{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/breannagenerationalinfluence","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"slug":"breanna.generationalinfluence","excerpt":"Your family can be your number one supporter - or your biggest adversary. They can also hold the key to understanding yourself.","headline":"Looking up the family tree","author":"Breanna Diaz","authorbio":"","authoremail":"","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/breanna.generationalinfluence/1D-2936f612ab26e4d27b5bddbb034bc255.jpg","covercred":"Kanishka Mehra","coveralt":"Portrait of Diaz with her grandmother’s paintings.","articleType":"article","updated":null,"content":[{"type":"text","value":"My dad never spent longer than he had to in my mom’s childhood home."},{"type":"text","value":"That was why we were parked on the opposite side of the street. My dad, brothers and I waited for her to come outside so we could all drive back to the spacious, semi-isolated ranch my dad lived on as a kid. The jagged edge of Jalisco, Mexico, where my parents’ hometown lies, was where my family spent our summers."},{"type":"text","value":"As we waited, he pointed to the far end of the street."},{"type":"text","value":"“I parked right there when I picked your mom up in the middle of the night when we ran away to the United States,” he said casually."},{"type":"text","value":"Ran away?"},{"type":"text","value":"The exact timeline and logistics of when and how my parents crossed between countries to arrive in Los Angeles were largely mysteries to me. I was vaguely aware throughout my childhood that my dad sort of swept my mom away from her life in Mexico, but learning that she was rebellious enough to run from home came as a surprise."},{"type":"text","value":"I never felt as though I could simply ask how and why they came here. There were always walls up around what really happened when they crossed over."},{"type":"text","value":"“There was nothing to do over there except farm,” my dad said once."},{"type":"text","value":"“A bus,” my mom replied after much thought when I asked her how she traveled to the U.S. End of story."},{"type":"text","value":"But the story I was struck by most was not that my parents, like many other immigrant parents, came to the U.S. to make a better life for their family. It was the fact that something led my mom – someone whom I never saw as particularly daring – to cast aside the suffocating life she had in Mexico for the chance to even have a family of her own."},{"type":"text","value":"While being a teenager on its own is hard enough, being a teenage girl in an immigrant household can be even harder."},{"type":"text","value":"There is constant tension between the desire to be independent growing up and the struggle to please your family, who can be fiercely opposed to the former idea. Meeting all their expectations – earning all the good grades in the world, doing whatever is asked of you every single time – just never seems to be enough. Your parents’ trust and the freedom that feels merited just never seem to appear."},{"type":"text","value":"Hadn’t I earned the right to make decisions for myself and to be trusted with doing so? I was doing my absolute best – in school, at home – yet always faced immense pushback from my own mother.  Leaving the house for harmless reasons, like going to a high school football game or catching a movie with friends, was a battle every single time. My mom would guilt trip me, flat-out stop speaking to me and call me names when I would go out – instilling in me that every time I was enjoying myself, I was doing something wrong."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Portrait of Diaz and her mother.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/breanna.generationalinfluence/1A-22541d3c708bfe162d61b6d3b7cdc42f.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Kanishka Mehra\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Heading off to UCLA was the long-awaited escape from one of my mom’s favorite phrases: “No, because I said so and that’s that.”"},{"type":"text","value":"Finally, I understood why my older sister, who was no stranger to my mom’s strictness, counted down the days until she herself would move away from home, at long last getting her life started in college."},{"type":"text","value":"But when the COVID-19 pandemic sent students packing, returning home only created more tension between what I wanted and what my mom did. Our ideas of personal freedom came to a head, and in unspoken ways, put cracks in our relationship as I stopped taking her controlling tendencies lying down."},{"type":"text","value":"It was more of the same – silent treatments and arguments – that felt like a dark shadow over my days at home. At the time, her behavior was unfathomable to me and incredibly frustrating. I spent the summer angry and unhappy, yet I detested making other people unhappy, so getting into arguments was emotionally draining."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"In inextricable ways, I am a product of the way these two women went about their lives, the decisions they made.\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"I watched “Lady Bird” far too many times, empathizing wholeheartedly with the complex mother-daughter dynamics in the film. “Do you like me?” Saoirse Ronan’s character asked her mother, and I wondered how my mom would answer me if I asked her the same thing."},{"type":"text","value":"After several months stuck at home, my parents decided we would still go on our planned road trip 1,500 miles south to my parents’ home state of Jalisco. These annual road trips back to their home were essential for my parents, especially as their own parents got older and older. While traveling was risky, the COVID-19 case count there was close to none, and we made sure to take all the necessary precautions."