Surviving Assimilation in the Central Valley with Theresa Gonzales
A childfree Chicana's story of growing up in a post-Vietnam war family
It’s May 10th, which is part of the reason we’re celebrating Non-Mom May here on La Vida Más Chévere. This post contains the highly emotional back story of my guest Theresa Gonzales’ upbringing in California’s Central Valley.
To catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 of the story, check out the links at the end. Alternatively, you can listen to the whole story in its entirety at Episode 4 - We're the Otherhood with Theresa Gonzales.
Show notes are also available.
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Growing up in a post-Vietnam war family, entrenched in the traditional gender and cultural norms had a big impact, not only on Theresa’s childhood, one that was fraught with the need to assimilate, but on what she wanted for her future and the future of the fourth generation of her family.
Theresa: I grew up in Fresno in the Central Valley, and I mostly lived on the west side growing up because we lived with my grandmother back then. It was a middle class neighborhood when I was little. And then as all these neighborhoods happen and the middle class shrinking, it's [now] mostly Latino and African American. It's become a really hard place. But there's gems there that have evolved.
We moved around a lot. I found a file on myself and I went to like seven schools before fourth grade. I don't know if that's helped or not. It was tough. It was tough back then.
Paulette: Let's talk about your family. Tell me how that evolved.
Theresa: I say I'm an old dog, you know Chicana-saurus here, but—
Paulette: Chicana-saurus?
Theresa: Chicana-saurus, you know, old, old dog. My parents were of the cultural norm, and this is small town Fresno. You find your high school sweetie, back in the day and you get married. Because are you going to college? No, you're gonna work! The families worked.
There was a lot of dysfunction on both sides of my dad and my mom's side, but they had a plan. And my dad's plan was [to join the military].
There's a great historical book on Chicanos about the military, how that's always been kind of an option for Mexican Americans because of the lack of college education funding.
[The idea is] if you go to the military, which is still prevalent today, you'll get money. You'll get funding for education and a house, and you'll get all these things. But you have to make it out of the military if there's no war.
And it was during the Vietnam Era, and as we know, that was the height of the civil rights movement. This is another time period.
We're at that kind of crossroads again where this is happening. And it's all based around cultural upheaval and that affects families, a lot of us.
So that's where my family, my mom and dad separated. My mom was not college bound. She was a single mom. She had no skills after high school. She had two kids and she divorced my dad because it just wasn't working out. I mean, how can it work out when you come back from Vietnam, when you went at the age of 19?
I just wanna put that in people's heads: when they say you're gonna have a better life if you go into the military—or you get drafted. My dad didn't even have a choice really. It was jail or go to the military. And that was how it was for most people of color back then. So just like marinate on that for a second.
And that's why Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali, he said, “fuck that. I'm not gonna go over there. I'm gonna stay right here.” And he went to jail and they stripped his title. That is the most amazing documentary I've ever seen. And it is sad.
And so that's the life my parents lived in. And that is traumatizing when families don't stay together and how you have to pursue that. So this is part of the journey. My mom struggled with two children, no experience in skills she had to get. And we lived with my grandmother. And then we moved around a lot.
So that's kind of the the early side. But I learned how to adapt. Assimilation was always a big part of that journey. Because my mom always said we spoke English. And so here we go into [whether or not] you're accepted as Latina, speaking Spanish in your community, which we didn't.
And there's reasons for that. My grandmother was punished for speaking Spanish. And then my mom didn't speak Spanish.
And then when we went to schools where we were seen as Latinas in a mostly white school, we were name called derogatory names of “wet backs,” “dirty Mexicans.”
So just think about all of that growing up. I couldn't go to social media and find a community. I couldn't go and find friends. You just have to survive.
And that's what you do. That kind of builds a little grit, I think.
Understanding that whole narrative…it's still really prevalent, unfortunately, in the Central Valley. And that's why I did that last podcast because they still talk about [joining the military] and it's hard. It's like a story that never dies.
That's why I do what I do because that has to change. It's too much. But people don't wanna believe wars can happen again. The draft is no longer, but that doesn't mean we don't go to war and it's not gonna affect us. We really have to tune into the political climate, too.
I'm not gonna go down that route. But we can get lost in the social streams a lot because of what's happening, but we do have to kind of tune in a little bit.
Paulette: That’s a lot. And then somehow, despite all of these obstacles, you still ended up a Latina in tech.
Theresa: Yeah. I always feel that, that hard part, being small [and] when I talk about the story of adaptability: that is the mechanism of being in tech as well. And I didn't just wanna survive. I feel like now everybody talks about microaggressions and everything that's happening in tech.
Back then we weren't talking about it really, it was just starting to bubble up. Yeah, this is something I've experienced my whole time here in this environment. The community today has a platform to say what they wanted to, but growing up, you didn't talk about it.
And that's the narrative. It's like a secret, like you should be thankful for what you have. Don't complain, blah, blah, blah. Just get through it.
That's a lot to hold inside. Now it's like everybody is expressive and I think it's great. It's like a valve. When I get passionate about what I say, especially about AI, when you hear me talking about these things, it comes from that bullshit of like, I'm tired. I'm tired of this.
And that's why I do it.
To read the rest of the conversation, check out these posts. Part 1:
and Part 2:
