The Dahlia is the National flower of Mexico, it’s fitting that it takes up so much space because my heritage is important to me – influencing everything I do. I was born and raised in Nevada, I made the background the same piercingly blue color as the state’s flag and the two work together to inform the viewer of my upbringing. I incorporate an image of the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico at the bottom of the collage reading “ALSO ON THIS SIDE THERE ARE DREAMS,” revealing my parent’s journey in pursuit of a better life and reminding me of how far we’ve come.
WRCT113F.01
May 2023
Reflection/ Introspection
In the spring of 2022 my time in the Marine Corps had come to an end and I would be home with family until I had to pack my belongings, squeeze it all into my car, and drive across the country to start school in the fall. The time in between then was the longest amount of time I had been home since before I enlisted and left for boot camp. My parents, siblings, and I being under the same roof again, and visiting Mexico over the summer for the first time caused me to think about my parents immigrating to the United States and its effects in a way I had never considered before. When it came time to register for classes, the First Year Seminar, A Nation of Immigrants?, piqued my interest and I thought taking the course would allow me to further explore diasporic sentiments related to the immigrant experience that had become a point of contemplation for me. I eagerly enrolled in the class.
I thought the first few assigned readings like Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s Why I Tried to Save My Father, My Dictator were nice but did not consider them to be much else other than that. Hearing the thoughts of those in the class – what stood out to them and what they took it to mean helped me close read better, a skill that atrophied in the five year lapse of time since I was last in an academic setting. I would read a passage several times and consider what the author chose to include and how it was presented. That consideration led me to see what those in the class took away from whatever story we read that week. Over time I became better at isolating moments within a story I thought had a larger resonance that served to promote themes the texts were trying to convey like agency in The American Embassy when the main character walked out mid-interview at the end of the story. The stories most redolent of the diasporic effect of immigrating to me were Junot Diaz’s Negosios and Achy Obejas’ We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? Moments within the stories felt like whiplash in the way they articulated thoughts that crossed my mind while I was in Mexico. Hearing stories of my parent’s childhood and seeing my grandparents’ parent my parents was a reminder that my mom and dad aren’t just parents. What Diaz’s father got up to when he first arrived in the U.S. had me think of what it must have been like for my parents as they familiarized themselves with Las Vegas when they first arrived. Observing their dynamic had me imagine if they hadn’t made the move, what would have become of their life and mine? How would things have been different? Obeja wrote “I can only think of variations of who I am, not who I might have been.” I will never know of the life I did not have the opportunity to live in Mexico, but taking this class has exposed me to a canon of work that I can explore that informs how I approach the retelling of my family’s immigration story.
