IDENTITY CRISIS, BUT MAKE IT CHICANA

IDENTITY CRISIS, BUT MAKE IT CHICANA

By Orizema Cruz Pina

What makes me who I am? For the longest time, I wasn’t sure.

As a child, I was only ever focused on my responsibilities. In addition to being a student, I took on becoming my parents’ teacher, my siblings’ caretaker, my family’s protector. I felt alone in my experiences as the first American-born child to hard-working Mexican immigrants, especially as I grew older and we grew apart from our extended family in the area. For years, it felt like my parents, siblings, and I only had each other”

“I felt alone in my experiences as the first American-born child to hard-working Mexican immigrants..”

My family has always been my only connection to our heritage and I regret that it took years for me to embrace many of our traditions. Partly because I tried to be “normal” and partly because I didn’t know how to explore either one of my cultures. My parents were busy trying to provide and my three siblings were too young to process my moody attitudes as anything more than teen angst. Self-exploration wasn’t one of my responsibilities. It wasn’t until I made it to college at San José State University that I realized I needed to make time for introspection, or else this “otherness” would never go away.

“My parents were busy trying to provide and my three siblings were too young to process my moody attitudes as anything more than teen angst.”

For a while, I continued to code switch from good Mexican daughter, to passionate American student and back again. Silently, I questioned the world around me - its expectations and opportunities. Without American culture, I don’t know that I would have pursued graphic design, safely come out as bisexual, or traveled and met people of vastly different backgrounds before the age of 25. Without Mexican culture, I wouldn’t have realized I value simplicity, nature, and family above everything else. Slowly, the various aspects of my identity intersected and I became less afraid to show the world that I was not just Mexican, not just American, but both and more at the same time.

“Without Mexican culture, I wouldn’t have realized I value simplicity, nature, and family above everything else. ”