Student learns about her roots during semester in Mexico
Chat transcript
Click here to read the transcript of our chat with reporter Anna Marie Lux about The Gazette's three-day series "Changing Face of America."
Changing Face of America
Hispanics are changing the face of local communities. Rock County's Hispanic population more than doubled from 2000 to 2010. Walworth County's Hispanic population jumped 72 percent. Who are some of the new neighbors and what issues do they face? The Gazette looks at those questions and other topics in a three-day series. View section
Sunday: Immigration stories offer insight into why Mexicans left their homes.
Monday: For new immigrants, life is not always what they expect: American Dream or American nightmare?
Today: A new generation of Americans talks about navigating the porous border between two cultures.
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Changing Face of America
Hispanics are changing the face of local communities. Who are some of the new neighbors and what issues do they face?
DELAVAN — Karen Cano returned to UW-Whitewater last month with a deeper understanding of what it means to be Mexican.
The 19-year-old daughter of Mexican immigrants flew to Mexico in late July as a foreign exchange student.
"I know it seems kind of odd," she said, "but they considered me an international student."
Cano of Delavan studied five months at Technolgico de Monterey in Guadalajara, her father's hometown.
"It was cool because that is where my family is from," she said during an interview before leaving. "People say to me, 'Why not go somewhere else?' I want to go there to learn about myself and to learn about my culture."
At the end of the semester, she found herself asking deeper questions about her roots.
"Coming to Mexico, I thought that I might somehow resolve my 'identity crisis issue,'" she said. "Unfortunately, I think I have become more confused.
"Most Mexicans accept me perfectly fine. But I did have some tell me that I am not Mexican because I was born in the United States. This is difficult because when I'm in the United States, I don't always feel like I fit in perfectly, either."
Cano was intent on learning about her Mexican roots.
She studied Mexican literature in Spanish, her first language, and Mexican history. She kept a diary about her Mexican experiences. Now, she plans to connect the dots between Mexican and U.S. cultures.
"It will make me more open about understanding different people," she said.
Like many young Americans who grew up in Mexican families, she is bicultural and bilingual. Most Hispanics seem to have a stronger cultural connection with their home countries and make the effort to keep the language and traditions alive, she said.
"Unfortunately, through the generations, this is becoming weaker," Cano said. "Growing up, I would speak only Spanish at home and English at school. As time goes on, I feel like this has changed because now I speak to my siblings in English and my parents in Spanish. I have felt myself losing some of the Spanish, which is the main reason why I wanted to spend time in a Spanish-speaking country."
When Cano has her own family, she plans to teach her children Spanish.
"I hope to make them understand the importance of being bilingual and keeping the language," she said. "Usually, other Latinos from my generation forget the importance of knowing Spanish. Often, they do not teach it to their kids. I see this even in my own family. My nephews do not all speak Spanish. The ones that do speak Spanish know little. It is quite sad for me because it makes it difficult for them to communicate with their own grandmother."
As far back as she can remember, Cano has wanted to go to college.
"My parents encouraged me," she said. "I ended up going to UW-Whitewater because it is close. I also think its educational program is excellent. Now, my parents tell me: 'College first. College first.' My dad says, 'Don't even think about getting married.'"
Cano has been living at home and commuting to UW-Whitewater, where she is a sophomore. Her semester in Mexico was the first time she was away from home.
She is studying to become a secondary Spanish teacher. She also wants to teach children learning English as a second language. Her older brother, Joab, is in his third year at UW-Whitewater.
Because her parents are immigrants, she understands how hard it is to adjust to a new language and a new culture. She believes that discrimination is the biggest unnecessary challenge that immigrants face.
"There is so much social separation," she said. "It was painfully obvious in high school, when I could literally see a table of Mexicans and another one of white people in the cafeteria … there were few tables where both mixed."
She seeks understanding.
"Most immigrants would just like more tolerance," Cano said. "It is not easy leaving everything behind. It is not any easier coming into a completely different world. … They are human plain and simple, and they should be treated as humans."
Feb 20, 2012 at 10:54 a.m.
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For a great video explaining the math behind NumbersUSA...just google "immigration gumballs" and you'll find at least two versions...the original, which has to do with how many we allow into the U.S.A. and the unsustainability of that path...and the other, newer version, which focuses on how America, already the most generous immigration country in the whole world, could do even MORE and still not make the slightest dent in the poverty and ruination in so many areas of the world...point being that our generosity is already way above sustainability, but even becoming more unsustainable wouldn't make a whit of difference worldwide...so it's not selfish to want us to go back to manageable levels and true enforcement!
Feb 20, 2012 at 10:53 a.m.
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Please go to NumbersUSA.com for lots of education on these matters, both illegal and legal. They are the foremost organization that advocates for taking our immigration levels back down to sustainable levels, and closing the door to illegals until they go through the legalities. They do not advocate immigrant-bashing, just simple math: our current immigration policies and the lack of their enforcement assumes infinite resources in this country; basic math shows that is not the case. NumbersUSA.com allows free membership, and anytime votes come up in government that can help turn the tide, you are alerted to call and fax for FREE to your representatives, Senators, and various movers and shakers...all FREE to make your voice heard loud and clear! NumbersUSA members turned the tide in the last amnesty vote, during the summer of 2007, when the Bush administration and that old warhorse Teddy were trying again for amnesty for all the illegal invaders...NumbersUSA members actually MELTED DOWN the Senate phone system the morning of the vote, prompting many Senators who were going to vote for amnesty to reconsider and change their vote. Norm Coleman of Minnesota was one of these at the time...changing his final vote after having supported amnesty all along up to that morning. You can make a difference and we CAN take this country back to sustainability of government and resources!
