The wanting to know my origins began as a child, as my bisabuela would recant of her mother’s journey to the U.S. It was a plática I knew by heart. On all sides of my childhood are embellished cuentitos hung like nichos on my walls. I grew up during the ’80s when pop culture dominated under the Reagan administration. The Latinidad trend was not yet in effect. 

When you’re surrounded by organic culture from blue-speckled pots, molcajetes, mandiles, batas, embroidered vestidos, huapangos, boleros, repostería, avena on cold mornings, you don’t know of any other way to be.

To exist inside a digital age and witness cultura being commercialized is watching it become depleted of its natural essence. From stickers, hats, and T-shirts, to guayaberas being cropped and chopped, from taco trucks monster-trucking the taco itself, we’re witnessing the intention of culture dissolve into another realm of representation — one very far from its original intention.

The hot trek to my grandfather’s birth colonial town right outside Monterrey, México, was a trip I would never forget as a child. México was hosting the World Cup, and Maradona was on the big screen. We would return to La Villa’to visit Doña Domitila, his mother who was in her nighties.

I remember arriving at the simple casita on the corner of the street: the white fachada, a box fan humming, and her individual bed immediately to the left as I walked in. Nevertheless, of the heat, cultura blew her way into that small cuartito, humo de palo santo activating my cultural awareness. As we said our goodbyes, she reminded to visit la Tía Cuca, who lived down the street, a makeshift candy vendor. As we walked out, she grabbed a charro hat beside her bed, raising, shouting:

Looking directly in my eyes, “¡Viva México, hijita!” A regañada con cariño. 

At that moment I realized my alma, pride, and senses belonged to México.

Cultura showered me with a superpower: the ability to always recognize and find her in every corner, steering me back to my origin — el norte.

The digital age has become a pseudo third space. Once, third spaces were mercados, plazas, where you ate paletas, esquites, y chicharrónes. The secret sazón lies within being aware of our ‘mestizo consciousness’ as Gloria Anzaldúa spoke to sacred duality. 

What’s been lost along the way is the embodiment of culture itself, cultural awareness, lived experience, the organic intimacy of it all. Curation has estranged from authenticity.

The Latine experience is social, intense emotional transfer. Within the digital age Gen Xers are hanging on to the nostalgia of all-night fiestas, soundtrack by Juan Gabriel and José José. Gen Z and Alpha obsession with culture curation on Instagram stemming from never fully experiencing culture in an organic state, yet as passive observers, #abuelamaxxing, a tremendous disconnect to la raíz. 

Conversations with our elders in both languages, walking into a panadería picking fresh pan, buying fresh produce at the store, making your own salsa instead of buying is the living cultura experience. Cultural pride lies within interactions, anticipation, and connecting. 

Every day is a pachanga. Shift awareness toward reclamation of the present. Halt postponing. Celebration is an intentional cultural act. Every day’s a fiesta equally of life, death, all things cyclical. The interconnectedness unites all. 

The wisdom of our ancient Mesoamerican people taught there’s intentionality within the mundane. Ther’s care, cuidado, in cooking, praying, combing hair, crafting. Soul within everyday action. Hay intención en lo cotidiano.

Read Octavio Paz, Alejandra Pizarnik, Carlos Fuentes, and Idea Vilariño. Study la conquista, colonization, and el mestizaje to understand the layered histories and representations that shape. Reverence for origination, ancestral paths that brought us here.

We are people of medicine, lineage, living word, recetas y poemas passed down to generations. Just as my grandmother’s call out to me was an ancestral reminder never to forget, wherever I go, there I am — más mexicana en modos y mañas.

We cannot wash away our desire to connect with the vecino, our longing to gather in plazas, the need to congregate in kitchens, sometimes drown penas en agave y cervecita. The need to ‘comadriar.’ The comadre art of holding space through celebration, grief, and angustias.

The reclamation of our spaces and borders is power of the people. Re-indigenization of space and the awareness of our ancestral roots is a beautiful act of cultural defiance.

Tune back inward into textiles, colors so beautiful from the Andes in Perú, others from Oaxaca looms. Buy vintage bolero vinyl and play it on a Sunday. You’ll understand how romance was once something los abuelos courted. Appreciate the art of la plática, abuelas critica, el cafecito y consejos, Lean into the artistry of authentic plates instead of Blue Apron, meal prepping.

Today the commercialization of ordinary cultural objects robs them of their sanctity. Cultural misappropriation invades the marketplace, profiting off trending pop culture words that support inflated pockets far from Indigenous hands.

Whoever does not remember their roots, raíces, walks about this world without a shadow, no path to follow. Ancestral memory is a seed that needs care, blossoming. To know where we’re walking, listen to where we’ve come from. We are a living compass needle to follow.

As I walked away, I remembered my hunger to discover my origin beyond gringolandia. My grandmother’s call, an ordination of cultural preservation and reverence. Fast-forward forty years later, I bring cuentos de los abuelos, cultura, y México to bookshelves around the world, preserving, honoring.