The Worst of Both Worlds

Coming from a biracial family, I have experienced two contrasting cultures. There is the Mexican side coming from my mother, and the African-American side coming from my father. 

 

People tell me I have the best of both worlds. To me, I have the worst of both worlds. 

 

I am only a half version of both sides, so I’ve never fully fit in with either cultural background. I was not black enough for the blacks, and didn’t know Mexican culture all that well. I never knew how to dance to mariachi music, and I was never taught how to play Spades. 

 

My mother Claudia is from Michoacán, Mexico. Her family brought her to the Bay Area, California when she was two years old. She grew up as a middle child in a family with 6 children. My maternal grandparents were both farm workers, and their backs are still in agony from the labor they had to do in the fields. Picking strawberries, and packaging spinach in the hot sun of Michoacán became their lives for more than 30 years. Neither of them have ever spoken a lick of English their entire lives, but you could sense their love as soon as they walked into the room. 

 

One day she came home from school with rubber bands around her wrist, like the gangbangers who lived across the street from her did, and my grandmother slapped her across the face until she cried. She was only six years old, but the rusted cars and crooked streets in Watsonville, California raised her into maturity. 

 

She never spent a second of her life doing homework, but instead went around the neighborhood trying to muster up enough money to buy her and her siblings pan dulce for the morning. During birthdays, my grandfather would use every last coin he collected under his bed sheets, walk two miles to the supermarket, and buy every ingredient he needed for the celebratory dinner: sliced cabbage with Tapatio and lime. The six siblings would each get a third of the cabbage, and to them it tasted like heaven. 

 

I always thought that Mexican culture was a huge part of who I was as a person, but over the years this has proven to be a façade. This was never more apparent to me than when I attended my cousin Mariah’s quinceñera celebration. 

 

When my best friend Sal heard that my family and I were attending a relative’s quinceñera, he lost his mind and begged me to ask if he could come. To him, quinceñeras were more than just a girl’s fifteenth birthday party. To him, it was a celebration of culture. He takes extreme pride in his culture, which drove his eagerness to attend the quinceñera. 

 

Sal’s full name is Salvador. When Sal shakes your hand, you can feel the 250 pounds that he bench presses at the gym, from his meaty calloused hands. His arms popped out of his arm sleeves as if the sleeves themselves were two sizes too small. Despite the muscle underneath, you can tell that he never misses a meal. He has a different hairstyle for every day of the week. Sometimes he has bed-head with no shame in it, and on other days he has his hair slicked to the side, all fancied up. The second thing you notice about him is his confident smile, complimented by the peach fuzz on his upper lip. The first thing will always be his overwhelming cologne. It smelled the same way as his brown leather jacket looked. From just one conversation with him, you can tell he’s a true Mexican; he really brings the culture to life. With him having gone to countless quinceñeras, I looked at Sal as if he was a quinceñera professional. 

 

I was a freshman when we brought Sal to my cousin Mariah’s quinceñera in April of 2019. We showed up about thirty minutes late, so the party was well beyond the starting point. As soon as you reached the backyard, the spinning rainbow disco lights almost blinded you. My tios and tias held their salt-rimmed margaritas high in the air so that they would not spill on the dance floor. At first glance, it seemed as if every woman had on a dress that was a different color of the rainbow, and every man had on their best belt buckle, flashiest boots, cleanest jeans, and largest cowboy hat. The mariachi music was so loud, you had to duck your head and shout, just to talk to the person next to you. I couldn’t understand a word the music was saying, but everybody else was living for it, shaking their shoulders to the Spanish lyrics while walking around. We were all packed in that small backyard tighter than sardines in a can. 

 

The food section was mesmerizing. The entire area smelled like grilled onions. The tacos were being made by the taqueros, which were three men wearing matching black aprons, and which were moving at a rapid pace. The first person would grill the tortillas on the oil filled comal. The sweat from his forehead would drip into the oil, creating a hissing sound louder than all the commotion, and causing a gust of smoke to fly into the air. The next person would slice the meat off of the spinning al pastor trompo, and shove it into his handful of double-stacked tortillas. He looked as if he could have been doing this blindfolded. The third taquero would slap the finished tacos onto a plate and add the cilantro and onions, and then the plate was served. Their efficiency blew Henry Ford’s assembly line out of the water. 

 

Before I could even introduce Sal to my relatives, the song came on. The song that every other kid knew, except for me. The voices got quiet as everybody under the age of 16 rushed their way to the dance floor, fighting for the front of the stage. I had zero clue what was going on, but adrenaline had placed me on the dance floor, with Sal standing to my right. 

 

“You know how to do it right?” Sal whispered in my ear as we were facing the crowd. 

 

“Do what?” I replied, which received a relatively disappointed face from Sal. 

 

He sighed and replied “okay its right left turn, right left-” and before he could finish his sentence, the music began blasting and the adults began to cheer. 

