So once again I feel the need to vent on my blog. It is my blog and I think this is the one place I am allowed to say and express how I feel. Recently someone I have known for years and recently came in contact with through FB said some insulting things on there. I respect people and their post and usually try to stay away from saying things when I know it will create a problem and even when I do believe that we all have the right to say what we feel and think I also think that the moment you say something to insult someone in particular then you are crossing the line. I have seen a lot of people say really mean things on there so I have hidden them and that way i stay away from reading their insults or "smart remarks". My life is so much better that way and he will soon go into that list. The best thing is that they don't even know it.
Anyways, the reason why I got so upset, not mad just upset and annoyed and I guess also really really hurt is because I absolutely know it was directed to me and my brothers. Earlier that day I had commented on my brother's post about his kidney stone, he posted it in English and I joked about it in English too, we do this sometimes because he has friends who don't speak Spanish so I know they get annoyed when they can't understand.... then this guy came out and posted about he gets really annoyed about people who have left their country and are quick to adopt the new traditions from other cultures and and forget about theirs, also how they speak to their own relatives in their new language (really???? could you be any more subtle???) He went on and on about how we forget where we come from and how our kids don't learn our own language and how we don't teach them about our traditions and culture, their heritage.....
He said so many things but these are the ones that really got to me. My reaction was to write to him and simply ask him nicely to think before you say something like that because you never know who you might be offending with your words. I mean the detail of his post was just awful and my brothers felt the same way, even my mom. These are people that I knew growing up, they knew my parents over 30 years ago and we had a good relationship but this is how they want to treat us now, just because we are far away???? I don't think so.
My words to him were written our of anger but out of hurt. I am OK now and I think the whole thing was just ridiculous now but I don't regret saying what I said to him, specially after noticing that he came back and posted more comments saying how he doesn't regret from saying what he said because he really wanted to make people rethink their actions and oh yeah by the way he didn't want us to think that his words were directed at us at all....
Lots of people got offended by his words even his mother in law who told him to mind his own business and stop saying such mean things since she also lives in the US and didn't feel comfortable with his comment.
The thing that bothers me the most is that people from my country are always so quick to judge anybody who ends up living here in the States, it might be a cultural thing but for some reason they always talk trash about "us traitors", they always think that we all come to look for riches and to live the American dream, which is not my case at all, you can not generalize this kind of stuff since everyone has a different reason of why they are living here now. It is so hard to live so far away from the people you love, from the things that you were used to your entire life. I came here because it so happens to be where my fiancee lived at the moment and this was the place where he could make a life for both of us, but we often talk about how much we would love to go back and live there, is it the best thing to do for our family? Probably not and that's why we stayed here for them. Do all my kid speak Spanish? NO, but we have a reason for that, it is not an excuse but things happened like the speech problem that my son Victor had and that made a big change in what language to talk to him. His therapy was done in English 100% and I could not figure out how to teach him both languages when what he needed at the time was to learn how to speak.... so you can't say that it was because I wanted to become an American and forget about my culture because it was not like that. I don't regret making the decision to teach my son how to speak his native language, he will live here, he goes to school here, why would I let him become a handicap at school? He speaks just fine now and you can not tell he ever had a problem.
When it comes to teaching my kids about my culture, that's easy, they all know about my traditions because we live them every year, I tell them all about it. We eat the food that we eat back home as often as we can and they love it.. they rather eat frijoles (beans) and tortillas every day.
I tell them that they have Mayan blood in their veins and they love that, they are growing up loving both cultures and are proud of it.
I also pointed out to him how hard it was to become officially an American and the reasoning behind my decision and why it took me as long as it did (10 years).
This whole thing just reassured once again of what Dan tells me all the time, people are stupid. Why on earth would you do that, why would you go out of your way to offend people and then pretend that it wasn't meant to hurt anyone? What is really hard to believe is that we are members of the same church, the same faith that teaches us to love one another and to not judge one another, he really needs to humble himself and rethink his words.
It makes me think of all of the things I have said and done and I don't even know when I have offended people. I really need to remind myself of that so I don't fall in the same place. I just wish people would try to be more like Jesus, the world would be a better place.
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