},{"type":"text","value":"During the month we were there, the majority of my days were spent visiting my mom’s side of the family in her old house. That house was claustrophobic, cramped with high stone ceilings and surrounded by walls everywhere you looked. On the other hand, my dad’s childhood home was a small ranch planted in the middle of the mountains with nothing but lush fields and clear skies that looked like paintings in every direction."},{"type":"text","value":"The difference between these two places, while only 6 or so miles apart, spoke to the stark differences between the two halves of my family. My father’s side was kind, lenient and generally supportive of my dad and his many siblings. The naturally carefree atmosphere of his house was nothing like the severe, restrictive one of my mom’s."},{"type":"text","value":"I always felt guilty that my siblings and I preferred not to spend the summer days at my mom’s house with her and her family. However, the death of my maternal grandfather in November 2019, coupled with the looming threat of COVID-19, sparked anxiety in us all. Would we still have our grandparents around next summer? And so my brothers and I tagged along with our mom."},{"type":"text","value":"While the days in the small patio were long and gave me too many mosquito bites to count, spending time with my grandmother, aunts and mom lent me a glimpse into the past – letting me see how my grandma and late grandpa’s parenting styles came to shape who my mom is and subsequently who I am."},{"type":"text","value":"My grandma was a woman who was the princess of the house throughout her childhood. She was someone who always got her way, period. She was beautiful when she was young, with thick curly hair and dark eyes. In her old age, she still valued beauty, donning flowered blouses and skirts and coloring her curls a chestnut shade."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Portrait of Diaz.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/breanna.generationalinfluence/1B option 2-ee815e1055091e46542ce9df232f81b1.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Kanishka Mehra\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"The unfortunate truth was that my grandmother was unhappy with her marriage, my mom told me, and it was clear to my mom that her parents didn’t love each other. Struggling to make ends meet, my grandfather worked two jobs, and my grandmother was often busy finding ways to make money herself. Before moving to the village, she worked the land on the ranch she and her family used to live on – arduous labor that hardened her and contrasted her upbringing. These were things she complained about even in the present – nothing and no one really seemed to be good enough for her."},{"type":"text","value":"Connecting with her was difficult. Her outdated views and grievances about anything – from the kind of clothes I wore to the “behavior of young women these days” – were exhausting. In secret, I resented her for being a callous mother to her kids. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find common ground with her over art."},{"type":"text","value":"I had decided I’d spend one of the long summer days painting in my grandmother’s garden to pass the time. The abundance of plants and flowers and cacti – many of which I didn’t recognize – were too alluring not to recreate in my sketchbook. With inks and watercolors, I recreated pieces of the tiny jungle that stood in the courtyard, much to the delight of my grandma when she saw them."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"While being a teenager on its own is hard enough, being a teenage girl in an immigrant household can be even harder.\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"I flipped the pages of the sketchbook for her, and every page or so she would trace a finger along the outline of the painting before her."},{"type":"text","value":"“Oh, look at those wonderful flowers,” she said. “I used to love painting things like these.”"},{"type":"text","value":"The walls of the house boasted canvases my grandmother painted, and my own house has even more of these. Still lifes of sunflowers and lilies, a portrait of a girl rolling out tortillas with a somber face – these pieces gave me a glimpse into her mind as an artist, her appreciation for nature and love of the mundane. She explained to me the process of painting, from preparing the canvas to repainting minute details until they were just right. Art was something that brought us both joy."},{"type":"text","value":"I saw it as a common thread connecting me to her because my mom, the center link between us, is also a gifted artist. I remember her rendering an eerily realistic portrait of my little brother with precise strokes while my sister and I watched, enchanted. My mom showed me how to draw portraits of people when I was small, sitting me down and patiently explaining how to translate a model’s features from a photo reference onto paper."},{"type":"text","value":"Maybe art is passed down through generations – or maybe I’m reaching – but the thought that the three of us had that in common was profound. In inextricable ways, I am a product of the way these two women went about their lives, the decisions they made."},{"type":"text","value":"My mom’s older sister was married with her skin bruised black and blue – a bleak wedding gift from her father after his failed attempts to bribe her out of marriage by offering to buy her a car. It went without saying that my mom’s strict parents would have never given her their blessing to leave for the U.S. They disapproved of my dad on account of his being from the nearby rancho called Las Bocas, which supposedly had a reputation for having violent residents."