Barcelona-Spain

Barcelona always held a sort of fascination for my family. It was where they saw the seat of Spanish culture, it was also likely another way to distinguish themselves from Mexican culture. This view of Spanish culture as being higher than Mexican culture was most likely a remnant of the highly stratified social caste system of the early Spanish colonialists. Spaniards born in Spain occupied the highest rank, then Spaniards born in the new world, and so on. My grandmother still spoke an old Castillian dialect that would surprise the Mexicans in California when she would converse with them. Maybe it was because my grandmother came from a wealthy family (by local standards at least), but she always carried herself in an aristocratic way. Once in a while I would hear her say some shockingly racist things, which is not too uncommon a person of her age. She would tell me to look for a nice Spanish girl to marry, which I did. A white girl would do in a pinch, but a Mexicana, black or Asian girl was less then optimal in her eyes. Just look at the problems my father had with my less than stable white mother! 

 It's funny than both sides of the family saw the other in the same way.... a lesser social class; less educated, intelligent, attractive, and certainly less respectable. The rednecks on my mother's side (from Little Rock) would make off-handed comments about 'those damn Mexicans'. Of course they didn't see the distinctions that my family saw between themselves and Mexican migrants. This tension definitely created problems for my parents' marriage, there was just no support for it from either side of the family. I was caught in between. I didn't feel like I was really a bonafied white American, like my friends, and I was even less identified with the Mexican culture that I grew up around in Santa Cruz. I always felt like I was just passing as white and not even recognized as Latino by the Mexicans. I was a 'half-breed', which is a truly awful term to hear as a child. 

Barcelona was a symbol for this ideal of the high Spanish culture that supposedly set our family apart. It's actually very common for New Mexicans who come from old Spanish families to deny that they have any native blood at all, when more often than not they have significant amounts. The plan was to take a family vacation there before my grandmother died, but unfortunately that never happened. Finally I made the trip there with my wife in 2006, then went again just two years later.

Barcelona is a truly amazing city to behold. The architecture makes New York City look like Tijuana. We saw most of Gaudi's work, the Park Guel was like a fantastic dream. Of course the food was spectacular, especially my buddy Pere Soto's mom's fideo seafood Paella. I finally saw what real Spanish culture was like and I identified with it in a way that I hadn't even felt when I lived in Santa Fe, NM. Spaniards are a proud people, they are proud of their art, architecture, music, cuisine, achievements and values. They have good reason to be. It was difficult to leave each time. I recorded a CD in Oaxaca with players from Barcelona this year that's being released next year at a CD release party at the Jamboree in BCL. Hopefully I can get over there for that.


I think my experiences in Barcelona gave me a new sense of cultural legitimacy that I never felt before. I finally saw first hand the culture that my family held as an ideal my entire life. The experienced definitely broadened my sense that I came from a culture with a rich heritage, but it also made me realize that I was NOT in fact Spanish, but a Chicano. I belonged more here than I would ever belong over there. I certainly considered emigrating to BCL at a point, but realized that I'd miss the US if I ever did. I'm also not prone to napping, like to eat dinner early, don't eat pork, and I enjoy have a large place to live....so Spain is just not an ideal fit.  :-)