Some of this has come from my mixed appearance/consciousness. I am not “white” and yet I am not really anything else either. (Years later, after some dialog about this, a woman exclaims with joyful proclamation, “You’re Chicano, baby!” But, I am still unsure. Shouldn’t I be able to speak Spanish, or have had any Mexican-American friends or come from a family with Mexican-American inclinations?) But I have brown skin, and thick, black hair. This is because, while I have many ancestors that have contributed to my blood/DNA that were European (with some linking person emigrating to the “new world”), I have more who were native to this land/continent now called America. The family line is somewhat mysterious and removed from me, but as for the emigrated European line, I think, among the countries represented are England, Spain, Germany, Norway… For the native American line, I think, the people (Indians they’re sometimes called) come mostly from the areas where present day southwest United States and northwest Mexico have situated themselves, between the states of California and Chihuahua. (The fabled Aztlan?) My family is small: my mother only had two sisters, neither of whom had any children (so no first cousins, and I never knew of any second or more removed cousins either), and my father was an only child. My parents were both born in Los Angeles to parents who had lived in Los Angeles (some even born to it) for some time, lived in houses in mixed neighborhoods, spoke only English, carried no obvious ethnic identifiers. My parents raised me in the suburbs, where I made white friends, went to white schools, enjoyed white entertainment. And yet something was different. Sometimes I was excluded from activities or not treated fairly. Sometimes I incurred looks of hatred. Sometimes on the streets I’ve been asked something in Spanish by Mexican-Americans, which I’ve not understood, and other times I have been asked, slowly and loudly, by European-Americans, “Do you speak English?”

How many times have I faced that question: “What are you?” “An artist,” I used to say when I was young, or “An aquarius,” or maybe just, “What do you mean?” “I mean, where were your parents born?” “Oh, here, in Los Angeles.” “Well, what’s your, uh, ethnic origin?” “Oh, I’m, like, mongrel American.” “Well, what’s the mongrel part?” “European.” “I thought you might be from India or the Middle East or some other place…” “Nope.” It’s weird, I think, because I don’t feel entitled or comfortable questioning strangers about their racial compositions and family histories. Oh, maybe it’s normal, questions like that, and I’ve just been defensive. But still, what’s with people coming off like they’re superior and entitled to a line of questioning and receipt of full disclosures? There’s something about there being six billion or so of us living here, all connected through our humanness and the condition of being sons and daughters of our home and provider the planet Earth, that seems to get lost. Sometimes there is a strange lack of curiosity and openness to foreigners and other cultures. (Indeed, there are in many cases impulses to kill, contain or change an other before learning about, sharing with, offering respect to). Strange because it seems so immature and weak, so lacking in the kind of self-respect that leads to a compassion for the predicament of humanity, in whatever body it has manifested itself into.

My father worked in the film business, and because of it he traveled to a great many states and countries, kept a great many books, did vast amounts of research on various peoples from various times and places, watched a range of foreign and domestic films, and enjoyed a diversity of food. So, while I was raised in a monotonous looking suburb, I enjoyed a rich and diverse experience of world film, cuisine, music, art… I never felt a part of any particular ethnic group, but had a little bit of general introduction to many cultures. In a week I might watch films by Kurosawa and Fellini, eat Chinese and Mexican food, sit in a study decorated in Middle Eastern/Arabian furnishings, and browse through books on art from India and European medieval knights. Periodically I saw some commercial television or heard some commercial radio, but for the most part those things didn’t stick, and I lived most of my life feeling skeptical and sickened by, and avoiding commercial media/entertainment.

I was different, and I was aware of it, though I didn’t necessarily want to admit it. Because, while in certain areas I had some knowledge and understanding, in others I was horribly naive and unequipped. I wanted to be accepted, appreciated, connected, but often times I have felt unconnected, alienated, like an outsider.

]]> http://jasonlamotte.com/blog/archives/80/feed 1