Monday, July 8, 1996

One almost does not know what to say as one ventures off for the first time for six months. How does one begin to tell a story that began so long ago? The story has always existed, but now... I am finally writing myself into it.

The story I am referring to above is History. The passage is the opening to a manuscript of my travels, the experiences of, and my relationship with the people of la Costa Chica, of Oaxaca.

My relationship to this portion of Mexico may seem ironic to some people. Ironic because no one in my family is from Oaxaca, let alone the Costa Chica. My family is from the northern arid regions of Mexico, not the hot, humid coast of Oaxaca. I didn't grow up visiting or knowing my family in Mexico either. Most of my family in Mexico seems very foreign to me. And it may seem ironic because I've only been to la Costa Chica once. So how is it that I have such a long felt connection to this isolated region of Oaxaca? The answer is color.

My identity had always revolved around the color of my skin. So much that everything else (cultural, ethnic, and national identity) seemed secondary or irrelevant. And the fact of the matter is, irrelevant everything else was not. But as a child and an adolescent, what did I know of the technical terms? All I knew was that I didn't identify with any other person whose family was from Mexico. I didn't look like them either. That was my issue. Growing up under the canon of U.S. stereotypes I didn't fit the "'model" of a "Mexican" or a "Chicana". Sure I've always been la morena to some, but who had ever seen a dark-skinned, kinky-haired Chicana? No one and so my constant longing and searching for a clue, an answer, and an identity. Was I Black, Mexican, a combination of both, or none of the above?

The people of la Costa Chica are evidence. Evidence that I'm not the only person whose roots in Mexico weren't just the melding of the European and Indian... but the African as well. After spending time in Oaxaca, doing research, and contemplating the issues at hand, identity and history have revealed themselves to me. And it is from knowing the morenos of la Costa that I have come to know that History will always exist, thrive, and move forward. But no one can do the same if we don't know History and it doesn't know us.

Janein Chavez