This time last year I was in London, but already planning my next study-abroad adventure. I intended to study farther south, probably in Chile, or maybe in Spain again. It was taking Dr. Goldberg's "Cultures of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands" class this past spring that convinced me to come to Mexico. Having developed that interest in border studies, I was super excited when, on orientation day, I met and chatted with a guy from a border town. This charming border man is also the cute guy who I saw at the salsa club, and who fervently hates America, and in front of whom I am loath to speak Spanish because he makes me stammer. (Read back through the blog -- I think he's in every post, at least subtly.) He became my first Mexican friend, and then my first Mexican boyfriend. Can I hear a big "Awwwww"?
One of the first times we hung out, as we talked about the dynamics of the border, he invited me to come to his hometown with him for the Mexican Independence Day. My response was somewhere along the lines of, "Hell yes!" At that point I was compelled by a purely academic and friendly interest, like, "Wow! I get to see the border! I get to meet a real Mexican family!" But by the time we boarded the bus a month and a half later, the trip had morphed into a more weighty, Meeting The Family kind of thing. I mean, it was serious. He was in my Facebook profile picture and everything.
In between the invitation and the departure, a series of intercultural misunderstandings accumulated. For example, he got offended that I would call him "dude" -- but never mentioned it. I got more than offended when he joked about my dad dying -- I bawled. According to my other Mexican friends, his joke was totally culturally acceptable (in Mexico). And according to my American friends, calling him "dude" is culturally acceptable, too (in America).
Compound these frequent, accidental offenses with "lost-in-translation"-type miscommunications and genuine disagreements about the politics, morality and gender roles, and and you have an idea of the difficulty of transnational, intercultural, bilingual dating. It was at the height of this culture clash that we headed to spend five days with his family. Can I hear a big "Awwwwww....kward"?
The voyage itself was fantastic. It's a six hour trip from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, to Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and the landscape is gorgeous!
.JPG "Coahuila landscape")
We took a first class bus, and I swear I've never been more comfortable. There were fold-out leg rests and at least a dozen televisions, and in the back of the bus there were two -- two! -- bathrooms, one for men and one for women. There was also free coffee, but when you're sitting next to someone whom you're fairly sure you don't understand and not quite sure you even like, headed to spend 114 consecutive hours with him and his family, your heart pounds and your thoughts race even without caffeine.
Knowing how this story ends, I would have spent my long weekend somewhere else. But it wasn't a total wash. During dinner the first night, his mom invited me to a cultural festival hosted by the school she works for. I readily agreed, and that set tone for the visit: Mom takes gringa girlfriend to cultural events around town while boyfriend stays home to sleep, play online poker, or drink with his buddies. Read: he essentially ignored me for five days in a row, while I was at his house -- and I am still mad about it. But his mom was great! Here's a photo of us all dressed up for the festival.
She also invited me to church, a quinceañera, a baby shower, and -- most excitingly of all, from a border studies point of view -- to go shopping with her and her two daughters in Eagle Pass, Texas, just across the Rio Grande. And so it was that on Monday afternoon, September 15, I returned to my homeland and invested $115 in our ailing economy. Here's what the border looks like!
The family buys all their milk, cheese and ham in the States because they say it tastes better. It's maybe a 10-minute drive from their home to the border, and they cross at least once a week. (I asked the youngest daughter, age 16, about a billion questions about when and why they cross, to see if the responses lined up with what I learned in class. I'm pretty sure she thought I was nuts.)
The family also shops for clothes in Eagle Pass (which they pronounce EEG-lay Pahs), because it is cheaper. My $115, for example, bought me a new shirt to go clubbing in, a purse, a pair of shoes, a pair of pants, a fleecy jacket, leggings, and more. Our four-hour stay in Texas involved a long amble around the Mall de las Águilas and a quick but fruitful trip to a HUGE Wal-Mart. You should have seen me, paralyzed in the doorway of the entrance, wracking my brain to compose a list of anything I could possibly need in the next two months that I could only buy in America. I grabbed several packets of nice gel pens, a huge bottle of Advil gelcaps, a box of o.b. (truly a blessing, because there's still a stigma in Mexico against wearing tampons, so even in big drug stores there's almost no selection) and several American candy bars. I crossed back into Mexico very satisfied, but now I'm kicking myself for forgetting Febreeze. Oh well.
