ultralaser

Abraham: They don’t accept us over there. They never have. Selena: Hello, we’re Mexican. Abraham: No, we are Mexican-American, and they don’t like Mexican-Americans. And they can be mean. And they can tear us apart over there. And Selena’s Spanish is… Selena: What about my Spanish? I’ve been singing in Spanish for 10 years. It’s perfect. Abraham: Singing, yes. But when you speak it, you speak it a little funny. And down there you gotta speak perfectly or the press will eat you up and spit you out alive. I’ve seen them do it. Selena: Overreacting as usual. A.B.: Dad, the music will speak for itself, Dad. Abraham: Listen, being Mexican-American is tough. Anglos jump all over you if you don’t speak English perfectly. Mexicans jump all over you if you don’t speak Spanish perfectly. We gotta be twice as perfect as anybody else. I’m serious. A.B.: I know you’re serious, Dad. Abraham: Our family has been here for centuries. And yet they treat us as if we just swam across the Rio Grande. I mean, we gotta know about John Wayne and Pedro Infante. We gotta know about Frank Sinatra and Agustín Lara. We gotta know about Oprah and Cristina. Anglo food is too bland. And yet when we go to Mexico, we get the runs. Now that, to me, is embarrassing. Japanese-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, their homeland is on the other side of the ocean. Ours … is right next door. Right over there. And we gotta prove to the Mexicans how Mexican we are. And we gotta prove to the Americans how American we are. We gotta be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans both at the same time. It’s exhausting. Damn! Nobody knows how tough it is to be a Mexican-American.

classic

chicanainchoos:

caaaosfinal:

True that.

This is the second time I reblog this scene.  There are very few times a movie has ever captured a snippet of my existence.  (The scene from Selena where the dad is saying how he/they/we have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans is another.)  As a mid-30’s, upwardly mobile-ish, sometimes suit wearing Chicana, not Latina, Chicana, I’ve been asked why I identify so strongly with being a Chicana - I can’t do nothing but, it is who I am.  It is how I live the present and understand the past as integral part of my everyday.

simón! loved this movie! loved all the caló slang, and the iconry, and the flavor. it made me feel very safe and at home, with la virgen right there in the hallway….