Unreliably Yours

So yeah, after attending a really awesome poetry event tonight (check out Celebrate the Word, by the people that do “Da Poetry Lounge”:http://www.myspace.com/celebratetheword), I feel hella inspired to write.

So, my friend Suzy and I were talking tonight about the assumed nature of (the only correct assumption!) the ever shifting definitions and borders of the mestizo. We were amazed that with “non-mixed people” (obviously, technically, everyone is “impure”, or rather, not simply a distillation of any one thing) that they are that cultural identity that they are expected to be (like daaamn, if it was that easy for me to be Asian or whatevz else, maybe then I would finally be content and shut up (if it was possible!), cause I would believe in that faith like a devout housewife who believed faking it in bed would make the marriage stronger.) cause of their appearance and the whole world recognizes it like it’s a god given fact!

In a nod to a previous reader who was getting ready to bring out the cane, I will try and keep this a simpler, shorter post, with less disparate ideas competing for attention, for the sake of coherence. Its my bad to write prose/conversation like with formal writings, but I feel it’s better to just let it out just like I hear it, I guess.

Having a set identity is a luxury, and also not, but certainly a comfort to those who possess it. Traditionally, it has not been perceived this way-many friends of mine have said they wished they could just not “be Black” for a day (in terms of how society views them, not cause they’re like house negroes or anything). But I think many people are unconsciously grateful to belong to one group.

I do think ethnic identity is not a sacred cow though, so I choose to question its validity, and maybe skewer it a bit. How can identity be totally static, just cause society dictates it to be? Do you really believe you’re Brown, Black, Asian, White, etc.? You believe in it cause that’s all you’ve been told you are your whole life?? When you’re mixed, you’re forced to never stay standing-ambulatorily traversing like a wild eyed treesitter between Douglas firs, like a breakdancer windmilling in the struggle for survival, like the fleeing victim of a terroristic earthquake.

But instead of seeing these quasi-empirical facts and super-scientific observations as negative, shouldn’t we see that instead of being fleeing vacaters, maybe we are just the most obvious example of people who, like atoms in motion, are shapeless and proof of the fluidity in everything. The core of anything is like a gooey maggot, no?

I, Maggot

Mixed people will never be just one cultural identity, unless they happen to come out looking only like one of their ethnicities, which is totally rare and like 1 in a hundred. There is no convenient, “Hey, I’m Mexican, etc..” We’re always going to be trying different hats on by default. Fine, many will say, that is an obvious given, but what I wanna do is move us forward and make that a good thing, make us proud of being something else entirely. I feel much of the mixed race community fixates on trying to align with being one of their ethnicities, and either crying about their lack of being that, or simply giving up on forging a truly “mixed identity”, by stating that now they finally feel totally ethnic or White. (This is the same kind of shit going on with the queer vs. gay/lesbian argument) Why can’t we revel in being synthetic products, maybe less due to a colorblind world, but to an accidentally and awkwardly more diverse one? Why can’t we always dance (up)on this splitting ground? (get up on it, homie, if you don’t know, already!) This is the possible and probably next evolution of the mestizo experience and scene.