Last week, I came back to San Francisco from... San Francisco. I'd spent six days in my dad's Mexican hometown. It was not, as so many assumed, "fun". But it wasn't not fun. Instead, as another friend later told me after listening to my recap, "it sounded so beautiful, and so special that you can connect with that side of you, and it's so close generationally, still." Yes, exactly. It felt like that.My brother and sister (according to my sister) hadn't been there in 22 years. They hadn't known what to expect. They have not pursued post-grad studies and application of Spanish in my same way I have. I might assume then that the experience we shared might be more poignant to them. For all intensive purposes, they saw and heard, for the first time, the world my dad was born into. While he re-embraced his original norms, they observed with reverent curiosity. I imagine there was some distinct magic in that.
I will also admit, however, that I felt distinctly privileged then to have some familiarity, recalling my last visit and remnants of the nearly annual childhood trips. El rancho always feels far "from home", but it wasn't quite as foreign to my heart. I was able to recognize their experience and that of my father, and dare I suggest, appreciate both.
What was new, this time around, was my full-circle understanding of the following truths:
- My dad grew up rich: surrounded by extended family, nourishing locally-sourced food, clean air, respect for hard work matched with active leisure (read: soccer) and convivial rest.
- My dad accepted the fact that he loved his home but wouldn't find the opportunities for financial success that he desired.
- So my dad left; he haphazardly entered the cruel American grind with a weak grasp of English and the kindness of a few friends/family who'd arrived before him, and he figured that sh** out. I imagine some days, and weeks, and months were harder than others--they had to have been--but he did it. He worked multiple jobs and went to school at night and fell in love with mother and started a family and then his own business. He achieved the American dream. He said so out loud last week, while visiting his parents (who live on the same property where he and his 8 siblings were born, by the way, but with two new houses and a multitude of modern amenities) with his three college-educated children, two of whom also have master's degrees. What's even more amazing, if such a concept is at all possible, is how he built this life with as much generosity of spirit and faith in humanity as he continues to have. My mom sometimes call it naïveté; my father is a flawed man, like any one of us, but how I aspire to embody and pass on such fortitude.
