The Mexican

Multi-ethnic families have a wide range of humor that's either entertainment or weaponry, and like any other family, we use it as both. An old family joke snapped sharply into focus for me through, of all things, an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, starring an actor I didn't know named Adam Beach. On the show, he was newly transferred to the unit and partnered with Ice-T's character, who naturally assumes he's Hispanic. "Yeah, just the other day some guy asked me if I was Mexican!" No way! Haha!

Growing up, we called my cousin Michael "The Mexican" for growing a cheesy, pencil-thin 'stache that practically begged us to mock it. If attention was what he wanted, he got it. Everywhere he went, we yelled out a chorus of bad Cheech and Chong accents. "Eeyyy, greengo! Whatchoo doin'?" had us rolling around, crying tears of laughter. "Essaayyy! How's it hangin', hombre?" Me and my bro thought it was a funny game, but in their tough Brooklyn neighborhood, a gentle taunt could become a barroom brawl later on, after a lot of beer was consumed. 

His older brother would sneer "Spick" at him constantly, once he figured out that his younger brother could actually pass as Hispanic in some heavily Puerto Rican neighborhoods, which chafed him raw because in his family, he was the outcast for passing as white. It was shocking at times, too, especially during his first growth spurt. He'd go for the annual family Christmas portrait to be asked how long he was in town visiting his own family, like a down-on-his-luck relation come to spend time in the big city after his parents divorced. 

"You know 'Ree (my childhood nickname), I know I come off as some big 'tough guy', but sometimes it really hurts my feelings", and I could totally see why. He'd arrange to meet his family at the local pizza parlor for dinner, only to be asked by the hostess where he wanted to be seated, with his family waving him over from the table they sat at, right in front of the waiter's face. It always felt like a put-down to him; like an unwanted interloper in his own childhood home. 

The Sears family portrait in their living room showed four small, dark people with a giant-sized "white dude" standing behind them almost cropped out of frame, towering thinly above them all. It wasn't a wonder to me, as much as it took me aback, that he'd chosen to identify as Irish-American as an adult by changing his name and marrying a very Irish girl from Staten Island. It was the only place, among all of New York's ethnic groups, that he felt he could fit into, especially in the context of an inherited alcoholism that killed his parents. It felt easier for him to pass as just another Irish drunk.

But when our family got together, or if it was just him and his brother around, there was no question that, like Adam Beach, we weren't Hispanic at all. European....yeah, maybe....and then there was something else that was less available to us on surveys, questionnaires, and medical forms at the doctor's office. That "something" was a someone: his mother who'd left the reservation a long time ago to marry his Jewish father after they met at a corner bar in Brookyln, running from an upstate New York tribe of just 67 people, led by her abusive chief of a father, according to her often slurred telling. No one knew who we were. Not really. 

So, for today: here's to all the "hybrids", "mixed bloods", "mutts", and "half breeds" of the world, plus all the other ethnic blends we have that testify to a legacy of love and marriage in this country that is so distinctly American. This one's for you, cuz. Ironically, after so much separation in their lives, the brothers are the only family they have left, and they remain the ONLY Celtic Jewish Indians from New York I've ever met. Thanks for being Metis like me, before we even knew there was a name for it. And thanks to all the brave actors like Adam Beach for representing a history that so often gets taken away by someone of European descent. I really appreciated seeing our funny ethnic reference on a major network TV show, my brother. It was a first.

Here's to all the other "firsts" out there in the world like me, representing a genuinely original, distinctly American ethnic minority. This time is ours.

Maus

Prizes used to be the winning domain of very few people in the world, not toys for savvy publicists and marketing agents to play with that guaranteed franchise success through lucrative licensing deals. The Pulitzer Prize, for instance, meant a lot to me as a young reader, because its status conferred an honorific upon the writer that was like a Michelin star of literary greatness. It meant that an expert panel had agreed upon, and recognized, the strength of the work. This, amongst a group of people that counted rigorous, heated debate as an intrinsic part of the narrative artform.

After I had studied "The Art of the Book" at its chosen institute for Higher Learning, the newest iteration of illustrated narration, the graphic novel, won our discipline's greatest honor. It was no surprise to me as a young apprentice that the first real Art Director I ever worked with had designed the cover for Art Spiegelman's Maus, which I only discovered after he asked me whether or not it should be included in his "book": the portfolio of cover designs that we show prospective clients. I was taken aback for a moment. Are you kidding me? It's so famous, and it's such a great book! What's the question, here? Keep it in there! I didn't see the point of asking.

"Yeah....", he mused to me slowly, in a way I'd learn to find as normal for a mentor leading junior talent through a question, "but, is it still fresh? I designed it sooo many years ago." It was a telling statement about the shortness of memory publishing had recently acquired, as an industry that capitalizes on the new and trendy like a viciously starved dog. But, my former mentor was supposed to be different than the rest of the pack. He'd won many prestigious book awards as the creative lead of a selective literary imprint. This was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel! Their gold seal meant more than Oprah's Book Club seal-of-approval! This was an award judged by our peers. It meant something. Right?

"Well...", he went on to explain its limited recognition to the university press he was meeting with, that served the needs of younger minds with much less reference material to work with. Why would NYU care about a trade book cover, no matter how famous it was? They were looking for someone who could design for their current curriculum. He got the freelance gig to design their catalog, but he lost respect with me. There was no question in my mind what the better job was, but with his conditions, he was at the office until 10-11 pm anyway, after making a noontime appearance that only the very best divas were afforded for their prize-winning productivity. In his OCD/ADHD-manic world, it was all about NEW! NOW! NEXT! Not old, dead Jews.

Just like the movies that depend so much on our creative output for their industriousness, his idea of freshness was based on a series of serious medical diagnoses that we only had euphemisms for in the public world of 90s America, as we struggled with the sickness of other people's madness behind closed, locked doors. The way he shut out his own storied past became an apt metaphor for the same climate that produced the modern worlds' most horrifying genocide, done with the same efficient penstrokes of so many office workers "just doing their job(s)." It was a perfect example about the banality of evil my father had so often warned me about that lurked in the corporate world, perpetrated daily in office cubicles by a dully unfeeling people frightened only by the threat of a paycheck to pay for their next escapist entertainment.

Maus remains the best true life account I have ever read about the horrors of the Holocaust, told through the fabled cat-and-mouse of Art Spieglman's family history in so many pen strokes, and it is not to be missed. Add this book series to your college curriculum. 
I dare you.