I am the last Mestizo. Maybe there are other people who understand what it means to be Mestizo, but I wonder where they are? I don’t hear the ancient alabados anywhere anymore. No one sings these hymns that allowed a connection between our ancestors and our present lives. Those Spanish songs connected us to a time when there was no separation between our spiritual lives and our physical lives. Now with the Americanization of our faith, we have succumbed to a religious perspective that favors rules, regulations, and punishments over faith and communion with God. I worship with my ancestors and I will always commune with a Bendito Dios.
I am the last Mestizo. Perhaps there are others who know that El Cristo Negro – El Senor de Esquilapas – was a depiction of Christ with whom we could identify. He isn’t the blonde-haired, blue-eyed depiction of the Americans from who we were different and separate. But in the cut-and dried, heaven or hell version of American faith, we cannot find a part because our genetic memories cry out for connection and synthesis with past, present and future. Mi Cristo Negro is the Christ with whom I pray and identify; I do not know the Anglo Jesus.
I am the last Mestizo. Possibly others still speak Spanish. But is it the Spanish of a different age that survived due to isolated rural areas of New Mexico, or is it a Central American Spanish that is distinct from the language of my abuelita? To me, a bulto is a religious statue depicting a saint or a biblical scene. To the Central American, a bulto is a pack for a donkey to carry. I have no donkey but my Bulto de San Miguel reminds me of victory over Satan. I may think in English, but I will always feel with the Spanish that my Abuelita taught me.
Americanization may ultimately take my language, my Christ and my method of worship, but I do not grieve this loss as I know that my soul will keep my mestizaje alive through love and faith: Soy el ultimo Mestizo. Soy de todo. Que viva mi mestizaje.
