I don’t know how to make chilaquiles, but I do know how to make a mean Southwestern green chile. I might seem like a tragic, little pocha to some, but I know who I am.

My Grandparents, Circa 1920s, Trinidad, Colo. 

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. - “You don’t know how to make chilaquiles?” a Chinese-born college professor once scoffed at me, her accented English tinged with incredulity. “What kind of Mexican are you?”

She was an academic who studied Mexican history, and had traveled regularly to the Yucatán Peninsula to conduct fieldwork, and had more than a few trucos culinarios up her sleeve. In her eyes, I must have seemed like a sad, tragic little pocha: over-assimilated and sorely out of touch with her heritage. Pocha, for those who are unfamiliar with the derogatory term, loosely translates into “white-washed Mexican.”

Ah, but there’s the rub. I wasn’t born in Mexico, and neither were any of my ancestors. I feel no affinity with modern Mexico’s pop culture, music or telenovelas. I didn’t grow up playing lotería, or loving musica norteña (Mexican country-western music), and I don’t know how to make chilaquiles. To quote actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein, “Is that so wrong?”

Disappointingly, the history professor had blinked me. Because of my Hispanic looks, bilingual skills and Southwestern heritage, the Chinese professor assumed I must be “Mexican” and, ergo, from an immigrant family like hers. What she failed to understand is that American sub-identities are more interesting than the façile labels engineered by government agencies, historians, political groups, or the infamously myopic trio of Uncle Sam, Madison Avenue and Hollywood.

In fact, I was born and raised in southern Colorado with a Spanish surname, and my olive skin, dark hair and eyes bear the weight of 300 years of interracial mingling–through force or marriage, or both–between my American Indian and Spanish conquistador ancestors. English, and not Spanish, is my native language (though I learned to speak Spanish fluently in South America, where I lived all through my 20s.)

It’s been said before: It isn’t easy being mestiza in a country that can’t seem to move past its false black/white dichotomy. Just ask President Obama and other Americans of mixed ancestry who find it nonsensical anytime someone tries to classify them by “race,” ethnicity or national origin. When you’re faced with the cold, hard reality of government-sponsored racial classifications, you can’t help but question the legitimacy of the premise of “race” to begin with, and what it means to be “black,” “white,” “Hispanic,” “American” and–human. Truth be told, the ancestry of most Americans is more complex than the little boxes everyone wants us to check, or the tags certain political groups tell us we have to embrace.

I have nothing against Mexico. Despite hundreds of years of derogatory depictions in books, films and television, ignorant generalizations, hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric, and violence at the hands of Manifest Destiny gunslingers, invading Marines and rednecks–Mexico has a lot to be proud of. It is a vibrant, rich, diverse land that other Latin Americans see as a Spanish-speaking heavy-hitter.

Here’s what the rest of Latin America sees when it looks at Mexico: A large nation that arose from one of the most advanced, ancient civilizations in the Americas. A country whose people are tremendously diverse, and speak hundreds of dialects. (It is said that only India can claim more.) A nation whose painters, writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians have shaped Latin American art for decades, and whose cathedrals, museums, universities, and archaeological sites are among the hemisphere’s greatest treasures. As many tourists can avow, Mexico has some of the most beautiful beaches and natural wonders on the planet.

Of course, Mexico, like the rest of Latin America, has its share of problems, including perrenial poverty, corruption, and violence linked to drug-trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border. All of these problems are driving Mexicans northward in search of better lives. It's nothing new, though their numbers have grown into a critical mass, which has drawn attention from parts of the United States that never used to notice.

I wish I could say I descended directly from Mexico's cultural, historical and geographical wealth, but I can’t. As fate would have it, both sides of my family have lived in the northern New Mexico/Colorado region since the early 1700s, well before Mexico gained its independence from Spain; well before the Mexican-American War, when Mexico lost a third of its land to the United States; and well before Colorado and New Mexico became U.S. states. A popular political phrase best describes the history of Hispanos of the Southwest, “We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us.”

Like our Latin American cousins, Hispanos of the Southwest are the progeny of the indigenous people who lived in pre-Columbia North America, and the Spanish conquistadores who arrived with Columbus or shortly thereafter, and spent 150 years pillaging, maiming, murdering, oppressing, raping, proselytizing and spreading disease across the entire hemisphere. Depending on your viewpoint, we are either disenfranchised Mexicans cut off from the motherland, Indians with Spanish surnames, or pitiful pochos with no history, culture or land to call our own.

We have become so ethnically mixed that we’ve become something else, something new. We, too, belong to what Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos prophetically called la raza cósmica, the Cosmic Race. Except, we aren’t Mexican by birth or allegiance; we aren’t American Indian by culture or tribe; and we aren’t Spanish, which presupposes some sort of purebred cultural, racial and historical ties to the Iberian peninsula.

We are American and Latino, and we've been here for generations, and it is that in-between place (what Vasconcelos called Universópolis) that elicits suspicion and confuses people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. To complicate matters, we have intermarried over the generations with Anglos, Mexicans, Italians, Sephardic and Crypto-Jews (who fled Spain and the Inquisition and resettled in New Mexico, where they pretended to be Catholic to avoid persecution), and other groups.

