I used to be at Naviva, a 4 Seasons Resort, in Punta Mita within the Mexican state of Nayarit. Its programming is designed round wellness of physique, spirit, and thoughts, and the temazcal ceremony is likely one of the most profound choices. Throughout the first portion of the ceremony—which is designed to create emotions of gratitude, grounding, and rebirth—Mo spoke about Mom Earth. As he did, a crowd of individuals with comparable faces and brown pores and skin tones very like my very own appeared in my thoughts.
I’d been fascinated by my Mexican ancestors for a few years, searching for out a connection to them by restricted household tales and my inventive writing. Rising up within the U.S., I didn’t all the time really feel related to my cultural heritage, partly as a result of the connection itself generally felt tenuous; I’m half Mexican-American, and my great-grandfather was the final particular person of my Mexican relations to be born in Mexico.
As an grownup, I started touring to Mexico within the hopes of higher understanding my heritage. A kind of journeys led me to the temazcal at Naviva, the place I felt surrounded by my ancestors, grounded to Mom Earth by the land upon which I sat, and at house in a spot the place I didn’t develop up.
Associated Tales
Deepening my connection to my cultural heritage as a Mexican-American in Mexico
I used to be a child the primary time I visited Mexico, crossing the border on foot from Laredo, Texas, the place my father’s household hails, to Nuevo Laredo. I can recall the sounds and smells, the bursts of coloration that didn’t encompass me in North Texas the place I grew up. As quickly as I may journey alone, I returned to Mexico repeatedly, searching for locations the place I may discover reference to my cultural heritage and ancestors and deepen my sense of identification.
Over time, I’ve tasted Mexico by inexperienced pozole in Guerrero and stayed in a hacienda supposedly owned by La Malinche at Fiesta Americana Hacienda Galindo. I’ve laid eyes on the oldest cave work of North America within the San Borjitas Cave within the Sierra de Guadalupe Mountains and admired lovely murals by Mexican Mural Renaissance painter José Clemente Orozco all through Mexico. By canyoning in Jalisco, climbing sand dunes in Baja California Sur, consuming wine made in Guanajuato, and strolling on the black seashores of Loreto, I’ve related to Mexico and my heritage.
“Typically, it’s not sufficient to examine our international locations of origin. Typically, we have to stroll the identical paths, eat the identical meals, sit beneath the identical heat solar as our ancestors.” —Jessica Mohrweis, LPC, therapist
Irrespective of the place I’ve gone in Mexico, I’ve felt snug, generally extra so than I do in the USA. In line with Texas-based therapist Jessica Mohrweis, LPC, this sense of belonging isn’t a surprise, given my Mexican-American heritage. “Typically, it’s not sufficient to examine our international locations of origin,” she says. “Typically, we have to stroll the identical paths, eat the identical meals, sit beneath the identical heat solar as our ancestors.”
Journey knowledge exhibits that these motivations could also be significantly robust amongst individuals of coloration. The 2021 MMGY Vistas Latinas examine discovered that 57 p.c of Hispanic vacationers stated they’re extra more likely to go to a spot that embraces Hispanic tradition and celebrates Hispanic-owned enterprise contributions. And in 2020, market researcher Mandala Analysis discovered that fifty p.c of Black vacationers ranked Black heritage as very or considerably vital of their selection of a vacation spot.
Feeling secure in Mexico surrounded by individuals with an analogous background
Although my cultural heritage has allowed me to create significant connection to my ancestors in Mexico, it additionally serves a extra sensible objective every time I go to the nation: security in similarity. In line with Mohrweis, feeling secure amongst these with a shared heritage could also be another excuse why individuals of coloration, like myself, generally journey to locations the place the locals have comparable cultural roots. “Typically, we have to really feel tethered to a bigger group, particularly if we’re remoted from members of our personal communities again house,” she says.
Though I grew up in Texas, which has a big Mexican inhabitants, the state is consistently on the middle of racist politics and views pertaining to Mexicans and Mexican-People. Rising up, individuals casually used slurs referring to Mexicans. And in the present day, I’m nonetheless subjected to microaggressions about my Mexican identification and American nationality. Issue within the border politics and racist legal guidelines that concentrate on individuals of Mexican ancestry, and it doesn’t all the time really feel secure to be Mexican-American in Texas or the U.S. Maybe Mexico has all the time felt secure to me as a result of I mix in. (Sure, there are admittedly areas in Mexico the place security is of concern, however my security within the U.S. is not any safer in a movie show or a mall.)
In Mexico, I’ve been embraced by strangers who’re excited to share their tradition with somebody like me who has misplaced that familial data and needs to reconnect with my ancestors.
The one factor that has shocked me probably the most about visiting Mexico is how my insecurities about my heritage appear to fade away. Within the U.S., I’m all the time having to defend my Mexican-American heritage, whether or not it’s to Anglos who say, “You look Mexican, however I don’t even consider you as Mexican,” or to Latines who admonish me as a result of I don’t communicate Spanish fluently. (My grandmother didn’t educate my father as a result of she didn’t need him to be subjected to racism.) Nonetheless, in Mexico, I’ve been embraced by strangers who’re excited to share their tradition with somebody like me who has misplaced that familial data and needs to reconnect with my ancestors. And that’s a significant motive why I really feel so comfortable in Mexico.
“Though you’re nonetheless completely different—you have been born and raised in a very completely different cultural context—[when visiting your ancestral country], you would possibly expertise a brief sense of rootedness that feels extra profound than in your house nation,” says Mohrweis of my sense of belonging in Mexico regardless of being born and raised within the U.S.
In 2022, I visited Guadalajara, the second largest metropolis in Mexico. My grandfather was the final in my household to go to the area greater than 70 years in the past when he was a child. It’s supposedly the place my great-grandfather was born and the final place I do know my household lived in Mexico. I thrived throughout my solo journey, staying in haciendas across the metropolis, visiting the close by metropolis of Tlaquepaque the place my grandfather stayed way back, and spending time in as many artwork museums and outdated cathedrals as I may. I ate and drank my means across the metropolis’s attractive cafes, had conversations with jewellery makers, LGBTQ+ leaders, cooks, and resort house owners. I didn’t discover any of my family in Guadalajara, however that didn’t matter.
Mohrweis says that, as people, we’re narrative by nature: “We study by tales, move alongside tradition by tales, and create our identities [based on the] tales informed to us.”
I don’t have many tales about my household in Mexico—what they did or what they have been like—and I’ll by no means know these tales. However by visiting Mexico and diving into Mexican meals, historical past, and artwork, I can write my very own. Each time I deepen my connection to my household’s cultural heritage in Mexico, I add a brand new chapter to the e-book they as soon as started.