest of my generation, having no one to look up to, being the first person in my family to go to college, being an only-child for 13 years of my life (I mention this one because my little brothers speak English to each other, something I didn’t do). And it isn’t 1st-generation, like I oh so wanted to be (because I imagined this to be “true Hispanic”), because I wasn’t born and raised in Ecuador like my parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. And it’s not quite 1.5-generation as most definitions say: “born in a Latin-American country and immigrated to the U.S. at a young age.” It’s more of Villa’s short definition up there. “Ni de aqui, ni de alla.” … But deep down inside, more “de alla,” and on my to understanding my “de aqui" part.
I can’t say that I am now a Proud American, because I’m not… I still struggle with the fact that, as a young lady at my church once said, within my veins runs the blood of both the conquered and the conqueror… But I am learning to accept all parts of me, remembering those childhood memories of singing the star-spangled banner song every day at school, of listening to oldies on the radio before going to bed, of playing hopscotch outside… things that my parents didn’t teach me, but rather ways in which I assimilated.
All this to say, I am still answering the question “what (or who) am I?” It’s comforting to know that I am God’s and that my foundational identity is in Christ. God made me a Latina woman for a reason. I was born and raised in Chicago for a reason.
Sorry that these are unfinished thoughts, but a good amount of my blog posts on this site will be just that, since it’s a journey— being a, what I call, “1.75-generation Hispanic.” :)
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