Reading a bit on the Chicano art collective ASCO as well as attending an evening at South London Gallery tonight Ihave come to realize once gain that there is indeed a common experiencing and digesting progress/process that is universal for migrants.Watching the short film “Pretty Vacant” on a young Chicana Molly Vasquez one gets an inside to the double identity a second generation migrant consist of. And especially the way one brings those two roads together into one road just for oneself in a single big (for some painful though…) decision.Molly tries to once and for all to cut the ties to her parental ‘motherland’ Mexico by ignoring her dad’s quest to take her and the family with him to the annual vacation to Mexico. This was the moment I was actually watching me! The whole short was pretending to be outliving the self explanatory migrant second generation youth. It is in those moments that ephemeral goes hand in hand with universal. As the ephemeral is surely a reminder of the everyday for me. ASCO was really able to ‘document and interpret the contemporary urban chicano experience’ as SLG describes one of the co-founders of ASCO Harry Gamboa Jr. The many fragments and the almost hidden, but loudly articulated random Spanish words used in the narration by Molly was in fact the best part for me. It reminded me of speaking Danish with casualties of Turkish expressions. I used to speak to other second generation Turks in Denmark this way, but at the same time it made me long AGAIN to be able to speak to fellow Danes like this. Using Turkish words when needed and the Danes naturally knowing these words. That would have been awsome! I still miss this thing.Its a utopian quest, although I have introduced the Turkish word ‘tamam’ to one Danish friend, an Afghani friend and a Serbian friend which means ‘ok’. ‘Tabon’ in portuguese is close to this Turkish word but I am still too embarrassed to use that. As it seems too smart to be able to use it randomly. like it felt too smart to say that I understood almost all the Spanish spoken in this film tonight..The very very best part in my life was when me my sister and my cousin were using Spanish words mixed with Danish, Turkish and English.That was soooo cool!!
When I think back I was always happy to know how to speak and write in Turkish. at the same time I felt very attached to Spanish especially to Latin America due to their political sufferings of course! I always loved pronouncing German words to the biggest annoyance of my class mate Gitte in the 8th and 9th grades. And I once even dated a Persian guy just because he was able to speak both of my other favourite languages in the world: Farsi and Portuguese. Although Farsi no longer is a favourite. I guess I outgrew that one.
-The photo is called : First Supper (After a Major Riot), 1974.