Tacos for Lunch

Packing The Phi's lunch today made me remember this story my Mom told us about when she was little. She use to take her lunch to school and most days her Mom would pack her a burrito. The other kids around her would open their lunch boxes and pull out a bologna sandwich on white bread. My Mom was so embarrassed to pull out her burrito. She asked her Mom for a bologna sandwich on white bread but there was always a burrito wrapped in her lunch box. My Mom was 1 of 9 kids of a Mexican family.

This story stuck with me. I imagined my mom as a beautiful little girl embarrassed by her lunch. Do you see where this is going? To me this burrito symbolized my Mom ethnicity. She was embarrassed to be a Mexican kid. It broke my heart and I hated that my Mom had to feel like that. It was probably stories like this that lead me toward my Chicano Studies major. It was my passion to engross myself in Chicano culture and more importantly know that brown IS beautiful. I never wanted to feel ashamed about who I was and where my family came from. I went to the same school as my Mom did as a kid. When I went there everyone loved Fridays because it was burrito day.

I have tried to raise Phi to be proud of who she is. She is a mixed breed half Chicana from me and a mix of Spanish and German from her Dad. I am not sure how good of a job I've done, but this kid loves taking homemade tacos for lunch. I think that's a sign she's comfortable about her ethnicity. Or maybe a taco is just a taco and not symbolic at all.