She’s beautiful and plays a Desperate Housewife on TV, and not too long ago this Mexican-American actress took a DNA test and discovered on the PBS series Faces of America, that she has African ancestry. Her name is Eva Longoria Parker, and while some viewers may have been surprised at what was revealed, I wasn’t one of them.
Eight years ago a friend and I vacationed in Acapulco, Mexico. There, we had the time of our lives. We did all the touristy stuff like sightseeing and taking loads of pictures, but what captivated me the most, was the connection I discovered we had with the Mexican people.
My friend Sanquetta and I stayed at the Mayan Palace Resort. The resort itself was a luxury that I had never before encountered. The lobby complete with marble floors and Mayan themes with a temple entrance was simply breathtaking. Combined with nightly entertainment, open air buffet restaurants and the longest lazy river pool in Mexico, this beach front property more than exceeded our wildest expectations.
But as much as we enjoyed the resort, the real fun began the moment we left property grounds and ran into our taxi cab driver Victor Castaneda.
We met Victor within hours of our arrival. We had decided to take an evening stroll to check out our surroundings, and after passing a line up of yellow and white cabs we crossed the street from our resort and encountered one taxi cab driver waiting patiently for our attention. When he saw us walk his way, he jumped out of the driver’s side and immediately opened the passenger doors.
“Hey ladies I have a ride for you,” he called out to us. “I will take you into the city.”
Sanquetta and I proceeded to inform him that we weren’t looking for a driver, because we were only out for a walk, but our soon to be new adventure buddy would not take no for an answer. He flat out told us he would be our driver and asked what time should we meet in the morning. Sanquetta and I had no choice but to cave and promise to meet him as early as possible.
The next morning my friend and I wondered if Victor would be true to his word, and sure enough as soon as we stepped off the grounds of the Mayan Palace Resort, there he was waiting for us, with arms folded across his chest, leaning on his vehicle with a big wide grin on his face.
I jumped in
the back seat and Sanquetta took the front, and from there he took us to see Cliff Divers, where young boys climb the wall of high cliffs and plunge into the deep blue sea for sport. He took us up the mountain roads of the Escenica Highway to see The Cross at the Ecumenical Chapel of Peace. We even saw silver and gold crafted into art one day at the Jewelry Factory. He took us everywhere. We ate at restaurants we normally wouldn’t have considered as regular tourist, and we traveled down streets and dirt roads that alone we might have been too afraid to, but with Victor as our guide, we knew that he would never lead us astray. He was a lot of fun, but boy was he smitten with my friend.
Driving around town sometimes Victor would be so enchanted by my friend’s spell that he would literally take his eyes off the road to drink in her beauty. While me in the back seat would yell...
Eight years ago a friend and I vacationed in Acapulco, Mexico. There, we had the time of our lives. We did all the touristy stuff like sightseeing and taking loads of pictures, but what captivated me the most, was the connection I discovered we had with the Mexican people.
My friend Sanquetta and I stayed at the Mayan Palace Resort. The resort itself was a luxury that I had never before encountered. The lobby complete with marble floors and Mayan themes with a temple entrance was simply breathtaking. Combined with nightly entertainment, open air buffet restaurants and the longest lazy river pool in Mexico, this beach front property more than exceeded our wildest expectations.
But as much as we enjoyed the resort, the real fun began the moment we left property grounds and ran into our taxi cab driver Victor Castaneda.We met Victor within hours of our arrival. We had decided to take an evening stroll to check out our surroundings, and after passing a line up of yellow and white cabs we crossed the street from our resort and encountered one taxi cab driver waiting patiently for our attention. When he saw us walk his way, he jumped out of the driver’s side and immediately opened the passenger doors.
“Hey ladies I have a ride for you,” he called out to us. “I will take you into the city.”
Sanquetta and I proceeded to inform him that we weren’t looking for a driver, because we were only out for a walk, but our soon to be new adventure buddy would not take no for an answer. He flat out told us he would be our driver and asked what time should we meet in the morning. Sanquetta and I had no choice but to cave and promise to meet him as early as possible.
The next morning my friend and I wondered if Victor would be true to his word, and sure enough as soon as we stepped off the grounds of the Mayan Palace Resort, there he was waiting for us, with arms folded across his chest, leaning on his vehicle with a big wide grin on his face.I jumped in
the back seat and Sanquetta took the front, and from there he took us to see Cliff Divers, where young boys climb the wall of high cliffs and plunge into the deep blue sea for sport. He took us up the mountain roads of the Escenica Highway to see The Cross at the Ecumenical Chapel of Peace. We even saw silver and gold crafted into art one day at the Jewelry Factory. He took us everywhere. We ate at restaurants we normally wouldn’t have considered as regular tourist, and we traveled down streets and dirt roads that alone we might have been too afraid to, but with Victor as our guide, we knew that he would never lead us astray. He was a lot of fun, but boy was he smitten with my friend.Driving around town sometimes Victor would be so enchanted by my friend’s spell that he would literally take his eyes off the road to drink in her beauty. While me in the back seat would yell...
“Victor, the road, Victor, the road!”
In response to my yelling, he would say, “Don’t worry, no problem.”
