The Struggle, resistance and resilience of the U.S. Latinx community: A personal journey
I come from a long tradition of love overcoming prejudice. On my father's side, my grandfather was a second-generation Albanian-American. He married my grandmother, who came from a well-to-do New Jersey family, defying societal expectations and causing a bit of a scandal. My abuelitos (grandparents) on my mother's side came from Mexico and defied social expectations in their own way.
Joshua Belury and Magdalena Adame Belury
To the casual North American observer, my abuelitos may seem like Mexicans — but in fact my abuelito's (grandfather's) family comes from Michoacan, a state in central Mexico where the people are often considered more "indigino" (indigenous or native) than my abuelita's (grandmother's) family as a "norteña" (coming from the northern part of Mexico) in Monterrey.
Of course, my parents' love overcame strife as well — a biracial family made up of a Mexican-American Latina and a white Yankee turned heads. In my own way, I try to live their legacy as a member of the queer community; it was only five years ago that I was legally allowed to marry, and the struggle for LGBT rights certainly lives on.
This biracial identity, and the experiences of being Tejano (Texas Mexican-American) have galvanized my passion for social justice, community and Hispanic culture. Texas is unique in the United States because the Latino community is large enough that I was constantly surrounded by Tejano culture ─ Selena, Tex-Mex food, Spanish-language billboards and taco trucks on every corner were part of my everyday urban landscape. During the holidays every year, we would celebrate "Christmas" at my parents' house, and the next day we would drive to my abuelitos' home in rural West Texas for "Mexican Christmas," where my abuelita would cook arroz, tamales, homemade flour tortillas (there's nothing quite like my abuelita's tortillas) and conchas, which are traditional Mexican sweet bread rolls (needless to say, the traditional Mexican appetite is not keto friendly). These experiences helped define my Latinx and Tejano identity.
Virginia Gutiérrez Adame (my abuela) and Francisca Torres (my bis-bis abuela)
When I think back on the legacy of my family, I think of immigrants from Eastern Europe and Mexico who have faced such incredible obstacles to overcome so much. My abuelitos embody this in many ways. Neither of them went to high school, let alone college, and yet they instilled a dedication in my mother and tíos and tías (uncles and aunts) that hard work and education would lead them out of poverty. However, I want to be clear, while my mother's family embodies the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" spirit of the American dream, working hard and being rewarded, this is the exception. My mother and her brothers and sisters succeeded despite these odds, unlike so many others who are mired in poverty, lack of access, racism and structural inequality.
While growing up in Texas shaped my Tejano identity, it also laid bare the entrenched systems of racism. My understanding of social inequality and race began as a child. I saw my mother's poor Latinx family and my father's wealthy white family; I saw my hometown of Austin, Texas, segregated into rich whiteness and poor brown and blackness. Yet I also saw communities overcoming struggle, mobilizing for better schools, fighting for access to healthy food, and demanding more of a say in the government and policies that shaped their lives. I saw the power of community development.
At NeighborWorks America I'm able to put these values and beliefs into practice. I've engaged with first-time homebuyers as a volunteer Spanish translator for the NeighborhoodLIFT program (a nationwide down payment initiative of NeighborWorks America and the Wells Fargo Housing Foundation). As a translator, I'm able to give Spanish-speaking clients access to down payment assistance funds that enable them to buy their first home. Across the country, NeighborWorks supports Hispanic homeowners in unprecedented ways. In 2017, Hispanic homeowners accounted for only 11 percent of all originated, single-family first mortgage loans across the country (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act 2017). In 2018, nearly 23 percent of the NeighborWorks network's created homeowners are Hispanic. This dedication to building wealth in Latinx communities also empowers a historically marginalized community, a community that is filled with rich traditions of food, struggle, resistance and resilience.
It wasn't until I moved to San Antonio, Texas, for college that I learned that there were places in the United States where Latinos had real political power. It was through this experience that I realized that the institutions that kept the Latinx community from gaining access to the halls of power were not impregnable. Through grassroots community development, local institution building and persistence, historically disenfranchised communities could (re)claim power and shape their communities. The U.S.-Latinx community has been in the United States since before there was a United States. It is a community that is at once indigenous and immigrant, brown, black and white, and it is a community with a long history of self-empowerment. The ongoing inequalities, struggles and successes within the Latinx community, and marginalized communities across the United States, have led me into the field of community development.
Lucas Belury and Magdalena Adame Belury