Multi-American ®

Several recent posts have explored the topic of interracial and intercultural relationships. But what about when the partners come from the same culture, yet are first-generation immigrants married to someone from the second or third generation?

In an essay for CNN, syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette writes about his “mixed marriage:” His wife is Mexican-born, while he was born in Fresno to Mexican American parents, also born in the United States.

While someone on the outside might not think so, the cultural differences are vast. They also bring up issues of second-generation-and-beyond identity, which Navarrette writes about:

Ironically, long before I met my wife, while growing up in central California, I never considered myself anything but a Mexican. Not a Mexican-American, but, in ethnic shorthand, a Mexican. Just as important, it was how others saw me and people like me. Adults referred to the “Mexican” part of town or talked about the high school’s first “Mexican” quarterback or first “Mexican” homecoming queen.

Years later, when I was admitted to Harvard, jealous white classmates informed me: “If you hadn’t been Mexican, you wouldn’t have gotten in.”

Not Mexican-American. Just Mexican.

My readers do the same. Not long ago, one accused me of welcoming the “Mexican invasion … because you’re Mexican.”

OK, so I’m Mexican. Just like my friends in Boston who call themselves Irish, and friends in New York who call themselves Italian, and friends back home in Fresno who refer to themselves as Armenian.

Cool. I’m Mexican, right?

Wrong, says my wife. Wrong, wrong, wrong. To her, I’m an American, plain and simple. Born and raised in the United States, how could I be anything else?

At the same time, he goes on, he has spent his life “feeling too Mexican to be 100% American and too American to be 100% Mexican.” And there are always reminders of that sense of otherness.

For the sake of full disclosure, Navarrette is a former colleague of mine. Still, it’s an excellent read.