#7 – Mexual Healing

GinDrunk: Hi!

Mexual Healing: Hi!

GinDrunk: So, Mexual Healing, you have a secret you’ve been hiding from everyone.

Mexual Healing: hahahaha.

GinDrunk: You’re…part Mexican.

Mexual Healing: It’s true.

GinDrunk: What is it like being…mexican?

Mexual Healing: Well, that’s a good question. My Dad is Mexican, and thus so is that side of my family, but I’m something like a 3rd generation Mexican-American. My great-grandparents came to Chicago relatively back in the day to work in the Steel Mills along Lake Michigan. So, we’re (and I think a lot of the Mexicans in Chicago) kind of a unique breed.

GinDrunk: Unique breed, interesting. Do you guys have any distinctive mores? Is there like a cultural identity?

Mexual Healing: Yeah, for sure. I mean, for one, my family all votes Republican…it’s more of an old-school kind of community, since lots of people have been here for a while. And there’s definitely the Catholic element. Point is, I guess they haven’t really been on the forefront of the immigration debate, etc. and so haven’t necessarily been on the forefront of progressive politics too? I dunno, it’s boring. And I generalize.

GinDrunk: No, no. It’s insightful! Have these more conservative elements ever affected you directly?

Mexual Healing: Well, my mother, who is white, is also really conservative. Plus, I went to Catholic school for 15 years.

GinDrunk: Christ.

Mexual Healing: Which, of course, completely turned me off to both religion and politics.

GinDrunk: What was your worst Catholic school experience? The nuns don’t slap kids around anymore, do they?

Mexual Healing: No, corporal punishment is a bit of a no no these days. But I did have nuns for a lot of classes in high school. INCLUDING sex ed.

GinDrunk: Sounds like a pervy porno.

Mexual Healing: Seriously. But besides the bigger-picture kinds of complaints I had (or have now, anyway) with Catholic school, it actually wasn’t a total nightmare back then. In a lot of ways, the rumors about Catholic school kids being worse are true.

“Worse” – I should clarify. At least one yearly drug bust, K-9 units and all.

GinDrunk: Wow, yeah, those k-9’s can be pretty scary. Especially when they’re sniffing around your locker.

Mexual Healing: Ha! Not mine, man. Believe it or not, I stayed clear of the wacky tobaccy until college.

GinDrunk: Good for you! Or not.

Mexual Healing: Yeah, well, in retrospect, I guess it wasn’t a conscious choice.

GinDrunk: So why do you think Catholic school boys and girls turn out “worse”? That seems to be the generalization, but you’ve seen the phenomenon with your own eyes.

Mexual Healing: Oh, sure. I mean, there wasn’t a lot of violence. I guess that’s the trade off that a lot of families made in sending their kids to an expensive Catholic school. So a lot of times, it was just that there was more money, and the same amount of boredom as in any high school, so it manifested itself as drug use. I’m sure one could argue the repression factor as well, but you know, it only really holds up on a case-by-case basis

GinDrunk: Definitely. Back to the mexicaniticity, did you become more “aware” of your background upon leaving the Chicago area? Did it become a more noticeable trait because?

Mexual Healing: That’s a really interesting topic. I definitely struggled with identity earlier in junior high, and eventually I came to the half-baked conclusion I was essentially “white” since I was raised by my white mother (nurture over nature, etc.). And throughout high school I sort of thought of myself as what a lot of people might call a “coconut” – that is, brown on the outside, white on the inside.

But when I got to college, I saw that a lot of the Hispanic students had a totally different experience, and one that actually did make them feel out of place at a small new england liberal arts college

GinDrunk: Did this make it difficult for you to relate to them? Did anyone hold it against you for being a “coconut”?

Mexual Healing: Nah, I had great relationships with students in the Hispanic student organizations, of which I was a part my first year. But I’ll admit, there was this kind of subversive solidarity that I didn’t quite “get.”

