My mom: ¿Qué es eso de chuntaro? ¿Quién es chuntaro y porqué les dicen así?
My sister: Some people say that they aren’t chuntaro and that other people are. Right Juan? (laughing)
She was referring to the video Anjelica and I made a couple of weeks ago as Los Metiches. We were talking about “how you’re never enough as a Latino,” and I made a reference to how some people don’t think we’re Mexican enough because we don’t wear boots and a hat everyday. Coincidentally my nephews were also having a laugh at my expense. They decided to show my mom our video for the first time over the weekend, and they said she couldn’t stop shaking her head at the fact that I was wearing a wig.
You just can’t plan for moments like that.
Me muría de la pena en ese momento… Oops!
Pero anyways, the conversation continued…
My sister: You said if you wear a hat and boots you’re a chuntaro in that video, right? (laughing some more)
Me: Hey, that’s not what I said… (and all the while trying to remember exactly what it was I did say in that video)
Okay, maybe I did say something similar to that, but I most definitely did not mean it the way it sounds.
I’ve told y’all before, nobody can do a metida de pata like me!
My mom: Pues yo digo que yo seré la más chuntara aquí… Aquí nadie sale de sus casas. Nomás yo ando afuera, con mis gallinas, haciendo una cosa… iluego otra. Pues yo seré la más chuntara.
She always has a way of making us all laugh with her stories. Like when she couldn’t understand what the cashier was scolding her about in English so she proceeded to tell her off in Spanish too. Or when she was minding her own business and driving home at a slow a steady pace and someone just happened to drive around her and stick a finger up in the air (¿qué es eso? ¿porqué levantan el dedo así?). Or when we were kids and the immigration judge yelled at her and my she yelled right back. Mi mamá no tiene pelos en la lengua. It’s not that my jefita is problematic or likes the drama that life sometimes throws at her, it’s that she has always been a great sport about taking the bad and the ugly in life in stride.
That’s where I get my sense of humor también, I think.
The glass is never half full or half empty for my mother. It’s a glass and it has something in it. That’s all that counts.
It’s the same about being chuntaro or not. You either are or you aren’t, and YOU get to make that decision. Not anyone else.
I am and I am more than okay with that.
De ahí p’alante, ¡que digan misa si quieren! 🙂
What about you?