1996
How does one live a life looking to belong, looking for a place to call home? It was 1996 when I left Ecuador. I was 15 years old, I remember that summer well. A warmth and humidity in the air welcomed me to the US. It would be my first time living in a new country, without going back to the life I knew growing up.
So much of my first few years were spent wishing to go back, I would often imagine what life would have been like if I never left. This happened for years, and sometimes I would go and visit Ecuador, I would be flooded again with a deep desire to return, to be “home” but there was no home to return to, there were only the memories. All the sweet, all the bitter memories of a life lived once upon a time in Ecuador.
It wasn’t my choice to leave, I was a minor when my parents made the decision on behalf of all of us in my family. But it was my decision not to return once I was old enough to decide. I would continue to feel the longing, but I simply did not know (still don’t know how to BE) when I am in Ecuador. This year once again I have felt homesick, and it has been a feeling that is deep within me. I can’t say exactly what it is about this year, that has made me feel this way. My reality is that I spend time consciously making the life of my dreams, the life where I do what I love (make art), where I raise my children in a safe country and provide them with opportunities that would simply not be available in the same way in Ecuador. I have also done something that is maybe making me consider more my roots, my own disconnection with my birth country and my culture, I decided when I became a mother to teach my kids Spanish (the official language of Ecuador) and to also teach them about its history and culture. We have travelled there on and off throughout the years, and it is always one of the most bittersweet of feelings.
My oldest child has a fascination with our cultural heritage, particular with the indigenous aspect of it. I never really reflected on this, and the big disconnect that has existed in my life. She has questioned my inability to speak the indigenous language Quechua, a very predominant language for the indigenous populations in Ecuador, and which would have been one of the languages that some of my ancestors would have spoken. She has asked me and continues to asks me questions about my background as a mixed race Ecuadorian, and I realise I have so little to offer her when it comes to answers. I took it all for granted, the richness of the culture we inherited from our indigenous ancestors, the wisdom that was imparted through them for our survival in our country. I am grateful for having the opportunity to continue to explore this and to make this also an aspect of my art practice. I have some ideas about topics that I will be exploring with regards to my heritage and I hope to be able to infuse some of what I learn about it and and about myself in that process because, this is the cycle that I want to be in now, one where I renew myself through a deeper connection with myself and my heritage.
