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IDENTITY: MY BRIDGE OF RESISTANCE
Consuelo Flores

My bridge of resisting labels began when I was a child. Then, I had no limits to my actions or thoughts. I was unencumbered and independent. I questioned, answered, developed and offered perspectives. I was a sensitive child who became a compassionate adult trying to decipher and define the signs of my identity - those that existed both within and outside of me.

Now, I still believe participation in life should hold no cultural boundaries. I don't represent everyone in my ethnic community nor automatically share beliefs that are seemingly bound to me simply by sharing a similar origin. I've concluded, as I define myself (not culturally nor ethnically nor in terms of race, but in terms of thought) that my life experiences offer more resistance in defining who I am.

Several years ago, I took my sons to Tenochtitlan, where the Aztec pyramids still rise to greet and education. We encountered indigenous people, vestiges of our roots, who offered tours with explanations of the ancient past, remnants of which we could still bear witness today. I gladly paid to understand what I had traveled so far to see.

I listened and translated the words to my children, emphasizing the importance of knowing, learning this ancient way of life. We came from a people that created and propelled us into where we were now. It was just as important to learn from those in our past as it was from those in our present. I wanted to give my sons a strong foundation on which to build their own identities. I wanted for them what I still lacked in my own life--an understanding of who they were and the tools to create a path to who they were becoming. (At my age, I know I'm still becoming.)

Despite my emphasis on cultural awareness. I've found that life experiences, those that have left both physical and emotional scars, their fleeting yet permanent marks on life's journey, connect people far more intimately, regardless of origin. These once fresh, healing or now mended wounds can form bridges that are more interesting, solid and common within everyday lives while mutual pleasures and joys instinctively draw us closer.

So I'm a mother, writer, woman and a poet, a Chicana whose parents and family were born in Mexico, a social, community and cultural activist and worker , a student and professional. I have lived terrible, lovely, amazing, enriching moments. I'm bilingual, bicultural, biliterate, multifaceted, not easily identified. I represent many intagible definitions for identity in a world with unavailable boxes to check off. I am my other I.

Ultimately my bridge of resistance is built with common, yet abstract definitions of myself. They include the struggles I face, love I share, justice I seek, hunger I feed, success I yearn for, passion I feel and the joy in which I live. It is this bridge of resistance that can be found within all people, that I call my identity.