I was thankful for stickers this Thanksgiving… among other things…

It’s that time of year again… the time of year that most of us dread, but once it’s all said and done we’re glad we experienced it. It’s the time of year for friends, family, stress, traveling and … stickers for stuff. I know these stickers for stuff sounds weird, but its a reminder of where I’m from, where I’m going and what you can do if you keep up with 100 stickers.

Let’s start off with family, traveling and stress… and going back to where I’m from…I’m from small town west Texas and I usually dread going back. Fortunately and unfortunately I was raised in Houston. So, I’m one of those lucky people who actually knows what it’s like in both worlds… and let me tell ya it’s different!

I have to address the drive to my hometown. I usually pile in the car with my parents and my dog (which I only have visitation with now) and we make the 8 hour trek. Apparently, airports aren’t open on holiday weekends in small towns.  I’m thankful for the time I get to spend with my parents on the way there, but I’m not thankful for the regular “discussions” on the way or arguing over who is going to drive. No matter where we’re going, if we’re in the car longer than 2 hours someone is gonna be pissed before we arrive at our destination. I guess it is what it is, but I can at least be thankful for the fact that we have always managed to arrive in one piece…surprisingly.

Once we make it to my hometown we have the family portion of the holidays. As I’ve mentioned before there is nothing like my grandmother’s cooking. It makes you forget about your healthy eating habits and that bridesmaid dress you have to fit into. I crave her cooking and I can say there are days I wish I lived in this town so I could have regular access to it. Needless to say at the end of the holiday weekend the fat girl inside of me was very happy!

Sometimes I forget my family is more than my grandmother and her cooking. There’s my grandfather and his comments on how all the girls in the family are bigger than the last time he saw us. It can be frustrating, but Grandpa J is old and when I’m 80 something I’ll probably tell my grandchildren what I think too.

Then there are the aunts, uncles and cousins. Oh if I could bottle up joy and pass it out to everyone I know… It would be them…if you didn’t catch the sarcasm please stop reading now. Let me rephrase… it’s not all of the aunts, uncles and cousins that embody the pure joy of a needle going through my eyeball, however, I can say there are enough of them to make me start drinking Jack around noon. Because of them I am thankful for two things… 1. The holidays are only once a year and 2. Thank God we don’t have to live together.

Gone are the days when my family used to play “touch” football in my grandparent’s backyard until one of us kids got the wind knocked-out of us and started crying. We don’t tell ghost stories outside at night anymore either. Instead, we talk about who is getting married, why some of us aren’t married, traveling for work, why people don’t pick up the dog poo in their yards, where you’re going on your next vacation, etc.... I guess because that’s who we’ve all become… grown-ups.

I feel like I came from a family of close-knit, touch football players and ghost story tellers and went to a family who is now more concerned about work, money and how people view them. I will admit I’m guilty of it too… especially when telling my younger cousins what I think about where they’re going. The freakish punk make-up isn’t cute, having a baby at 17 is stupid, your muffin top is way too much for those jeans… So where my family & I are heading is partly my fault too.

As the oldest granddaughter and the second oldest grandchild, I should probably set an example for the younger ones… but it’s hard when they refuse to listen. It’s weird seeing a different family than where I came from. It makes me long for the holidays of my childhood.

One thing I can say has never changed is my grandmother’s need for a great deal… that being her stickers for stuff. My mom and I went to the local grocery store to pick up a few last minute items for the Thanksgiving meal. When we checked out the cashier gave us 10 stickers.

“What are these for?” we asked.

“When you get enough stickers you get free stuff” the cashier told us.

“Oh” I said. “Stickers for stuff!”

 A little redneck if you ask me, but then my mother told me to save them for Momo… and then that’s when it hit me! I remember staying with my grandmother for a little while when my parents were separating. I remember going to the grocery store and getting stickers. When we returned home she had a little envelope where she kept her sticker stash. Her stickers for stuff envelope…

We took the stickers home and gave them to Momo. Her reaction was priceless! It was the same as when I play Monopoly from McDonalds hoping to win a million dollars, except she actually “wins” in the end and gets stuff for her stickers. She had her brochure out and added her new stickers to the rows she already had. That’s when I knew some things never change in our family.

I may not always get along with my family. I may not always agree with what they do. We may not play touch football in Momo’s backyard anymore. We may not tell ghost stories when it gets dark. We may not do all of those things anymore, but we do still have those memories. The memories for which I am very thankful.

We were those kids and it is our job to let our kids be those kids too. Someday, in the future when my cousins and I have our own families and our parents are grandparents and our grandparents are great grandparents we will play touch football and tell ghost stories with our children. But most importantly we will teach our kids to always bring grandma stickers for stuff… Not for the free stuff, but to remember family is not just where we came from, it’s where we’re going and some things will never change.  

