Why is culture and knowing where you come from important?

To me culture and knowing where I come from is really important. I think culture is something that identifies a person.Think about the quinceanera I talked about in my previous blog. I've been waiting of that moment since my oldest sister Cristal had her party and she's now 23 years old. That means I had to be 9 year old when she had her quince or younger maybe. To me that felt like such a long wait. We celebrate some many different holiday's in my culture. Like 5 de Mayo (coming up), Day of the Dead, Three Kings Day and even Dia de los nino's which Day of the Children. One of my favorite things about my culture is the dancing and the music. I'm not gonna lie when I was younger all this stuff about my culture and where I came from didn't really matter to me. I use to think I live in ameria why should all this stuff matter to me. Truth to be told now all this stuff has so much meaning. Even when people say I'm not Mexican enough or I'm not American enough.What should it matter if I'm more that the other I'm still just me right? I remember watching the movie called "Selena" and it one of the movie the father say "you have be more Mexican than the Mexican and be more American than the American", That's basically saying that being Mexican-American is more harder than anything. I think the complete opposite of that I really don't care what people have to say about me and my culture.I love when my mom tells me the story of how she came to america. It all sounds so interesting but at the same time it sounds like it was difficult to get here to begin with. I remember the date because it was my cousin birthday. Although there is one scary part to my moms story. My uncle had gotten lost or stuck in the desert. Luckly my uncle Juan which was my cousin's father of my cousin who was born the day they had crossed the boarder. Of course I won't say weather it was illegally or legal. Sometimes I wonder what would have my life been like if my mom would have never crossed that border? Things like these are the stuff I truly value and will keep close to my heart.

This is a tradition dance that's called a "folklorico"