The other fantastically nerdy experience I had in Eagle Pass took place in a shoe store, as I listened to two employees chat in Spanglish. I wrote a research paper about Spanglish for the Borderlands class, so I stood mesmerized as I heard one say to the other, "Pues, déjame checar. Sí, el Friday salgo a las ten, pero el Saturday salgo a las five so maybe we could do something then."
Sisters, Mom and I returned home late that evening, just in time for me to leave with my boyfriend and head to the plaza for El Grito (The Yell), the celebration of the Mexican Independence, at 11 o'clock. I'll quote
www.inside-mexico.com to synthesize the history:
In the early hours of September 16, 1810, Father Hidalgo, accompanied by several conspirators ... rang the bell of his little church, calling everyone to fight for liberty. This was the beginning of the Independence War, which lasted 10 years. And this is the moment that every September is re-enacted in every plaza or zócalo of Mexico, and commemorated by Mexicans all over the world. ... It is customary for our President to deliver the grito in Mexico City's zócalo. It is in this plaza ... that the original bell rung by Hidalgo is placed. ... The ceremony reaches the high point when the crowd joins in proudly shouting out the names of the heroes of our Independence, to end with the exciting VIVA MEXICO!
The celebration in Mexico City was televised live on an enormous screen, and everyone packed into the plaza in Piedras Negras shouted along. Many were dressed in traditional outfits, like this girl who was sitting atop her dad's shoulders to get a better view.
.JPG "Celebrating independence")
At the climax, everyone got out cans of spray foam and let loose as fireworks burst overhead.
The last day of the trip was dedicated to a remarkably long carne asada (barbeque), to which the extended family -- aunts, cousins, great uncles, etc. -- was invited. My boyfriend also (finally) gave me lightning-fast tour of Piedras Negras, including the downtown, the Plaza de las Culturas, and the Rio Grande. The folks pictured below are waiting until dark to cross. On the other side of the river, you can see the Border Patrol waiting.
When we returned to his house, had a few hours to kill until our overnight bus left. Those last few hours featured perhaps the most evident moment of culture clash that I have yet to experience, as we watched Juno together (... with his mom, but that wasn't the bad part). I should mention, I love Juno. A lot. I love the dialogue, I love the actors, and I love the way it brought teen pregnancy to the front of the national dialogue for awhile -- at least among my friends and family. My boyfriend hated it. Main complaints: Why didn't the parents yell at the daughter more for getting pregnant? Why didn't the teen father buck up and take responsibility for the pregnancy? (OK, legitimate point.) And, most importantly, how on earth could they just give their kid away to some stranger and not raise it themselves? The movie I appreciate for its realism, he characterized as "science fiction." Literally.
And that was the moment it became really clear that some cultural differences really do preclude intercultural dating. I mean, I'd have been happy to stop calling him dude, or to accept that Mexicans make fun of death. But when one party thinks adoption is "the caring option" and the other thinks it's just as bad as abortion, it's probably best that the parties stop dating. You know? We broke up the day after we got back to Monterrey, and although it ended in a very calm and friendly manner, with us finally realizing the extent to which we had been acting on false assumptions and misjudging each others' actions, we've barely seen each other since.
For four days in a row after we broke up, it rained. It was cold. It was miserable. I really worried that his friends, many of whom are in my classes, wouldn't like me anymore. Luckily, that hasn't seemed to be the case. Although I've had to work harder to find people to hang out with on the weekends, and he and I don't eat lunch together anymore -- e.g., he doesn't come to the cafeteria anymore and none of my friends have lunch at the same time as I do and I usually eat alone now and it's kind of awkward -- I am still glad to have dated him. He's taught me most everything I know about Mexico, from bad words to history to cultural norms. That's something I'm very grateful for.
I had been planning on a "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" storyline, which would have featured a tragic heartbreak in December when I returned to the U.S. The actual ending is more prosaic, which makes it hard to wrap up this post. It's more like, "Opposites attract -- until they realize they are total freaking opposites in every aspect except the strength with which they cling to their opposing viewpoints, at which point they actually do still attract but don't quite respect each other." Not poetic at all. Thank goodness I write in prose.