GinDrunk: Do explain.

Mexual Healing: Well, for minorities at a historically elite (read: “white”) college, there are a lot of instant commonalities…the institution [the college] was a kind of common enemy, I suppose. A lot of it was good-humored, but there was definitely some truth to it.

And here’s where I’m going to put my foot in my mouth with a generalization, but at least for me, I never felt like a statistic, and therefore never really underrepresented, since I never got any of that cabbage that the school (at least, a few years ago) was in the habit of dealing out to minority students as incentive. My mom put my brother and I through college, all by her mad self.

GinDrunk: Madre’s a baller, no doubt.

Mexual Healing: She tries.

GinDrunk: Now, you said you never “got” the whole race antagonism – but have you ever had a “moment” where you were like, “Damn, screw all these gueros?”

Mexual Healing: haha!

GinDrunk: At school, in life, on the street, wherever.

Mexual Healing: Well, not because they’re gueros…mostly I get frustrated because people are often boring and homogenous. Occasionally some bigotry will make its way through the media and then it’s more like, “Damn, screw middle America.” But I definitely love being swarthier than the average American, and ambiguously so! I’ve been mistaken for almost every ethnicity by now.

GinDrunk: What was the most mind blowing one? Like, Samoan?

Mexual Healing: I wish! I think the guys at Dunkin Donuts asked me if I were Paki once. This is after they proceeded to try and guess it aloud before taking my order. It’s a fun time.

That and Greek once.

GinDrunk: WEEEIRD. Do you think people ever find you “exotic” then?

Mexual Healing: I did, but I think I’ve gotten over myself since then. I mean, the second I open my mouth that goes out the window.

GinDrunk: And how! Ok, Mr. Dark and Mysterious, what do you find exotic?

Mexual Healing: Ha, well, I don’t find them “exotic,” but I do seem to have a “thing” for white ladies.

GinDrunk: …you like the white ladies. (not the type of ecstasy, the human kind I’m guessing)

Mexual Healing: I probably wouldn’t know ecstasy from smints. But statistically speaking, one could draw the conclusion that I prefer to date women of European descent. It’s a strange phenomenon, I know.

GinDrunk: Any insights into this alabaster phenomenon?

Mexual Healing: haha. Not really, other than the fact that “alabaster” was the immediately the word that came to my mind, as well.

GinDrunk: Wow!

Mexual Healing: I’d like to ignore the fact that my mother is white (Paging Dr. Freud! nyuk, nyuk), but I should acknowledge it and then immediately move on. It’s really not a conscious choice?

GinDrunk: It’s just fascinating to hear about someone having a penchant for white girls – I guess I’m so used to ASIANS being all the rage.

Mexual Healing: Yeah, I’m familiar with that craze. It’s not really a mystery to me, though. It [the attraction] has a lot more to do with having things in common, and having similar tastes and sense of humor.

GinDrunk: Like a love of mayo and NPR? Hi-ho!

Mexual Healing: I do, in fact, love both of those things! Of course, I have dated other kinds of women, but…..the numbers don’t lie.

That probably means I’m attracted to baby boomers. Kind of a reverse cougar, and the male kind

GinDrunk: Something like …”baby seal”? Doesn’t have the same charm.

Mexual Healing: I don’t know, we might be surprised. I’m sure it would snag a lot of activist, PETA types.

GinDrunk: So, all in all, would you say you’re more at peace now with your mixed background and identity then you were before?

Mexual Healing: Oh, definitely. It just comes with being more at peace with myself in general. It’s just not something I have to choose, and I love that more than anything. I mean, I’m really looking forward to the next generation actually being color blind in a sense, especially in light of this generation’s accomplishments.

GinDrunk: “Accomplishments”…we’ll see about that!

Mexual Healing: Ha! I’m not saying I’ll have anything to do with them. guess more like Gen X….does the president fall into that?

GinDrunk: He falls into whatever the fuck he wants.