In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar

One of my favorite books is Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua.  In the collection of short stories and poems, Anzaldua gives a view into the world that is the gray area between American and Mexican, white and Latina, male and female.  This is common for many cultures and races.  It is a world many women and girls, including many of students, inhabit.  Where does one culture end and another begin?  What is life like in the middle?  Can a girl be one or the other?  Both?  Does she have to choose?  Should she?  Can someone "white" be a part of the borderland of another culture or race? 
In less than two weeks my sister will marry a Filipino-American with strong ties to Miami.  Does this make him sorta Latino?  He fought for our country in the Air Force.  Does that make him more "white"?  What happens to my sister?  She and I are mutts, American as they come: English, Irish, Scottish, Canadian, French, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Penobscot, and a bunch of other stuff thrown in.  Does she automatically join the Filipino culture?  Or does marrying her make him more white?  Does her eating Filipino food and speaking Tagalog mean she "identifies" a different way now? (For the record, she can speak French and Spanish, too).  But I can speak Italian and eat carbs, unlike her.  So, am I more Italian than she is?  Let's not forget we have a middle sister.  She married a Mexican.  And he's a Catholic.  Now what? 
I think you can see where I'm going with this.  Race and culture and self-identification are really at the forefront of our news and lives right now.  My son is lucky to be exposed to and accepted into so many different peoples, and I am blessed that he accepts others who are "different" than he is without question.  For those in Alvar's stories however, the battles are never easy.  Alvar's stories are of the Filipino, which is perhaps why I picked it up in the first place.  Class, culture, race, and religion collide.  It makes planning a cross-cultural wedding a first world problem indeed.  I hope reading this will help me in understanding my new brother-in-law's family's culture and heritage.   
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P.S. Thank you to everyone who called, emailed, texted, or FB messaged after Sienna's sudden passing.  XOXO