Generation 2.0

Preparing to go on a trip to the old country has got me thinking about the priviledges I enjoy by living in American society. I am by no means rich but still I am afforded many of the opportunities that my parents did not have in their home country by virtue of birth and class. My parents legally immigrated to California in the 1960's at a time when Mexican immigration was not as upsetting to Americans as it is now. Yankees needed those grapes picked, the house tidied, and the lawn mowed and all at a reasonable cost.

In short, this is the background that I emerged from: of working-class, Mexican parents whom did not dare to look beyond the day to day of survival for themselves, but would alwasy sacrifice for their children.

Granted, this is all romanticizing on my part, a la Richard Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory.

So, when I told my 79-year old father I was going to be on a sabbatical instead of working his first instinct was to ask me if I needed any money (I think he thought I'd lost my job or that I'd been fired!). Then, he asked me to come home and spend my free-time with him. "Dad," I reminded him, "I am under contract and still working and cannot just come live with you." I tried to be patient, but it was clear by my teenage-style eye rolling that I believed my humble, immigrant father, "just did not understand." It was soon very apparent that my infirmed and loving father would quite enjoy it if I could spend time with him in Southern California's Coachella Valley - a place where it is unbearably warm for most of the year. I finally convinced my father that I was bound by contractual obligations to return to my post in the bay area and that I was committed to do so for the next two years. He sounded so disappointed. I could not tell him that his offer of once again living in a small desert town complete with tumbleweeds was not my idea of fun.

Why had my family come to the land of opportunity if I was still expected to behave like I was just struggling to get by? After all, I was a well-educated and (to borrow from judge Sotomayor) wise latina and was expected to pounce on any opportunity that came my way. It was troubling for me to see how I had always been taught that I should want success and yet this time my father didn't want me to leave the nest. By most accounts my "success" is average, I am a modestly paid instructor of elementary-aged children. I am sure that my father is not out to hold me back and maybe all el pobre jefe wants is a visit from su ballenita.