Funny, weird, interesting how life is (duh!). I just began reading a book I had read when I was about ten years old (this is, almost three decades ago), a book that I loooved! I guess I was too young to understand the meaning of lots of the things it said so I guess I just took the meaning in a direct way as opposed to on a metaphorical way, but I really loved this book. Over the years the memories I had of this book were of happiness and maybe some challenges and problems, but mainly of a man in search of his happiness through the hardships that life had presented him with, a man with hope, a man that was, in spite of his calling himself old man, still able to enjoy things like children do (maybe that's why I liked it so much? maybe because at ten I was obviously still a little girl that so much enjoyed doing simple things like watching the clouds against the Mexico City -then- blue sky, or how about watching a simple wall, simple painted, but that reflected the sun in the afternoon in such a way that just that simple image made me feel happy, safe, peaceful?), such as enjoying some patterns in an old wall, or also, a man that didn't like lots of things that so called normal adults do, like going to theaters, trendy bars, etc.
So I was beginning to read Hesse's Steppenwolf again (this time in English as I had originally read it in Spanish) when I came across the following paragraph, which is part of a conversation that occurs when the preface's author and the Steppenwolf talk about the horrors of the so called Middle Ages, the Steppenwolf says: "Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and ugliness; accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap".
I immediately thought to myself, this is one of the many things that I missed in my first reading, or maybe I didn't understand it because I was not yet living in overlap societies, or better, I was not yet aware that I was living in overlapped societies. But three decades later I read with different eyes and I thought, way a minute! What does it mean that societies accept certain sufferings as matters of course and puts up patiently with certain evils? What does it really mean? Does it mean that the native people of this continent patiently put up with genocide? Or that Africans patiently accepted the evils of slavery? Or maybe they didn't patiently accept things but because they were in overlap societies they went through hell? Actually, I don't think that servants in the Middle Ages did patiently put up with their so called masters. And actually I think that pretty much through the whole history of mankind all the time it's being an overlapping of societies and overlapping of cultures. Why? Because even if we talked about the same group or same city or same town there always were different layers in those towns or cities, different classes, different races. Rich and poor belong to two different societies even if they "live" in the same city (but not in the same part of the city of course). Thus history of human kind has always been hell? Maybe so, and I know I should not compare sufferings from a group of people to sufferings from another group of people, but I cannot even for a second imagine the horrors, the terrible pain my ancestors went through when their world collapsed because the despicable conquistadores destroyed it! I can only compare it to actual extra-terrestrial invading our planet earth today, taking over, raping the women, smashing the children and then destroying our culture. I don't want to see that.
Then, as usual one thing leads to another, and soon after having read the previous paragraph from the Steppenwolf I came accross an article from the LA Times written by UC professor Lydia Chávez (Caught in the overlap of two societies). In this article Lydia Chávez says that:
"In 1998, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Mexico's former ambassador to the United Nations, spoke at a conference called "Alternatives for the Americas" at UC Berkeley. He understood reality. "Mexico is in the United States, and this has tremendous implications for the future of migration," he said. "It's not a question of labor markets anymore. It's a question of two societies that are overlapping." And will continue to overlap. If 11 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S. illegally during what was supposed to be the greatest crackdown in history, how many more will arrive -- and want to stay -- in the next 20 years? And the next?"
While I don't agree with Lydia Chávez' usage of the term "have arrived illegally" I agree that currently and only from a Latin American point of view, there are at least two big macro-societies overlapping in the US.
I called them macro-societies because in Latin America there are lots of different societies with lots of commonalities yes, but with lots of differences too. Let's take my example. I was born and raised in Mexico City, got all my (excellent) education there, worked in several places, built a very respectable resumé, learned about arts and culture and moved to the US eight years ago. Then I came face to face with the national holiday called "Thanksgiving" (I call it Thankstaking).
So once I was chatting with one of my friends from Mexico City about this holiday and told her it was (is) very difficult for me because of what it means. It hurts a lot because it means the genocide of my ancestors, the selling of our mother (the land, Tonantzin), the destruction of our culture and our way of live (don't they currently send soldiers and drop bombs abroad so as to keep their "ways of live"?), our subjugation to Europeans and so on. When I told her that I was hoping for understanding and compassion but what I got was a very different reaction.
She accused me of being incendiary, of trying to overthrow the status quo, "what? do you also want to get rid of all the Spaniards and Spaniards-descent people in Mexico?" And so on and so forth. I didn't know that expressing my feelings would throw such a reaction from one of my friends ... until I realized we both are from very different societies, though we both lived in Mexico City, we both spoke Chilango, we both loved to dance, we both loved Madredeus ... but we are from two very different societies: upper and lower classes. She got all what she has (houses, vacations in Europe, weekend in California ski resorts, trips all over the world just to meditate) just because her family has always had money. I got all what I have because my grandparents, my parents, my sisters and myself fought and worked very hard to earn what we have (education, appreciation of our culture, appreciation of our Náhuatl history, dignity). So here it is, two women from same country, same city, different societies.
In the US the issue is the same as this country not only has a big society (wasp) but it actually has hundreds or more societies besides this one, cohabiting next to each other, overlapping. So, are we going through hell right now? I think some societies are indeed going through hell, but maybe not all of them are.
