How much do they pay you?

Rosa-Maria Lazarovits,
Santa Barbara, CA.

This happened when my girls were toddlers and we played at a park. A latino woman approached me and asked in Spanish: “How much do they pay you?” Assuming I was employed as a nanny. She gasped when I quickly replied: “nothing!” She could not conceive these beautiful, fair skin girls were my daughters. A long standing idea of a “malinchista,” a traitor. A malinche is one who marries an outsider. La Malinche was Hernan Cortez’ translator, Mexico’s conquistador, with a horrible tradition as someone who gave up on his own roots, betraying his people, but history shows us that is not quiet true. She was a professional woman, with an incredible talent for languages, learning Spanish very quickly. She is the mother of the first mixed children. She is the mother of our future world, an amalgam between new and old, a native mother and a Spaniard father. Unfortunately, the clueless, woman at the park sees other Latina women as maids, nannies, caregivers. Like Malinche, I am a professional, I hold a master’s degree.