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It’s because I’m brown…

I’m never a proponent of pulling the “race card”, but I do think there are some things that warrant a race reference…as an American of Latino/Hispanic decent there are some things only people of the same background would understand. What would that be you ask???

 Well, as a “Latina” I have a weird obsession with all things bright and glittery… and not just diamonds, but sequins dresses, satin red shoes with flowers, glitter shoes, gaudy rings… My list of obnoxious and gaudy attire goes on and on.  But I can’t help it! It’s because I’m brown! Like a moth drawn to a fire I can’t turn down a sparkly dress or shoes… I must buy… even if it sits in my closet for a year before I wear it.

My insane cravings for tamales fresh out of the husk and homemade corn tortillas are something that only a person with a grandmother like mine can appreciate. Every time we go visit “Momo” she has brisket, homemade salsa, tamales and homemade corn tortillas waiting for me. It makes the 8 hour drive to the small town in west Texas well worth it! Regular cravings for chalula sauce, tamales, fresh corn tortillas, jalapeños, salsa and cheese are probably eating me to a slightly earlier death, but I’m brown… it’s in my blood.

In addition to my closet full of glitter and bottles of chalula sauce I have vowed to never leave the house without make-up. Ever since I was young, I can remember my mom and "mis tias" never leaving the house without their make-up on. Now, as a 28 year old single female in the big city I wouldn’t dare leave the house without my concealer, foundation, powder, bronzer, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara and highlighter. Who knows who you might run into… I might meet a single, catholic, attorney who wants to have 5 kids and loves a girl with a glitter & chalula sauce obsession… It may seem farfetched, but so are Santa and the Easter bunny. I can’t help always looking like I may run into my future husband…I’m brown and that’s how we roll.

My list of what some people may call crazy, weird or odd practices is never ending… I don’t notice them until I’m around someone who isn’t brown like me. I don’t expect someone who is of a different background to understand my weird obsession with Selena, dodging a flying chancla, my wall of crosses and wanting my grandmother’s wall sized portrait (aka “Lupita”) of the Virgen de Guadalupe.

These are all things that are related to my background… and there are Latinos who are different from me… it’s who we are. We are all different and unique in our own way. Every race and religion is different. It’s what makes us who we are as a country. We are a melting pot of diversity and it’s amazing to say I live in a country that embraces diversity.

Even though I love my country and its diversity I don’t love people who use their diversity as an excuse…an excuse to perform at a lower level, to not work, to not speak English, to not pay taxes or to be hateful to other people. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who make excuses for not doing their best. And on top of it using race as the excuse to not do their best.

As a Latina I have always been caught in “limbo”. As a product of private school and a predominately white public high school I was always a little different. I was never white enough for the white people and never brown enough for the brown people. I didn’t fit the stereotype… and I’m damn proud I didn’t! Not every Latina has to look like they just had a run in with a black sharpie, have an accent or have crispy curly hair. Even though I have encountered some uncomfortable situations I never let it get to me. I never used race as an excuse to not push forward. I never let my race limit who I was around or dictate what I believed.

I recently heard something at a “Latinos of the GOP” forum that disturbed me. I heard people complain about not wanting to play the race card yet they said they wanted someone in office who was “Hispanic to the core”. This was a complete contradiction and it boggled my mind. These are the kind of people who keep a community, country and most importantly a race from performing at its best. Instead of putting emphasis on a person’s morals, values and beliefs they are putting emphasis on their race.

What we, as a country, need to start doing is following the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. and be a country that does not allow people to “be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”, and most importantly we also need to be sure we are a country that does not use the color of our skin to be an excuse for a lack of character. Even though I was fairly sheltered growing up I’ve always worked in places where I came across a lot of different races, religions, ages and social classes… I feel that excuses, not race, are the biggest issue we have as a country.

We have become a country of excuses. The people who break the stereotypes are looked at as “lucky” or at the right place at the right time. Not that they didn’t make excuses for where they were from or who they were and just worked. People who broke the mold are the people I look up to. They have inspired me to not try to be white enough or brown enough… they’ve inspired me to be me.

Many people may not get dodging a chancla, Selena, my attraction to glitter and my cravings for home made tortillas. But they can understand me never using it as an excuse to not perform. They can respect my decision to never make excuses and to never be white enough or brown enough, but to just be me. To be a 28 year old, American female who wears glittery shoes, doesn’t use race as a reason to not be all I can be and who does some things just because I’m brown.