Grama says I’m Indian.
Mama says my dad was “A Mexican” and that if he really loved me like
“Mexican daddies do,”
he woulda found me by now.
Grama says we’re Indian, mama says ‘no.’
Sis calls me a “wetback” and a “beaner” (“mom said it all the time”)
brother teases me about getting pregnant and dropping out of high school.
Grama and mama don’t speak to each other for a year
because of the Indian/Mexican fiasco.
Christmas ends the standoff; it’s a time “to forgive.”
And no one talks about Indians or Mexicans ever again.
They tell me I’m Scotch-Irish and “Pennsylvania Dutch” (thanks grampa)
and that I should be proud of that.
And I am.
At school the kids call me “white trash” ‘cause my skin is light
and I’m confused
and because I wear K-mart tennies and shitty Lee jeans
(in the era of Jordache, remember?).
I’m fat and awkward and we’re poor, between the bills, their ciggies,
and his wine,
money is tight.
But fuck them, the white kids calling me white trash and they didn’t even
know it;
we were all poor kids.
Julie Garza-Withers, former award-winning community college Sociology instructor who’s currently using Sociology to organize and research for racial justice in rural northern California. She was a facilitator in the film “If These Halls Could Talk” with Director Lee Mun Wah, and has published at Working Class Studies, and elsewhere.
Julie has a particular interest in class and classism as a form of social stratification, and the role of cussing and anti-intellectualism in stratifying society. A fan of cussing herself, she says she only “Cusses when necessary,” which is often. She considers herself a working class academic because she is a first generation college grad who grew up in rural southern California where her options post-high school included getting married or working at Del Taco and selling tacos to fast food customers until she got married.
Julie has an M.A. from California State University, Chico, where she studied how social class and gender impact work-place conflict between women. She lives in rural northern California with her husband Larry where they enjoy the forest, their dogs, and gardening.
You can follow Julie on twitter where she posts as WorkingClassTeacher, and also check out Julie’s anti-racism work at Rural SURJ of NorCal-Showing Up for Racial Justice. Currently an inactive author, awaiting a poke with a sharp stick.