},{"type":"text","value":"None of my mom’s four other sisters are married or have families but not for lack of trying. On a car ride back to the ranch, my mom talked about how her mom treated her sisters – if no one was good enough for my grandma, that also meant no man was good enough for her daughters. Her high standards drove away potential relationships for them, and she even told one of her own daughters that she was too ugly to marry."},{"type":"text","value":"My aunt very well could have been married. She could have had the family and kids she wanted. But this treatment from my grandma kept her under her mother’s thumb."},{"type":"text","value":"Now I am well aware – and thankful – that my mom was never as controlling as my grandma was. But honestly, I was frustrated that she felt it was unjust for her own mom to be so conservative in the past, yet she inflicted those rigid expectations on her own kids later on. It was another thing about my mom that I couldn’t wrap my head around – how she was seemingly blind to the cycle happening here and the hypocrisy."},{"type":"text","value":"What I realize now, though, is that I never once put myself in my mom’s shoes as she struggled to understand her own childhood. I let my frustrations get in the way of understanding her trauma."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Portrait of Diaz’s mother.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/breanna.generationalinfluence/1C-ce5527129c7a93d851d1715a334c986d.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Kanishka Mehra\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"The pieces of my family history I picked up over the summer were still swirling through my mind as we said our goodbyes to family in Mexico and readjusted to life back home. The rest of the summer was more of the same, all the usual frustrations and arguments. It wasn’t until late in the fall that the fragments of the past began to come together and form meaning."},{"type":"text","value":"My mom, who will never refuse the opportunity to play with a small child, is incredibly passionate about early childhood development. In August, she took on a slew of community college classes in order to become a preschool instructor. At the beginning of the semester, she had to create a presentation about herself. When she was done, she showed me her slides and asked for feedback."},{"type":"text","value":"I was surprised to see so much retrospection about her childhood and family. One slide featured an endearing photograph of my grandfather, his face breaking into a wide smile, holding a happy little girl – my mom – close to his chest. The same slide read how her father, an only child to a controlling mother, became a verbally abusive man whom his children feared."},{"type":"text","value":"The next slide showed a more recent photo of my mom’s parents sitting side by side, their walkers situated next to each other, as they wearily smiled at the camera. The words on the slide explained that my grandma quickly learned marriage was not the fantasy she imagined and grew bitter because of it. Obeying your parents, adhering to rigid Catholic standards and respecting elders were central to my mom’s upbringing, she said."},{"type":"text","value":"“I wish I could have been able to talk with my mother about so many things in my adolescence,” she wrote in the final slides. “I use language now to talk with my children. (I) make sure they have me unconditionally.”"},{"type":"text","value":"Lastly, she tried to show her understanding of her parents' ways, saying although they were severe and unyielding, they still loved their kids and were trying to protect them from making mistakes in life."},{"type":"text","value":"I failed to realize that my mom’s past was marred in many ways by how she was raised, and how that past shaped the person she is in the present. Reading her short reflections was like peering into a mirror and seeing myself  –  we both struggled to understand our mothers yet love them dearly, and we both wished that parts of our past could have been different for us."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"We both struggled to understand our mothers yet love them dearly, and we both wished that parts of our past could have been different for us.\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"In her own way – a way that I don’t always agree with – she’s trying to be a good mother, better than the one before her."},{"type":"text","value":"I have never been, and definitely never will be, the perfect daughter. It’s too late for me to correct my past behavior, but looking into the future, I can’t help but wonder how I will take the parts of my past and use them to try to be a good mom myself."},{"type":"text","value":"I wonder how my hypothetical daughter will look back on her family’s past and what she would think of her grandma and me. Would she look at us and see the resemblances, not just in the shapes of our faces but the way we speak or what we say? Would she have the same fascination with paint and ink that all the women before her have had?"},{"type":"text","value":"When my mom was the age I am now, 19, she had the courage to leave behind everything she knew in search of a better life. Although I might not be as brave now as she was, I hope I somehow inherited her sense of determination and ability to do something life-changing. I admire her for that, and knowing I came from a woman like her does make me proud."},{"type":"text","value":"The arguments and disagreements between us are still and will always be there, as our ideals belong to different generations and are unlikely to ever fully align. Taking that look up the family tree, however, opened a door to understanding my past and the present, and more importantly, colors my future."}]}},"pageContext":{"term":"winter21","slug":"breanna.generationalinfluence"}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}