As taken as he was with my friend, he was a good man and he showed us a good time. In all of that, all the sight seeing and driving around, I noticed something about the people that really stirred something in me. Looking at the sea of brown faces, I realized that some of the people reminded me of me. In the Mexican people I saw my dark reddish brown skin, my flat nose, my high cheek bones, and my frizzy hair. Even Sanquetta commented on how I looked like I belonged there. But Sanquetta looked like she belonged there too. I think if we spoke Spanish we could have mixed right in with the locals and none would have been the wiser.
When I returned home, I decided to do a little research and what I discovered helped me make sense of it.
First of all, it’s funny how as Americans we don’t really know much about Mexican history. They are one of our closest neighbors and their history is also our history. Before the Europeans arrived they were a nation of Native people. Their Indian tribes traded with our Indian tribes. The same Spanish that colonized parts of North America also colonized Mexico. And the same slave trade that brought Africans to the eastern coast of the United States, also took Africans to the coastal communities of Mexico.
Nearly 200,000 people arrived from Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria to work the silver mines, sugar plantations and cattle ranches. While many of these African descendents have mixed with and assimilated into the native and European populations of Mexico, you can still find strong visual evidence of the African legacy in the coastal communities of Costa Chica on the Pacific and Veracruz on the Gulf.
Acapulco is not too far from Costa Chica, where if given more time to explore, my friend and I would have found our way to poor fishing villages rich in dance, art, and storytelling that owes its song to the beat of Africa. I think of these people, isolated in their coastal communities who may have lost loved ones to adventure and better opportunity. I wonder how many of them have found their way to the United States, legally and illegally, only to be shunned and spit upon and told that they don’t belong.
And what about those from Mexico, that may have a deeper connection to our land than most Americans. I remember something Eva Longoria said while being interviewed by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., on Faces of America.
She said, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”
So what of those Mexican-Americans whose families have been here since the founding of our nation, but who may have lost their land after the Mexican-American war? Or yet, who still live on the same land but under a new flag and country? These people have not invaded our territory; we have invaded theirs and have taken it for our gain. As I listen to the debates regarding the new immigration law in Arizona, then hear about this new ban on ethnic studies in that state, I am saddened by this bullet we have created for our Mexican-American brothers and sisters. They have become an unfair target by our government and by those who oppose their integration into our society. I don’t really want to point fingers here, but in the land of freedom, I know we can do better.
I had a good time in Mexico. The people there treated me and my friend well, and some of them looked so familiar, that despite the language barrier, I felt the entire time that I was with family. And although I was not at home, I knew I was very close.
In response to my yelling, he would say, “Don’t worry, no problem.”
As taken as he was with my friend, he was a good man and he showed us a good time. In all of that, all the sight seeing and driving around, I noticed something about the people that really stirred something in me. Looking at the sea of brown faces, I realized that some of the people reminded me of me. In the Mexican people I saw my dark reddish brown skin, my flat nose, my high cheek bones, and my frizzy hair. Even Sanquetta commented on how I looked like I belonged there. But Sanquetta looked like she belonged there too. I think if we spoke Spanish we could have mixed right in with the locals and none would have been the wiser.
When I returned home, I decided to do a little research and what I discovered helped me make sense of it.First of all, it’s funny how as Americans we don’t really know much about Mexican history. They are one of our closest neighbors and their history is also our history. Before the Europeans arrived they were a nation of Native people. Their Indian tribes traded with our Indian tribes. The same Spanish that colonized parts of North America also colonized Mexico. And the same slave trade that brought Africans to the eastern coast of the United States, also took Africans to the coastal communities of Mexico.
Nearly 200,000 people arrived from Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria to work the silver mines, sugar plantations and cattle ranches. While many of these African descendents have mixed with and assimilated into the native and European populations of Mexico, you can still find strong visual evidence of the African legacy in the coastal communities of Costa Chica on the Pacific and Veracruz on the Gulf.
Acapulco is not too far from Costa Chica, where if given more time to explore, my friend and I would have found our way to poor fishing villages rich in dance, art, and storytelling that owes its song to the beat of Africa. I think of these people, isolated in their coastal communities who may have lost loved ones to adventure and better opportunity. I wonder how many of them have found their way to the United States, legally and illegally, only to be shunned and spit upon and told that they don’t belong.
And what about those from Mexico, that may have a deeper connection to our land than most Americans. I remember something Eva Longoria said while being interviewed by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., on Faces of America.
She said, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”
So what of those Mexican-Americans whose families have been here since the founding of our nation, but who may have lost their land after the Mexican-American war? Or yet, who still live on the same land but under a new flag and country? These people have not invaded our territory; we have invaded theirs and have taken it for our gain. As I listen to the debates regarding the new immigration law in Arizona, then hear about this new ban on ethnic studies in that state, I am saddened by this bullet we have created for our Mexican-American brothers and sisters. They have become an unfair target by our government and by those who oppose their integration into our society. I don’t really want to point fingers here, but in the land of freedom, I know we can do better.
I had a good time in Mexico. The people there treated me and my friend well, and some of them looked so familiar, that despite the language barrier, I felt the entire time that I was with family. And although I was not at home, I knew I was very close.
Travel has a brilliant way of broadening our world view. =) Great post!
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