We may not be immigrants from present-day Mexico, but we do share a common history, bloodlines and many traditions with Mexican nationals and first-generation Mexican Americans, to be sure. But it is the U.S. Southwest–Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Utah–and not modern Mexico that is our ancestral homeland. Our ancestors were born into a pocketed, post-colonial Hispano subculture that predated the current U.S.-Mexico border and all of its explosive geopolitical clashes. Generations of our families have lived, loved and died on soil that is now enfolded by the world’s richest, most powerful nation.

Not too long ago, I learned through an online ancestry site that my mother’s family descends from a New Mexico colonist named Juan Montes Vigil of Asturias, España, who arrived in the northern reaches of “New Spain” in the 1600s. Our indigenous roots run even deeper. My paternal great-grandmother was a certified member of the Pueblo tribe.

The discovery that I have Pueblo ancestry was a revelation for me because the legacy of hatred, violence and racism runs so deep across the Americas that many Latinos downplay or deny their indigenous roots altogether. Seeing the U.S. Census Bureau document that actually categorized my great-grandmother as a member of an Indian tribe rocked me to my core. It was irrefutable proof that my cultural and historical ties to this continent, to this land, to this place are ancient. I truly am the descendant of the oppressor and the oppressed. (There’s a punchline in there somewhere).

Admittedly, embracing all of my genetic legacy is an ongoing process as I age. Sometimes it’s just easier to label myself Mexican American to make it easier for people to fit me into a nice, tidy, convenient box. When non-Hispanics call me Chicana without asking my preference, I play dumb, smile and nod at their well-intentioned use of the dated, ill-defined political term that I've always found narrow and limiting. I'll never forget the Latina college student who snarled at me when I asked her if she was Hispanic. “I’m not his panic, her panic, or anybody’s panic! I’m Chicana!” she told me. Lesson learned: What we choose to call ourselves can elicit very emotional responses.

I also remember standing outside a wooden stall at a campus art exhibit that had flashing lights and a curtain, and feeling a deep sense of dread. A sign on the box invited Latinos to step inside to find out exactly what percentage of indigenous and Spanish stock ran through their DNA. I knew the art installation wasn’t a piece of high-tech genetic testing wizardry. It was a Chicana artist’s brilliant way of exposing self-hatred, ignorance and arrogance. It gave me pause, and challenged my fears about race, ethnicity and my own amorphous roots. I refused to step inside.

En fin, dear profesora, our history, culture and gastronomy are as eclectic as we are. Like our bodies, hearts and souls, our traditional dishes arose from a cosmic stew of pre-Columbian ingredients infused with European influences. Like everywhere else in the Americas, our cooking reflects the epic clash of the New World with the Old World, and it’s an interesting place to be, even if it doesn’t suit anyone’s preconceived notions.

I still have not learned how to cook chilaquiles, but I have a lava molcajete (mortar and pestle) in my suburban Colorado kitchen. It’s the same kind my grandmother had in her cocina, and it reminds me of all of the recipes yet to be savored.

Molcajete 

 Southern Colorado Green Chile

Ingredients

1-2 lbs of pork rump, cut into small cubes (marbled pork is best for tenderness)

8-10 roasted Pueblo or Hatch chili peppers, peeled and chopped finely

5-6 garlic cloves, peeled and diced finely

1 Tsp of New Mexico red chili powder (not taco powder)

1/4 cup of vegetable oil (not olive or sesame)

2 heaping Tbsps of flour

2 cups of water (more or less to suit consistency)

Salt to taste

Preparation

Heat oil in large skillet at medium-high temperature. Brown cubed pork, stirring frequently. Add garlic and cook until garlic is soft. Push meat to side of pan and add a little more oil. Sprinkle flour into oil and brown before pushing meat back into flour mixture. (This is important. If flour is undercooked, your chile will not have a nice smokey flavor.) Add water and mix until stew thickens. Now add chile powder and salt to taste. The chile powder gives your green chile a rich red appearance, and a nice flavor. Incorporate chopped Pueblo or Hatch chili peppers, and turn down heat to simmer for at least a half hour.

The longer it simmers, the richer and more flavorful it is. Pour this chile over mashed potatoes, rice, Navajo fry bread, tacos, enchiladas, salad, nachos, baked potatoes, Thanksgiving dinner, a hamburger (called a “slopper” in southern Colorado), or eat a heaping bowl of it with a warm tortilla. Anyway you eat it–it’s divine.

Note: Traditional New Mexico/Colorado green chile does not include onions, beans or tomatoes, but you can alter this recipe to suit your taste. I sometimes add cilantro, chipotle peppers, roast chicken, sausage and other ingredients to make a “nuevo Latino” or modern fusion green chile. You can make an Italian version with basil, white beans and Italian sausage, or a Wisconsin version with brats. Of course, these alterations would be sacrilegious to Southwestern purists. Be forewarned that this is a comfort food, and should be eaten sparingly–if possible. Semantics: I was taught that “chile” is the stew and “chili” is the pepper.

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A version of this essay was published at www.contacto-latino.com.  ¡Y colorín, Colorado, este cuento se ha terminado!