First Generation Mexican-American (Latino) feeling invisible and lost

As a first-generation student, it is challenging to explain to my parents my college experience, what I do in my professional and academic work. Because the admissions, financial aid terminology doesn’t translate in Spanish. How do we translate the terminology to our parents? Most important, how do we translate our experiences to our parents? As I am speaking I recognize that my parents might not even understand what I am saying (writing), and some other individuals are in the same situation. This is when I have to check if I have lost myself. If I have lost my culture. If I am no longer a Mexicano and Latino. Because I am invisible to society, my family and sometimes myself; I have crossed intellectual, psychological and emotional borderland.

Talking about the Mexican culture is hard work, because it is rich in history, traditions, and culture. We can talk about the Mayas, Aztecs, Las posaditas, independence day, Benito Juarez, Vicent Fox, the government, delinquency, enchiladas, pozole, Cancun, Ciudad Juarez, and many other topics.

It is even more challenging for us to speak about the Mexican-American culture, because we have the privilege and struggles to combine and sometimes we choose one or the other culture. It is hard to understand the complexity of one-self. It is hard to adjust to only just one culture and forget about the other. It is hard to grow-up trying to create my own path to success without guidance, because my parents, my brothers, and cousins did not obtained a degree in higher education, nor did they grew-up in what we, U.S. society, consider a melting pot.

It challenging to explain to my grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts my struggles because they were raised in what I consider to be not a melting pot, but a salad bowl. The onion stayed the onion, the tomato stayed the tomato, the lettuce stayed the lettuce, with maybe a little Russian or Italian dressing. And it tasted real good. No one lost their identity, strong Mexicanos, and I thought life suppose to be the way. It is extremely important to have this conversations because as time moves forward, we are changing and society is changing us.