Marielle Gomez and Anne-Marie Emanuelli

[00:01] MARIELLE GOMEZ: No, I don't know.

[00:05] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: I'm Annemarie Emanuelli I'm 61 years old. It is March 26, 2023, Taos, New Mexico, and we are engaged in a conversation between mother and daughter.

[00:28] MARIELLE GOMEZ: My name is Marielle Gomez. Well, Marielle Nigioni Emanuelli Gomez. That's my full name. I'm 18, and it's March 26, 2023. I'm also in Taos. Taos, New Mexico. And I'm talking. Oh, this conversation is a relationship. Wait. A relate. Hold on. Relationship to conversation with my mom? Is that how I say it?

[01:04] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: That's fine.

[01:05] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Okay.

[01:09] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: All right, let's go.

[01:13] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Wait. That's your part. Oh, okay. I'll reintroduce myself, I guess. My name is Marielle Nijoni Emanuelli Gomez, and I'm a senior in high school.

[01:26] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: My name.

[01:26] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Can I just add?

[01:27] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Of course.

[01:28] MARIELLE GOMEZ: I'm half french and half native american.

[01:31] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Nice. My name is Anne Marie Emanueli, and I am Marielle's mother. And we would like to speak about being biracial and multicultural citizens of the world. As my daughter journeys along the transitional path of life in the nest, to life on her own and spreading her wings, my mother's journey comes to mind. Her name is Paulette Marguerite Marie Emanuelli Clark, and I'd like to read a poem that I wrote for her in 2001 for Valentine's Day. And then I read it at her funeral in 2010, and it speaks to her journey of life. A life come full circle. In your eyes. I see the fullness of life. A gathering of joys, challenges, disappointments, and mostly a life full of richness. It began in French Morocco. Exotic but rough. Learning Arabic at school, a must you aren't in your own country. Your father, a military man, taught his family honor, love, and humility. Your mother, a teacher, taught you manners, love, and English. Your eyes, in old photos, show a life joyful, honorable, protected, surrounded by family, servants, moroccan vistas. Then war came like a lion and ripped apart your life forever. From a life of exotic panoramas. Family, love and sheltered, elegant joystood. You came to the states with a husband. The course was set for a life of challenge. From a Casablanca wedding. Oh, so romantic. A honeymoon in the Atlas. Remember the mud in your eyes. Some days I see the question, what would my life have been if I had not crossed the Atlantic? You accepted the challenge of travel. Indiana, Ithaca, Minnesota, Pakistan, Iran. The life of a war bride based on honor and dignity. Settling in New Mexico, your life came full circle. Destiny's course, so unpredictable. Your life in a moroccan adobe house, raising your family in a new mexican adobe home, and when your destiny left you a war casualty, alone at 60, you say, thank God he left me in Taos. In your eyes, some days I see sunsets so familiar, yet so exotic, a familiar world that is no longer an accepted world that is forever. Every day your eyes filled with panoramas, a life never the same, yet so familiar your friendship, moroccan dream that was became an american dream still living to your children, headstrong, you passed on your wisdom, your language, your way of seeing. And though it was rough, I hope you'll see in my eyes great love and gratitude for all that you are to me. February 12, 2001 by Ann Marie Emanuelli so my own life's journey is one of travel, bridging cultures, and passing on cultural traditions. When I was very young, my family traveled a lot. My father was a soil agronomist, and one of the jobs he held was as a scientist helping farmers increase their crop yields. When I was four to eight years old, my family lived in Pakistan and India, and he worked for USAID. I remember snake charmers coming to our home, chameleons and monkeys in trees, and the monsoon season when we swam in the backyard because of all the rain. I remember riding an elephant and a camel, eating mangoes that were extremely fresh and sweet, and wearing a tunic and scarf because my mother felt it was a respectful thing to do when in a foreign country. I went to a boarding school in the foothills of the himalayas at a school called Murray Christian school that apparently was bombed in 2002 by the Taliban but is back and running. Growing up like this often meant that I felt like an outsider in school. I didn't quite fit in, and most of my friends in high school were Native American and Hispanic, which were the more common cultures in Taos, New Mexico, in the 1970s. When I was a teenager at home, we spoke both English and French, and I made an effort to speak with my mother in French as a sign of respect for the efforts she made to share her culture with us. My younger brother and I realized that when we were adolescents that speaking French together in public could be useful, kind of like a secret code. Mama was an excellent cook and made the most delicious bouche de noel Yule log cake at Christmas. It took me years to muster the confidence to make it myself after she passed away. Growing up, I also traveled to France and still am in touch with my maternal relatives. When I was 14, my uncle Pierre invited me to spend the summer before my high school freshman year in France between Paris and Saint Mandri in the south. That year was a really pivotal. Was really pivotal for me, as I realized that being Franco American wasn't so unusual after all. And there was a whole country where people ate the same foods and had the same customs as my family. A lot of what I'd experienced growing up ended up making sense that summer, and I came back to New Mexico proud of my french roots. Fast forward. And I decided to minor in French in college and eventually taught the language to high school and university students. When my daughter was born, I chose to pass on my maternal language and culture, which became her maternal language and culture. She will make her own decision of how to pass on her multicultural identity as a european and Native American. I am grateful that she has earned the bilingual seal in French on her high school diploma and is pursuing a second bilingual seal in Tiwa, the language of Taos Pueblo, and her paternal language. So we would like to speak a little bit of French together. Pourquoi tu m parlez ma pichunette.

[09:30] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Permedia communique avec les auto person? J la sensation de calme, et al je me sant seche.

[10:09] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Que dien francais.

[10:12] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Papu queant le mon pour butterfly.

[10:16] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Ah. Later, when you were in daycare, you put the French and the english words for butterfly together, and it became papua. It's an example of being bilingual. Children can learn multiple languages, and it is said that at three years old, they know the difference between the words.

[10:39] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Yeah, and that's interesting because that butterfly was my first word, because now I raise monarch butterflies every year, and that's kind of a hobby of mine. And I didn't realize that until, like, yesterday, but I started raising monarchs in fifth grade, and since then, monarchs have been really special to me. And then yesterday, me and my mom were doing this, and I was like, oh, my gosh. Wait a minute. My first word was butterfly. That's so cool how that works out.

[11:17] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Yeah. Yeah. So we're a multicultural family, and my husband is Native American from Taos pueblo, and also Navajo or dine. I feel it's really important to acknowledge the importance of diversity in the US and the world. My mother started the diversity of my family, and I have embraced it, even adding to it my husband's cultures. The richness that comes from expanding our awareness of other cultures is what will keep our world from becoming stagnant.

[11:56] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Yeah, that's kind of what I talked about in my college essay.

[12:00] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: You want to read it?

[12:01] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Yeah.

[12:02] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Okay.

[12:06] MARIELLE GOMEZ: So I brought my college application essay and talking about the things that I've kind of learned as being a biracial person. So here we go. The world is full of contradictions. My mother is French and my father is half tiwa, or, which is the language of Taos pueblo and dine, a combination that contradicts the history of hostility between indigenous people and colonizers. My name, Marielle, is French. My middle names, nijoni, which means beauty in Navajo, and Emanuelli which is French, are how my parents combine both my heritages. My traditional names from Taos pueblo are na ul poima I, which means yellow aspen leaves blowing, and tum halumpo, which means tomorrow morning flower. My dad decided on both because he couldn't choose between them. Anyways, my lineage is both colonizer and colonized. This mix may raise eyebrows, but I believe. I think, oh God, there's a typo. I believe that it actually teaches an important lesson. A year ago, I was commenting about my anger towards Columbus. Someone responded that I was being hypocritical. Since I'm half colonizer, quote unquote. I have felt resentment towards my french heritage because of what my native ancestors experienced. Somehow I needed to come to terms with this. I realized that this person was wrong, and just because I'm part white doesn't make me the same as those cruel colonists. I must embrace both of my heritages. After realizing this, I noticed how both indigenous and white people can be equally racist to each other. Indigenous people are often stereotyped as it comes from a eurocentric perspective. Consider the Redskins in Peter Pan or pocahontas, as well as the chance of the Washington Redskins. On the other hand, I also see how some natives, even other ethnic groups, show disgust towards white people. Some go to the extent of gatekeeping simple words in their languages, such as hello and thank you. These things bother me because as the biracial person I am, I have seen how kind and loving both my parents are and how they do not fit the narratives that each group has. Experiencing this firsthand taught me how to put myself in others shoes in a way that someone who is born full blood might not understand. I have realized that it is not our race, beliefs or background that defines us, that only defines us. We need to move forward from that and view people for who they are in their heart and soul as well. One of my favorite examples of this is in Avatar, the Last Airbender. Although it's unrelated to my heritage, I think it shows the importance of love. At the end, Aang must decide if he will kill the bad guy. He's conflicted because he doesn't have the heart to kill someone. Finally, instead of killing him, Aang decides to simply take his powers away. In most shows, the hero kills the bad guy without thinking twice. This ending was special. Aang didn't kill the bad guy because he saw the humanity in him and thought, even though this person seems wrong, they are still human and are going through their own experiences, which I don't know fully. My indigenous cultures philosophies have also inspired who I am. My indigenous culture teaches that everything is related and equal and that humans are simply another element of nature, such as animals and plants. These teachings reinforce the lesson that in order to coexist, we must understand each other from a place of love. I try my best to uphold this philosophy, especially in situations where I disagree with someone. An example of this is when I see the video of Pastor Dylan always. I'm not sure if that's Oz. I think Oz saying, quote, homosexuals deserve to be shot in the back of the head. And the recent one sided decisions of the supreme court. If everyone listened to or viewed other people from a caring heart, they didn't judge so easily and simply embraced them with loving arms, this world would be a lot less hateful. Most religions teach these lessons, and yet I notice how people forget about it. I hope to be an inspiration to others through my love, and I am excited to bring this perspective to the college that I attend.

[16:43] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: I like that essay a lot, Marielle. And you wrote something else one time recently that I just really feel. It really went to my heart. And that was your experience as a, a young person going through high school during the pandemic. And I think I encouraged. I had told you that I wanted you to read it here because I think that this recording being like a time capsule that, you know, someday someone will read it. Looking back at this time and your perspective, I think is really valid. Would you be okay reading it?

[17:24] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Yeah.

[17:25] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Okay.

[17:27] MARIELLE GOMEZ: So this is how the. I like to write essays, by the way. I like writing growing up. Everyone hypes up high school, getting you all excited about it, talking about how it'll be the best and funnest years of your life. Like a coming age of like a coming of age movie where everything feels so dramatic and cool. Your parents tell you stories of all the funny and rebellious things they did, getting you excited to have the same experiences. But the thing is, I never related to that dream. For the majority of my life, I've been isolated. Being the only child of older parents and being bullied in elementary school. Being bullied has made it hard for me to feel confident enough to put myself out there in the world. Growing up, I didn't have the friends or freedom to experience youth unfettered. I don't relate to kids who have chaotic lives and friend groups who are out there doing things, the ones who know everyone and get along with anyone. I get envious sometimes of those people because I want to be part of that lively energy. Freshman year was when I decided to change all of that as well as my mindset. I was so excited to open my wings and set off into the world that I was so afraid of before and excited to be set free from the shackles that bound me to the ground. I sometime oh no. I looked forward to being creative with what I get to experience, adding a little flair to my life with the little things like hanging out with people, going out, listening to music in the car, sleepovers, and even as mundane as ditching a class. I look forward to the next four years with this luminescent curiosity and ambition, thinking to myself, I've got four whole years to finally have fun in my life. I'm sure everyone feels this way as a freshman. This was the moment that my class had been dreaming of as kids. I remember looking at the high schoolers when I was a kid and thinking, they're so cool. Their lives seems so fun and exciting. I can't be. I can't wait to be in high school. It had always felt so far in the future, but now it was right in front of us. Wait. No. Little did anyone know that our entire experience would be obliterated in a few months when Covid hit and quarantine started. My class was stripped away from a chunk of our freshman year and then our entire sophomore year. Sophomore year is such an important year because it's that midline between freshman year when it's awkward and you're sort of testing the waters and your grades don't really matter yet. To junior year when things start to pick up and work gets heavier and you have less time on your hands because you actually need to take school seriously now. Our class didn't get to experience that. We were stuck at home, unable to socially hang out, forced to distance ourselves and be completely alone during a year when we should be enjoying ourselves, going out, being friends and doing teenage things. This was especially frustrating for me because I had already been isolated for so long and now I had to isolate for even longer. I got incredibly impatient, constantly having this gnawing itch of how badly I wanted to get out and how yet again I was being held back when in person school started again. It was suddenly junior year, which is when you start to prepare for college. The transition was very jarring. I remember talking to my classmates and a lot of us agreed that we felt a little like we were still freshmen, like we were starting over again. My friends and I would say that we felt like freshman year didn't even exist and how it felt so far away. It was like our whole class had the same lucid dream that didn't actually happen. And then we finally got to relax and have a shot at experiencing high school again. We were also have, but we were also having to grow up at the same time. And since it was junior year, we didn't have as much time to spend being kids since we had so much work to do. Now, as a senior, I look back at high school and it feels a bit incomplete. I think to myself, that's it. That's what everyone hyped us up for. It feels a little underwhelming at times. And I'm sure several of my classmates may relate to this. I think about all the high schoolers before me and the younger classes after me and feel how lucky they are to get a full, uninterrupted high school experience. I'm grieving the loss of being a young teen, the tragedy of my youth, the loss of a dramatic and adventurous coming of age phase. I'm nostalgic for a time that I never got to experience, and I sometimes wonder what kinds of interesting stories will I tell my kids when they ask me about high school. Despite the loss, I have learned some things about myself. Firstly, I'm learning that I'm really different from who I thought I was before. I feel like a blank paper piece of paper being blown across the street on a windy day, thrown about by life and having no idea where I'll end up. But with so much potential. Lately I've discovered that I'm more of an extrovert than I thought I was. Someone who's. I'm just an extrovert who's gotten used to being isolated for so long. I have a voice that needs to be heard in the world. And I've also discovered that I'm very adventurous and don't like to stay in one place for too long. I crave experience and I'm outgrowing the things that I thought were me. That it's like I'm a bird and the air in my cage has become stale. My legs cramping up from being curled up in the same position for years. During this time, my wings have gone bigger and my heart and spirit has grown stronger, and I need space to stretch my wings out, but the cage is too small. Now, if there's one thing I've learned from losing so much of my, quote, unquote, losing so much of my teenage years, or what I thought it would be is how important it is to never lose touch with your youthfulness. I've decided that I want to always remain young at heart. Even though I'm becoming an adult and going into college, I'm never going to let that stop me from being silly and youthful. So as I move into this new phase, I'm making a vow to myself. I'm determined to make up for all of the time I've lost and make sure that I have the most fun I can have. No matter what situations life offers me, I'm determined to make my entire life feel like a coming of age movie. And if there's any advice that I. I'd give to people younger than me, it would be to be grateful for what you have right now, because life is so uncertain, and you'll never know when that'll be stripped away from you and to really just, like, enjoy your youthfulness.

