CABRONA!! (My journey to learning about my heritage, part one of whatever)

As some know, I'm Cuban and Sicillian. I'm obseeeeessed with learning about where I come from and knowing more about myself, because I'm extremely selfish and into myself way too much. That never stops me! No sir. This will just be little doodles about tid bits of things that I learn about my backrounds. And it begiiiins.

Last night, I spent like a billion hours listening to Ibrahim Ferrer while looking up stuff on Celia Cruz and Jose Marti. It doesn't seem like much, especially getting all the info off Wiki, but I barely knew anyone or anything that had to do with that part of my heritage in the first place. The Cuban side of my family is very... Distant from us. They mean well, but they just aren't there. I would love to be able to hear stories from my grandparents about Cuba, alas grandma doesn't know English. But my grandpa does, but I dunno how I can learn anything from them about how the island's like. I wanna know the history, leaders, wars, political stuff, all that. I guess the next time I'm at their house, I'll ask. Grandma has many books about Cuba, but they're all in Spanish, and alas, I only know English... Which makes me sad. I hate not being able to curse people out in spic rage while singing old salsa tunes to myself. There are these rare times when I used to see my grandma cleaning around the house, singing to herself. They were brief and short, but were nice. My granda misses being in Cuba, but I also feel like she's angry. Totally, her sister died there a few years ago, and many months passed before she knew. She's been in America with my grandpa for a little over 40 years, and there are many relatives I don't even know of, and hell, there's people here in the family who I don't know (even less than the people I've seen since I was a baby).

And then, while my grandparents are a great knowledge of their lovely homeland, I guess the second/third generation really isn't into it as I am now. Or maybe I think that because I don't know them very much... The second generation, my mom and her sisters, they were raised old school Latins. They all know fluent Spanish AND English (homg no wai!?), pretty aware of their upbringing as crazy spics. Third generation, me, brother, and my cousins, we know of our backrounds, but we don't know much. We all speak a little bit of broken Spanish. Even though I, and I myself, get picked on for not knowing much. Seriously, it's like favoritism or some shit, they never pick on my older cousin and she speaks as gringo as I do! It pisses me off. ANYWAY. Now that I'm aware of how lost our generation is, and I mean the general teenage population, I need to give you all a giant bitch-slap. READ HISTORY BOOKS, yeeeeeesh. I don't even know much history on ANYTHING other than music, but really. You all disappoint me. Which is why I was born, to bitch slap you all into USING YOUR FUCKING BRAINS. Or at least I mean that much in my own brain.

Ok, ON TO WHY THIS IS ALL A BIG DEAL TO ME. I'll be honest, it's because I started listening to the Mars Volta. A spic band, yes. Wiki them! Omar Rodriguez is from Puerto Rico, and in many interveiws he talks about how it's like to be an akward Hispanic kid. Which, makes me feel good to know I'm not alone. And that's pretty bad, I live in fucking south Florida. He has much more knowledge of Latin shit than I've ever even heard from my family. He talks about how music is the thing that drives our cultures, so and so. I wish I knew that, my family surely didn't get that. The grandparents like old Latin music, yes. But I rarely hear it coming out of their house, or from anyone else in the family. It makes me sad, honestly. I don't have that tight-knit spic family that every other kid has. I love them all, I try as hard as I can to get them to sorta understand me and why I do things that they find weird, but it doesn't... Wooork. They love me very much, but they don't show it. And with what my grandma has dealt with, I'm not gonna blame her, for some reason. The rest can do a HELL of a better job making it look like they give one shit, though (minus all the elders, of course. They get a free pass for being awesome).

AND SO, as Omar has taught me, being in touch with where you come from is importent. And it really is, I'm learning about myself, my family, everything around me. I'm still very naive, but I'm at least trying. Tryyyyyyying, something not many people do. Latins kids here these days don't know how to speak Spanish, or care who Jose Marti is. They're givin a bullshit image of what it's like to be Latin by Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez, both of whom I dislike. Highly. And they're all into this whole ghetto shit, thinking that coming from Hialeah means that they're special. I was born in Hialeah, it's not a fucking ghetto. At least it wasn't when I was little. It was dirty, but there wasn't this whole tribe of kids in baggy shorts and jerseys who though they were Scarface. THIS IS WHY MIAMI IS WONDERFUL, ugh. These kids don't know their culture, or how much it meant back then. You know, when people were fighting for something importent, for something that needed change. These days, everyone is concered about stupid shit. Must I go on about my tree hugger ways again? DO I HAVE TO CONVERT YOU TO REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS!? Uh... Ok.

Bottom line: I am Cuban, and am fucking proud. I will learn how to speak Spanish, will learn about the island's history, get as much info as I can from my grandparents at any chance I get, learn the music, and most importently, try to get my family to pay attention to what I have to say instead of brushing me off like I'm nothing. I want to show that I give a shit.

Next time, my Sicillian roots will be discussed! Oh, and it will be LOOOOONG.