 

Everybody on the stage began shuffling their feet and twisting in every direction possible. They looked as if they were basketball players playing defense while holding their pants and skirts up. It was as if everybody had rehearsed the dance prior to the quinceñera, and I hadn’t shown up to a single rehearsal. I was standing there as still as the clouds in the dark night, staring into the crowd while bodies flew past me. I couldn’t help but run off of the stage embarrassed. All I could see as I ducked past the dancing bodies was my older cousins chuckling at my embarrassment. 

 

“Come on Daniel, you gotta know how to do the Payaso de Rodeo,” my mom had said to me after I settled back into my seat. 

 

Why didn’t she ever teach me? I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name of the song. I had never heard of it. I hoped to never see it again. The rest of the night I sat at a table by myself, while everybody danced with Sal. 

 

I’ve dreaded quinceñeras since that day. 

 

My dad Jamal grew up poor just like my mom. 

 

My dad’s upbringing was much like my mother’s, but with a bit more purpose. He was born and raised in Seaside, California. Anybody raised in Seaside carries a criminal-like stigma with them. The crime and gang activity there runs deep. 

 

“You either got your ass kicked or you kicked somebody’s ass,” is how he describes the atmosphere of Seaside. 

 

He was born with natural intelligence and found school easy, but he never had the motive to do well in school. His family never pushed him, and he was heavily influenced by the rebellious activities of his brothers and sisters. His siblings were the main characters when it came to raising him, and his parents played second fiddle. 

 

My dad’s favorite story is from a time when he was about four years old, and he did not want to eat his vegetables. At his dinner table, there were two rules. Rule number 1: say grace before every meal. Rule number 2: finish the plate. On this occasion, my father could only try to beg his way out of rule number 2; he did not want to eat his vegetables. He was force-fed his meal, causing him to vomit onto the dinner table. He was then forced to continue eating the food, as they could not let it go to waste. 

 

I love every bit of my dad’s storytelling. He always tells stories of what it was like to live in the ghetto. Nowadays, he and my mom like to argue about who had things worse as a child: Who got in more trouble? Who got in more fights?

 

His stories did not stop there. When not telling stories about his days as a multi-sport Division-1 athlete, he teaches me about “black culture.” 

 

“This right here is LL Cool J,” he would say as he played me his favorite songs. He would skip to the next song and say, “you don’t know nothin’ about this right here!” as he played “Keep Ya Head Up” by 2Pac. I still listen to every single one of those songs. 

 

The stories always made me smile. I was a black culture connoisseur. 

 

In 2016 my paternal grandmother hosted the annual summertime Splane barbecue in the foggy city of Seaside, California. 

 

As soon as you entered the house, you heard the chaos in the kitchen. The cuss words and arguments were flying around the room like bees around a beehive. 

 

Michael Jackson was singing “Off the Wall” through a retro silver boombox, but you could barely hear it. The chairs smelled of Mahogany wood when you sat down, but all you can smell is the charcoal underneath the grill cooking the ribs in the backyard. The peanut shells on the ground gathered like sunflower seeds in a dugout, but nobody cared. 

 

The people at the table were playing spades. The game was intense. Cards repeatedly smacked onto the table from every direction at a rapid pace, a different arm reaching towards the middle every time. With every card came another cuss word. They were insulting each other’s hair, weight, and outfits. 

 

I thought we were all family, why were they being so mean to each other? 

 

I kept asking my uncle John what was happening, but all I was getting was “give me one sec nephew,” as he licked his chocolate thumb and adjusted his fan of cards. 

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I wanted to join, my dad taught me all about Spades. How hard could it be?

 

“Can I play?” I blurted out to the table with my hands by my sides. 

 

Nobody heard. My face began to burn while my heart beat deeper into my chest. I mouthed a cough to clear the lump in my throat.

 

“Can I play?” 

 

The voices stopped. The only noise was from Michael Jackson on the boombox. The hunched-over backs became straight and all the eyes focused on me. Even the peanuts had pointed their attention toward me. The room was frozen. Why’d everybody stop playing Spades?

 

My auntie Sonja shifted her chest towards me while sitting, with her maroon fingernail directed at me. It looked like a witch’s hand. Her lime green eyes were shadowed by her excessive mascara, but they were still vibrant. Her hair resembled Medusa’s. I smelled the lavender oil she put around her neck. Her skin almost looked dirty, but that was just her color. Through her raspy voice I heard, “Let the real blacks sit at the table son.” 

 

The entire table cocked their head toward the ceiling and laughed hysterically. They sounded like yapping hyenas and were banging on the table. I didn’t even get a chance to react. What was so funny? I’m black too, so why’d she say that I wasn’t? 

 

My dad’s stories didn’t matter anymore. I was a black culture fraud. 

 

I still have not recovered from that one sentence, but over time I have come to appreciate it. 

 

The people around me were not racist or judgmental. They were simply just right. They were right that I was different; I don’t fit in with either culture, and I thank God for this. I thank God that I get the worst of both worlds. That’s how things are supposed to be. I still don’t know how to dance to mariachi music, and I still suck at Spades. 

 

I may not have the entire pie, but I have two pieces of the best-tasting pies. It’s a beautiful mix, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

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