When I was 21, I decided to loc my hair. I thought locs were beautiful, tightly binding a history, entangling and connecting moments of joy and pain. The manager at the Italian restaurant where I waited tables disagreed and fired me, stating “my look” didn’t fit the restaurant’s image. After 18 months of struggling to find work and make rent, I felt compelled to cut them off. This experience flipped a switch on my own ignorance. I began to better understand my privilege as a white male once some of them were revoked. I gained a small window into how people of color experience the world under the white gaze. The reinstatement of my privilege--brought simply by cutting my hair--also brought resentment that such benefits were not available or extended to all people.
When I was 29, I visited my estranged aunt (my mom’s sister) and looked through family pictures. Her narration of the photos included commentary about our family’s Polish traditions. However, my mom raised me to believe I was Italian. The smells of Italian gravy would waft through our apartment on Sundays. I patiently awaited the ladle’s dive into the stock pot, past the spare ribs, sweet sausage and braciole (rolled and stuffed flank steak) to claim the meatballs made for me. Italian culture emanated from my home--from my last name to our religious practices as Catholics and holiday traditions.
When I was 38, confirmation of my ancestry came, a year after my mom’s death. My wife and I ordered a genealogy test so my daughter, Dakota Metzli (friend of the moon), would know the ethnicities that informed her identity beyond my wife’s Mexican ancestry. I discovered I was predominantly Polish and German and less than 10% Italian. The confusion about my aunt’s competing narrative gave way to anger in having been lied to by my mom for reasons I would never know.
Now as a 39-year-old, Italian gravy can still be smelled in our loft, though less frequently. So does the complex and slightly sweet flavor of salsa de chile guajillo salsa or hints of cinnamon from the atole warming on the stove. As a father of two children, I fear society’s pressure to enact whiteness may smother my children's Mexican heritage, including Spanish, their first language. Sadly, it has already begun. While replaying one of her favorite movies, Frozen, Dakota said, “Papí, no quiero la pelicula en español, I like English better.” She was a little over 3. In that moment of no words, I remembered those whose cultural expression has been sanctioned by the dominant gaze and the sting of having to relinquish the Italian culture I claimed while my daughter’s cultural view seemingly echoed the chorus, “Let it Go.”
When I was 29, I visited my estranged aunt (my mom’s sister) and looked through family pictures. Her narration of the photos included commentary about our family’s Polish traditions. However, my mom raised me to believe I was Italian. The smells of Italian gravy would waft through our apartment on Sundays. I patiently awaited the ladle’s dive into the stock pot, past the spare ribs, sweet sausage and braciole (rolled and stuffed flank steak) to claim the meatballs made for me. Italian culture emanated from my home--from my last name to our religious practices as Catholics and holiday traditions.
When I was 38, confirmation of my ancestry came, a year after my mom’s death. My wife and I ordered a genealogy test so my daughter, Dakota Metzli (friend of the moon), would know the ethnicities that informed her identity beyond my wife’s Mexican ancestry. I discovered I was predominantly Polish and German and less than 10% Italian. The confusion about my aunt’s competing narrative gave way to anger in having been lied to by my mom for reasons I would never know.
Now as a 39-year-old, Italian gravy can still be smelled in our loft, though less frequently. So does the complex and slightly sweet flavor of salsa de chile guajillo salsa or hints of cinnamon from the atole warming on the stove. As a father of two children, I fear society’s pressure to enact whiteness may smother my children's Mexican heritage, including Spanish, their first language. Sadly, it has already begun. While replaying one of her favorite movies, Frozen, Dakota said, “Papí, no quiero la pelicula en español, I like English better.” She was a little over 3. In that moment of no words, I remembered those whose cultural expression has been sanctioned by the dominant gaze and the sting of having to relinquish the Italian culture I claimed while my daughter’s cultural view seemingly echoed the chorus, “Let it Go.”
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