Dear Readers,

It is about time that Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday. Today, I celebrate Juneteenth with as much happiness as I can muster. I will explain why. My Readers know that I am a Mexican American who grew up in an impoverished neighborhood. I didn’t suffer as much as my colored friends did, but I was shunned in classrooms, retail stores. and often refused service in restaurants. I didn’t make a big issue out of not being served a meal, but after twenty minutes of waiting for a waitress to bring me and my sister a menu, we just got up and left.

Having been raised a Catholic, I went to church every Sunday to hear mass. Well, I didn’t know that in this town, the churches were divided. I happened to make a mistake and went to Sunday Mass in the “White” Church. I was surprised because the Catholics didn’t tell me to leave. However, I noticed some weird stares. When I mentioned the episode to my friends, they told me that the churches and the town were separated into dark and white areas, and that I wasn’t supposed to attend Mass in the section designated for whites.

I didn’t realize that I was part of a marginalized community until I went to college.  Whenever I filled an application at college, I wrote “other” in the race area because I didn’t qualify for the designated slots. When I got married, my husband could not understand this business of separating folks according to color. Neither he nor I were prejudiced, but an incident in a restaurant in the Northwestern U. S. made him understand how I felt when I was offended throughout my life. For the first time in his life, he was refused service in a major restaurant chain because he was sitting at a table with me. After waiting 40 minutes, I convinced him that it was time to leave because I had observed that people who had entered the restaurant after we did were already eating. Needless to say, he was upset, but I calmed him down. I told him that I was used to being treated like this, that it wasn’t a big deal.

When I started this blog, I mentioned that I wasn’t too excited about celebrating Juneteenth. Why? The answer is simple. I miss my brother. He passed away August 2020. I miss him terribly. Juneteenth was his birthday, and the holiday reminds me that my brother is no longer around me. About all I can do is ask him to pray for me. I need his help to take care of my sister who has Alzheimer’s. I will end my blog by wishing him a Happy Birthday with my parents and my older brother. I’m sure they’re in Heaven.

Happy Birthday Dear brother!