Last time, I mostly just wrote. A lot of it flowed. this time i am going to play with structure. I have decided to write a series of little peisodes that relate to my lost identity.
I have a very white father and relatives that do not shake my hand because i am brown. but when they find out out that we are related they swallow the differences in complexion and hug me.
My mother is mexican and her side of the family is deeply rooted in East LA culture, Chicano ways of life, and gang life.
My brother has always looked like a white boy and I have always looked mexican(ish). the fight for custody during the divorce was only over my brother. in the same token when my brother developed blonde hair and my features got darker my racist great grandmother used to say every time i visited her "you look like shit".
My mother married a black man. i became estranged from my father and was newly adopted into a black family through the love of my stepsister.
I can't speak spanish even thought it was my first language. I don't know yiddish even though I was taught yiddish when I was three. I don't have a religion either for obvious conflicts in beliefs between judaism, christianity, catholocism, and assimilation into american culture (holiday wise).
The other part of the essay is going to express how my identity has evolved and also how this is not a taboo subject since there is no sympathy factor for being half oppresssed and half privileged. However i think the struggle of that should be expressed. finding identity with no home base is a hard thing to find.
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