I write for my mami. She may not read my work all the time, and she may also not fully understand why I have chosen to prioritize my body and sexuality and my choices over any man, but I do this because of her.
I did not grow up with the perfect mom, but I grew up with the best mami I could have ever asked for.
My mami was a strict mami. I lived under a lot of rules that stemmed from a particular mixture of religious conservatism, prioritizing female piety, and straight up sexism. But to allow my now conscious/woke realization of those realities, roll my eyes at my mother, would be to deny myself of my context.
I couldn't shave my legs until I was 12. I couldn't dye my hair 'til I was way older than that. I couldn't have a boyfriend, at all. I couldn't listen to "bad" music. I couldn't watch shows on TV that had sex or drugs or cussing. I couldn't cuss. I couldn't have sex before marriage. I couldn't talk about sex. I couldn't ask about sex. I couldn't go to sleepovers, because I might have sex. Or might watch a movie with cussing, sex, or drugs. Or I might dye my hair. I couldn't have friends really, because I wasn't allowed to see them outside of school. Or want to see them because that meant that I wanted to have sleepovers, where I would possible talk about having sex, while watching drug lord movies, with red hair. I couldn't wear tampons 'til I was a "woman," because being a woman was not allowed 'til I could dye my hair and watch movies with cussing, and have sex. Those things came with womanhood.
Mi mami had been taught to care for daughters. Daughters that were to be marriageable, aka the ultimate goal for my own safety really. You see, third world women who survived national trauma and/or war have a particular understanding of themselves in relationship to our safety. Third world mamas do not get to imagine a future for their daughters of freedom and success because they see women disappearing throughout our countries at staggering rates. The femicide rates are so high that there are several investigations taking place through the United Nations as to why and how to protect third-world women from what first-world problems have created in our countries. Well, I do not think that they would phrase it that way, but basically.
But my mami is not inferior because she learned to survive by being told how to marry someone who would protect her from being murdered. Because we are being killed. I am alive because of mamis like mine. I would dare to say that my mami's feminism meant that I could live. My mom's feminism meant that I could have my own things, a home to hide in for my own protection instead of the streets. Her feminism meant that my female family line continued, through me. My mami cared for me, and in turn I write against those ills that have resulted from colonialism, like femicide. I write because I can see more in my future and I can because of my particular understanding of what it means to be an immigrant woman of color.
My ability to reflect is a gift and my anger is righteous, and my mami is at the root of that. So while my mami was as strict as a strict mami could be, and I lived under a lot of rules that stemmed from a particular mixture of religious conservatism, prioritizing female piety, and straight up sexism, I am now very aware of the root of those problems, and I do not roll my eyes at her. Instead, I praise her ability to have loved me so much that she taught me what she knew about living and surviving.