Bailando y Aprendiendo Cultura Mexicana

Two-year-old me dancing with daddy. He always encouraged me to shine and build my own stage when there was none.

One of my earliest memories is a feeling really….a feeling of happiness as my heart beat to the bass of a song and my body swayed to the rhythm. Dancing still brings me the most happiness. This photo captures that feeling. It was taken from the local newspaper in Kearny, Arizona where I grew up. My dad and I made the paper because even though this event did not include dancing, I heard music, so naturally, I pulled my dad out of his chair, took him to a slab of concrete that was in the middle of the crowd and started dancing. I was only two years old without a shy bone in my body. Even my left shoe falling off didn’t stop me.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed performing, and my mom said that even before I could walk, I would move to music as soon as it started. It’s no surprise that as soon as I could articulate it, I was asking my mom to take me to dance lessons.

Empecé clases de bailé a los cuatro años.

I was on cloud nine once I started taking dance classes and performing around Arizona at the age of four. Baile folklorico was also a way to explore my heritage.

I realized my heritage was important to me at a young age. One of my goals as a kid was to learn Spanish, but it took some work to learn it. My father and his mother were Arizonans. My dad learned Spanish from his grandmother who had lived in Mexico, but he didn’t speak much Spanish around me. My mother every once in a while spoke Spanish but not enough for me to learn the language fluently. My dad told me once that he had bad experiences growing up bilingual in the 40’s. He remembered teachers hitting him when he spoke Spanish. He did not want his kids to be subjected to discrimination for speaking their ancestor’s language. I felt for him and understood his fear, but I still wanted to learn. I was a stubbornly curious child who went to the library daily to learn as much as I could about everything I could find. Even as a kid if I had a goal, I would do the research and ask the questions I needed to achieve that goal….

So I taught myself Spanish…

when I was 9 years old by reaching out to extended family members in Mexico and asking them to write me letters that I couldn’t read at first. I then had the opportunity to go to school in Mexico for the summer.

By the end of the summer, I knew how to speak in Spanish, but I decided I needed to learn more about Latinx culture. I continued dancing foIklorico. Not only did it fuel my passion for music and performing, but it also taught me about my cultura, it taught me leadership skills, discipline and hard work. I rehearsed for hours on end sometimes daily for 13 years. If I hadn’t injured my back as a teenager, I would have continued.

The skills I learned from bailé…

and learning a new language has driven my career. I will forever be thankful to that inquisitive little girl and my supportive parents. It’s a reminder to never forget about my roots.