American-Mexican Gothic

 

By

Sal Rodriguez

 

 

   Maybe I don't feel like smiling for the camera. After all, I wasn't smiling a second ago, why should I do it now? Isn't that lying? If, after taking the picture, I return to my scowl, or my frivolous attempt at a sexy pout, why should I smile at the presence of a camera?

   Where I come from, being an American-Mexican, you don't smile, especially during a picture - it shows weakness. In fact I try to look mean during the photo, like my dad. I never recall any photo of my dad smiling. Not that he didn't smile, Kodak aside, but as soon as the camera came out he looked mean, very mean.

   My dad is from Mexico, not metropolitan Mexico, but border town Tijuana, Mexico. I've seen old family photos from my dad's childhood and there they gathered in front of their shack, wearing their sandals, not a grin amongst them. Were they miserable? I have no clue. My dad never talked about his childhood, save for the tattered-tale of him being the bastard son of the town musician. 

   Perhaps it's an Indian thing. If you recall seeing photos of any Native American, pre-color, they never smiled: Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Chief Seattle, and more recently Iron Eyes Cody. Heck, not only was Iron Eyes never smiling, he was actually crying. There's my heritage. Being Mexican, I'm fused with Indian blood - Mexican Indian, the kind that aren't recognized by Native Americans. (I never understood that logic.)

   In all fairness, I suppose it wasn't just Indians that resisted smiling. If you ever see white-American photos from a distant era, say pre-1920, they too didn't smile. They kept to the stone face, Norman Rockwell's American Gothic being but a charactature of a familiar scene. Was anybody having fun in those days?

   How about when we take a group photo, and people put their arms around each other? Before the camera came out I wasn't standing there with a drink in one hand and my other hand draped over the shoulder of the guy next to me, why should I assume that posture for the scrapbook? If I was standing there with my sexy pout, one hand holding a drink, and the other with a handful of chips, I'll stay that way thank you. And, if the guy next to me, who I just met thirty minutes ago, tries to put his arm around me for the camera, and tells me to say cheeeeese, I'll be sure to say to him, "Mueve te, cabron!" In English that translates to "I beg your pardon sir, but have we been introduced?" You should try that sometime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

®2005 I Feel Funny Productions™