[24:15] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Yeah.

[24:16] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Like, the gift that you have to be able to experience being a teen.

[24:21] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Yeah. Yeah. I really, really want to thank you for reading both of these, Mario, because they're two sides of you that are just really important, and especially this one about high school. I think it's real. I just think it's really important that future generations have something like this to look back on. And I think about if we had this platform when my mom was still alive or actually that she. We did have the. The platform, but I just kind of wish that she was still here, that she could tell her story, because I imagine some of the things that you're expressing is maybe even something she felt like coming to this country. It's hyped up, you know, as being this, you know, this, like, country of freedom and all of that. And that wasn't necessarily what she experienced. And yet I, you know, she never gave up. And.

[25:21] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Yeah.

[25:21] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: And we are who we are because of the people in our family before us. So.

[25:27] MARIELLE GOMEZ: And I'm a little bit. I'm going to be honest, this is something that I don't really talk that much about, but if a future me sees this or future historian sees this, I think that would be really cool, because right now, at my age, I am. This is something that I don't really say a lot, but I don't know if I'm going to live past 50 because of climate change. And that's actually a really big fear that I have, but I don't really think about it. So I think that's another big reason why I really want to experience things now before it's too late, because I don't know what the future holds at all. I can try and plan it out, but I have no idea. And so if a future historian sees this and it's after 50 years and the world has somehow been healed miraculously, and everyone has miraculously come together and fixed it, you know, because it's really hard to get 7 billion people to do that, really learn from their mistakes, because, like, take this chance to rewrite history, because you need to be grateful for what you have right now.

[26:45] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Yeah. And enjoy life. Right. Enjoy. Eat the moment, like you said.

[26:51] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Yeah. And maybe remember your roots and the things that indigenous tribes teach because there, and this is. I actually wrote a research essay about this, that there's a lot of teachings that indigenous cultures have that can really help towards the environmental crisis and making a plan to how to, like, live in the world and with nature, not against nature. And I just wish that people would listen to us more.

[27:18] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: Yeah.

[27:20] MARIELLE GOMEZ: And I hope that I live past 50.

[27:24] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: I do, too.

[27:25] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Like, I don't know. I really don't know. Like, I can, like, sit and meditate and try to, like, feel what my intuition is feeling, but I literally have no idea what's going to happen.

[27:40] ANNE-MARIE EMANUELLI: It's quite good person.

[27:50] MARIELLE GOMEZ: Thank you.