Feb 20, 2012 at 10:53 a.m.
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....And don't even get me started on what a joke our "legal" immigration system is...so absurd it even allows a visa lottery, where we just hand out 50,000 magic tickets to America to random applicants, many of whom apply under 3 or more variations of their name to increase their chances. Where we allow F-1 student visas for foreign students to take valuable college spots away from our own students, and find ourselves now at the HIGHEST level EVER of these F-1's invading our colleges, and all this during a recession? Where we extend F-1's from 12 months to 29 months and beyond now, so instead of doing two semesters and a summer and going back to their country, they now can put down roots, have "citizen" babies, and take valuable H-1B visas to work good jobs and thereby take valuable internships and good jobs right out of the hands of our own graduates? Where we let folks into the U.S.A. on tourist, cultural, student, work, and other visas, only to have no system in place to track whether they actually LEFT WHEN THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO or not? And, where our very own government watches 3 million jobs get lost in the first year of the recent downturn, but still hands out over ONE MILLION GREEN CARDS during the same period (!!!!), putting our jobless into direct competition with them, and putting our aid-seekers in direct competition with their own pleas for help and money?
Is our policy and enforcement serving our national interest?
I think not.
Feb 20, 2012 at 10:52 a.m.
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The combination of Johnson's Great Society and Teddy Kennedy's overhaul of immigration law in 1965 will forever be viewed by historians as the beginning of the end for the American self-sufficiency and freedom ideals. The generations of dependency and permanent underclass created by too many goodies from the government, and too many incentives for poor choices, along with too many penalties for good choices (paying for all the poor choosers), all sprang from Johnson's reworking of the New Deal into the Great Society, with the underlying idea that government should take responsibility for OUTCOMES, over and above just insuring equal OPPORTUNITY. We see where a half-century of that has brought us. Kennedy's reworking of immigration law in '65 really opened the floodgates to making America's melting pot ideal lose the heat it needed to melt all together, as it had before. It upset the idea of immigrants proving they could support themselves before coming here, it started the chain migration assumption where as soon as one person gets a foothold here, they could start waiving in family members right and left, and it put the burden on America to have to have a reason to say "No" to an immigrant rather then make the immigrant give us a reason to say "Yes."
These two forces have taken America to where it is now, fractured and suffering from loss of unity in our most basic principles, with a half-century of momentum built up for the misguided idea that America and its previously principled hegemony can absorb all who arrive, can wave the magic wand of citizenship over anyone who happened to pop out of their mom on our land, water, or airspace, and can provide all baseline requirements of life to all who need them, ask for them, or cheat to get them.
The results are clear in what has become of our country at this point.
Throw in the illegal alien amnesty of 1986 (again at the urging of Teddy Kennedy), the rise of "political correctness" and identity politics as bankable entities that provided a comfortable living to the entire "diversity" apparatus, the rise of the courts as a "first resort," and the rise of the culture of "taking offense," and we have a slide into the absurdity of today's American society and culture.
Barbara Jordan, the eminent black stateswoman who sat on the Clinton administration's immigration task force, said it best:
“It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.”
Has our policy and enforcement of that policy done so?
I think not.
Feb 20, 2012 at 10:51 a.m.
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By definition, illegal "immigration" is NOT immigration...it's an invasion. Immigrants, by definition, are people who plan permanent settlement under legal guidelines and carry through will all responsibilities in order to later receive "rights." Illegal invaders are not adhering to any definition of "immigration," so I wish we would all stop using the term "immigration" in association with illegal invaders.
Feb 20, 2012 at 10:50 a.m.
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Sadly, this author reveals her bias in too many of these articles in the series. In this one, she is careful to make sure to include the girl saying she was born here, but makes sure to hide the conditions under which her parents came here...therefore, I'm left with the assumption that her parents came here illegally, popped out some "U.S. citizen" babies under the perversion of the 14th Amendment which mistakenly grants citizenship to anyone born on our land, water, or in our airspace, and now we're supposed to have the cockles of our hearts warmed by this O.Henry-like tale.
Sadly, her parents shouldn't have been able to come in, until they'd followed the legal procedures, and even if they made it in, the hospital where the kids were born should have been empowered to demand proof of legal presence in this country from the parents by way of determining the birth status of the child. Both citizen parents=citizen child. One citizen parent=child takes status of non-citizen parent, authorities notified only if other parent has no legal status in country. Both illegal parents=child is illegal, and authorities are notified of all three.
Feb 15, 2012 at 11:21 a.m.
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Sigma, your ignorance never seizes to amaze me.
Feb 15, 2012 at 11:16 a.m.
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Freedom? We incarcerate more of our citizens than any other country.
Feb 15, 2012 at 7:40 a.m.
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Is this Mexico recognition week or something?
Feb 14, 2012 at 11:05 p.m.
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I worry that this article makes education seem like a primarily limiting and narcissistic enterprise. So, an "Anglo" would have no reason to spend a year in Mexico?
Feb 14, 2012 at 9:26 p.m.
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Tolerance. Understanding. Diversity. That isn't what made our country great. Freedom is what made the US great.
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