The Family

Summer in Antigua -

I think I need to explain something. When my brothers and I talk about our Guatemalan heritage, it almost always includes a reference to “The Family.” At times it may sound like we are speaking about the mafia. Or perhaps it sounds like we aren’t happy about staying the in The Family’s house. Neither is true, although the moniker “the family” is the best way to describe our spanish side of the family. First you must recognize that “the family” is a unit. There are no individuals. Everyone responds to everyone else’s problems, situations, life issues, or what have you, although this shouldn’t be understood as everyone communicating.

Additionally, since there is no real individual recognized, every member of “the family” must be involved in the other’s lives. This includes, but is not limited to, church, school, events and functions of the community (although this is another paragraph entirely), housing quarters, afternoon outing decisions (again, a paragraph), weekend plans (again), life problems, love problems and future decisions (again). If one member of “the family” intentionally leaves out the rest of the family, that individual is dressed down, usually by my grandmother, aunts or even at times my cousins. Strangely, they all habitually leave out each other when communicating anything. The reasons are varied, but range from forgetfulness to maliciousness to concern for hurt feelings.

Often, when “the family” has a life event happen, one member will be dramatically involved, but fail to incorporate other members. These other members might find out the event, with different degrees of involvement, but with no further level of communication. There are also degrees of emotions, from extremely hurt feelings to casual disinterest. I have yet to discover which is worse, a hurt feeling or a disinterested feeling.

Thus, when my immediate family talks about “the family,” it includes this background. Family politics are difficult and treacherous to navigate, and often we feel as though we are doing nothing but hurting people’s feelings. This is why we usually want to get out as quickly as possible. My brothers have taken to disappearing into their traveling. I have used the excuse of graduate work. My dad usually is the most supportive, backing up mom whenever it seems like she needs help. However mom has the most difficult time of it, straddling two worlds. Making sure her husband and children are not tied down in the house with nothing to do, but also wanting her mom and sisters to be happy and enjoy the company. It’s a difficult line, and I’m glad we only do it for a short time. It does tend to turn mom into a funny person for awhile though, but she quickly bounces back once she’s home.

We all turn into different creatures while traveling. And to be clear, we all love “the family” very much. They often go out of their way to accommodate us, their spoiled American cousins, and they are very anxious to make us happy. It’s just sad that our version of happy is often quite different from theirs. I hope that we have figured out how to be in “the family” together.