The part in quotes is a line from Corrido de Juanito, which, as you know, I’ve been learning on the accordion. Because I listen to the song on repeat, I have it permanently stuck in my head and consequently sing it all the time, especially the line above. The funny thing is the line ends up sounding like a commercial when sung on repeat, por ejemplo, “The best part of waking up is being Mexican to the top!” I’m sure you can hear the Folgers song in there, no need to spell it out.
Most of the time, I live in my musical fantasy world, my favorite songs filling my head and keeping me going after my three hours of sleep per night. But then I will have moments when reality wakes me out of my sleep-deprived reverie, and I ask myself who exactly I think I am. I’m certainly not Mexicana hasta al tope. Because of that, some old college friends might call my norteño obsession and accordion playing cultural appropriation. Is it, though? Is it really?
The accordion is German in origin; the name comes from the German akkordeon. Mexicans appropriated the instrument from another culture, in other words — from the German immigrants who settled in Texas and Northern Mexico. This is what happens when cultures rub shoulders. They influence each other. It is unavoidable, or should be. When cultures share music, dancing, and food with each other, they tend to get along a lot better than if they stay suspicious and aloof from each other. There is much cultural snobbery and myopia when people get their hackles up over hoarding aspects of their culture.
I will never forget the article I read years ago, in which a Chinese-American woman claimed the bone-broth fad was appropriation of Chinese culture. It didn’t seem to occur to her that cultures all over the world might have been cooking bone broths for millennia. This doesn’t even fall under the category of sharing; it rather signifies our forebears’ mutual necessity to utilize all parts of the animals they slaughtered. The Chinese were not alone in this.
If I were to only play the music of my culture, I would play the fiddle or one of those tiny accordions popular with hillbillies and the Irish. My family was part of Irish dance culture for years, and I distinctly recall hearing the accordion playing the same jigs and reels fifty times over. I mean, it’s not a matter of recall. All those jigs and reels are indelibly printed on my psyche along with big wigs and bling. But alas, the Irish don’t count Americans of Irish ancestry as being Irish, and there goes my culture. Like so many Americans, I simply have a mezcla of cultural parts and pieces, which includes Mexican pieces because I’ve lived around them my entire life.
Is there such a thing as cultural appropriation in America? I’m going to say yes. I was thinking about this at dawn, having been awake for hours. My body was achy and sore and I thought I might like to do some yoga. I don’t do yoga, though. Oh, sure, I used to. I appreciated its efficiency in strengthening and stretching the body at the same time. I also argued with other Christians who claimed it was wrong to participate in another religion’s worship. They argued against it because yoga, after all, means yoked, as in yoked to spirits and gods Christians don’t worship. I’ve always found it a little bizarre when Christian churches offer yoga hours in their fellowship halls, but doing it as exercise in one’s living room, sans spiritual components, I thought was quite all right.
The way Americans practice yoga is areligious to be sure, but it’s hugely disrespectful of another culture’s religious practice. I’m not sure what hyper conservative Hindus, who still believe in modesty, think of Americans who do Yoga Booty while wearing pants so clingy you can see every bump and jiggle on the legs and backside, wearing the pants to show off the effectiveness of the exercise. The way we practice yoga might very well be what people mean when they cry, Cultural appropriation! It’s rude and offensive. That and maybe chintzy plastic Native American dolls and fake moccasins. Marketing off a culture we very nearly wiped out to extinction no doubt leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the extant native tribes.
Speaking of weird activities Christian churches get up to, along with showing off their jiggly booties…no, I don’t think they make moccasins or plastic dolls or even bone broth. At one time, it was standard charity in England for bones to be used multiple times, once at the wealthy person’s house, who supped on the richest broth, of course, until finally the picked-clean bones were ransferred to the poorest of the poor to make broth with. But church food pantries these days are more inclined to collect canned vegetables and beans than spare animal parts. No, the weird activity I was going to mention is doing counseling sessions using the Enneagram personality typing system. In response, Reformed-style Christians are horrified, despite the dubious occultic roots behind Enneagram.
There are no known accusations of cultural appropriation regarding Enneagram; I just find it amusing that Christians have latched onto it AND that more Reformed types are making a fuss of it. I wouldn’t care one way or the other if Christians didn’t have a peculiar problem with lacking self-awareness. They make lofty claims that we shouldn’t be looking to any other source but the Bible for help, but what they really mean is “I don’t want to know anything about what I’m really like inside.” In other words, they don’t want to be faced with their own egos. Obviously, the ones using the Enneagram are busy identifying with their egos, looking straight into them, but that is not to say that there aren’t many Christians who refuse to look.
I took the Enneagram once, at my husband’s insistence, as he found it gave him an accurate description of his personality. Modern Enneagram type descriptions are incredibly detailed, unlike the truly occultic horoscopes. This might be why some people have an aversion to Enneagram. It’s not always pleasant to read that you fit an archetype that isn’t 100% positive. Was the type I tested as an accurate description of me? Sure, it was…at the time. And I really didn’t like it; hence, it motivated me to not be “my type” as much as possible.
Being self aware is a good starting point for making good choices in this life; I suppose one could be self aware and still make wrong choices. For example, a truly invested thief could be a proud criminal. Or maybe in more ordinary circumstances, a person might learn to identify with their negative traits and never seek growth. Well, I admit I still have personality traits I’m working on. I often shut the world out so I can pursue my personal goals, which my Enneagram description predicts. That pattern of behavior is so ingrained I believe it would be difficult to change. Like my pursuit of the accordion, for example… No, no, I have examined my interior and decided playing norteño on the accordion is a good choice. A wonderfully positive choice. It had better be. That norteño style accordion I bought was really expensive. Plus, I love singing in Spanish. Here it comes again. I. Can’t. Stop. Singing… Mexicano hasta al tope. It’s somehow gratifying to sing a song about someone with an intact culture, even though part of the song’s sadness is the subsequent loss of culture in the US, loss brought on by Juanito’s children no longer speaking Spanish.
Jill Domschot 