Have you ever read a book that you're glad you read because it somehow sheds light into your life? I've felt this way with J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." I read it when I was 16 and I felt like I was Holden Caulfield. I was confused about life and thought everyone except me was a phony. The book comforted me by making me realize these thoughts were normal and that I wasn't alone on this.
This is the way I felt when I read Obama's autobiography "Dreams From My Father", that I wasn't alone in terms of an identity crisis I was going through. Who knew I had one, right? I was confused about myself up until I read this book. This book has helped me understand the what it means to be Mexican-American.
After receiving my MA in English followed by teaching a Chicano Studies class, I realized that I wasn't sure about what direction to go in. It was because of this class that I ended up hanging around with friends who lived in the town by where I grew up. Hanging with these friends in East Los was a breath of fresh air for me. It felt that way because I had not been around these people and these places since I left Highland Park and graduated high school. It was so refreshing to be back. It was a world I was familiar with. I shared common experiences with the individuals I came across, whether it was speaking Spanish, practicing Mexican customs and traditions, and or simply growing up in the streets of LA.
By being exposed to this world I realized that education and the dominant American ideology had sucked me into a vacuum from which I didn't get out of until I read this book. Obama was conflicted about being Black and American. It wasn't until he traced his African-American history as well as his father's African roots that he realized being an African-American is a puzzle that has dictated his life until now. For me, my parents are both from Mexico and I knew about their roots and history, but I knew little about being Mexican-American until I went back to the places I had grown up in and seeing how much I had left behind. This is helping me explain why I feel more complete now than I did before and understand myself better. Which leads me to conclude with that cliche saying, "you don't know where you're going until you know where you've been."
