On the Shoulders of Gigantes

In 2012, President Barak Obama took flak for saying, “you didn’t build that.” He meant that we stand on the shoulders of giants/gigantes – all of us.  I’m the oldest of my generation so I enjoy a glimpse back in time through the stories of my parents and great grandparents but in truth, they seem more fiction than biography. It is truly difficult to imagine how hard my grandparents worked to offer us the opportunities we have and I don’t think my nephews have even the slightest idea what others went through to give them some of what they now take for granted – an education past high school, a voice in elections and a fair hearing if they get a ticket or go to court.  My grandfather Pedro Hernandez fled Mexico to escape the revolution when he was just a child and he worked hard every day of his life thereafter to reunite his family and provide for our future.  No, I didn’t build it, but I am proud of my grandparents who laid the foundation. 

History is prologue.  

The newspaper clipping may well have been lost but I remember seeing a picture of my Mom and Uncle Pedro on the front page of the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, my hometown paper of record.  It was a photo of the African American kids that would be attending New Braunfels High School for the first time as a consequence of desegregation and the school posed some of the Mexican American kids, including my Mom along with them.  The year was 1958, Mom was a senior that year and New Braunfels was figuring out what “integration” meant.

My Mom has shared a lot with me and my sister about her youth and the struggle of being a Mexican American girl in a predominantly German town in Texas.  As a girl, she knew she was being treated differently than her classmates. They liked her well enough but in public their differences were defined by others. When Mom was in junior high (middle school), she was invited to a friends birthday party that included a trip to see a movie at the Brauntex Theater – a segregated business where people of Mexican and African descent were relegated to the balcony. The birthday girl’s father had to rent the whole theater in order to let my Mom sit with the other girls.

My grandparents did all they could to make sure that my Mom and uncles had every opportunity to be just like other children – my Mom had nice dresses that were in fashion and my uncles had all they needed to play baseball and tennis through high school. My grandfather Pedro would work two or three jobs at a time and my grandmother Isabel sold cloth remnants and sewing notions on the side. But it was not enough and however kind other families were toward ours, the structures of racism that so horribly impacted people of African descent, had an equally painful impact on Latinos, specifically the Mexican Americans in our town.

My grandparents, Pedro and Isabel Hernandez did everything they could to improve the world that their children would grow into.  They worked hard to provide for every necessity and even a luxury now and then.  They worked for a world wherein their children would have the same opportunities as other children.  All of this no doubt led to that photo of my Mom and uncle in 1958.

Legacy. 

I was born on June 19, 1963, Juneteenth and I am proud of that, though the timing was not my idea. My parents both spoke English well with little or no accents. My father was a Marine and my mother worked at a store downtown before becoming Deputy County Clerk for Comal County. My parents married in 1962 and in ways they may not have understood at the time, they almost immediately began to try and shape the world to benefit me and my sister. My sister Rebecca and our cousins – my generation if you will – have begun to raise their children who mostly don’t know much about the inequalities that their parents and grandparents faced each day.  By my 10th birthday, my parents, Ruth and Pedro Grimaldo were actively working to change the world that I might one day know – they had joined in a federal lawsuit to make it more likely that Mexican Americans in Comal County, Texas would be elected to the school board. Later, they would join with others to sue the city to ensure that Mexican Americans would be able to earn a seat on city council. 

Racing upward.

I was raised to believe that nothing was beyond me – I could be anything or anyone that I might choose to be.  Now I see how oddly this idea of “be whomever you choose” chafes against the realization that my parents and grandparents worked so hard to defend my rights, even before I was born.  I often refer to a letter that was written to my great grandparents saying that all was in order for my grandparents to marry.  It is a wonderful reminder that long before I was born, even before my parents were born, decisions were being made to help me become who I am.  

When I spend time with my nephews and nieces I tell them about their great grandparents. I want them to know what was done for them and I hope they will have the opportunity to express gratitude for all that went in to providing them the lives they enjoy today.  I hope they will be proud of who they are and acknowledge all the work that our foremothers/fathers put in just to get here.  I worry that they will hear the current anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican rhetoric and not know that is a lie. I worry that they might think that immigrants today somehow woke up and randomly decided to risk their lives in order to leave their homes and countries. U.S. interventions in Central America date back to the Spanish American war and throughout the 20th century, the United States intervened in elections and armed conflicts throughout the region and in South America as well. Hunger, poverty and instability are not new to Central America, but they also did not develop in a vacuum. The U.S. role in the politics of Latin America is well documented.

President Obama was right, none of us built it alone. When farmworkers famously chant Si Se Puede/Yes We Can, it is not meant as a personal affirmation but rather a recognition that in community – dare I say in God – all things are possible.  I want my nephews to claim every bit of their diverse and rich heritage and to reach further still within themselves and bring forth their contribution to the future.  We stand on the shoulders of giants/gigantes, and because of this, Si Se Puede.