Gerardo Brown-Manrique
Mexican identity upheld through Miami professor’s life of mobility
The move from Mexico City to the U.S. in the 1960s was quite a culture shock for Miami University Professor of Architecture and Interior Design Gerardo Brown-Manrique.
His father was Cuban but living in Mexico when he met Brown-Manrique’s mother, born in Mexico. When Brown-Manrique was four years old, his family moved to a western suburb of Havana, Cuba for three years then moved back to Mexico. When Brown-Manrique was in second grade, his father got a post to teach at Michigan State University, so they moved to East Lansing, MI for a year.
After the Cuban Revolution (1953 – 1959), his father went back to Cuba to work for the Cuban government. He worked for Fidel Castro in the Tribunal de Cuentas – as an accounting officer in the treasury. However, his father ran into problems with Castro. He attended the council of government meetings and was vocally opposed to policies Castro was instituting, including the elimination of private property and the shift to a single crop economy.
Because of this, he was appointed economic attaché to the Cuban Embassy in Indonesia. He was there for about a year while the rest of the family was in Mexico. In 1961, he came to the U.S., asking for political asylum.
“When he came and asked for political asylum, the U.S. was interested, but my father was not interested in being a stooge. He never did anything, but was granted political
Gerardo Brown-Manrique’s father holding him at 9 months, with his older sister, in Mexico. Photo provided by Gerardo Brown-Manrique.
asylum,” Brown-Manrique said. A year later, in 1962, Brown-Manrique and the rest of his family moved to the U.S. in upstate New York.
Life in Mexico City
“I remember playing out in the backyard and in some construction sites as a child in Havana,” Brown-Manrique said.
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By the time he was in sixth grade, which coincides with his father going back to Cuba, Brown-Manrique, along with his mother, and two sisters, moved in with his maternal grandparents, who lived in another part of Mexico City in a single-family middle-class household.
Carnival at Brown-Manrique’s school in Havana, Cuba. His older sister [third from left, back row] as china poblana, and him [first from the right, back row] in Bavarian Lederhosen. Photo provided by Gerardo Brown-Manrique.
Brown-Manrique’s connection with his family has always been strong. Each Sunday, the family would get together at one of their homes to catch up.
For elementary school, Brown-Manrique attended a bilingual private elementary school owned by an English woman; half of the day was in English, and the other half was in Spanish.
He and his younger sister, who was in third grade, would take the public bus to and from school, which was in another neighborhood. His mother would give him money to take the bus downtown during his free time.
“My children’s generation never experienced this, being a kid and running around and taking public transportation
unaccompanied,” Brown-Manrique said. “[Because now] it’s not safe.” In the summer of 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy visited Mexico during a state visit. Brown-Manrique’s grandfather gave him money to take the bus to see their arrival. He was able to see U.S. President Kennedy, his wife, and Mexican President López Mateos and his wife, Eva Sámano de López Mateos, drive by on their way to the official residence in Mexico, Los Pinos.
Later that year, Brown-Manrique and his family moved to the U.S.
“Between when we moved to the U.S. and then (the death of Kennedy), the Cuban missile crisis [in October of 1962], [which] obviously involved Cuba and my father, even though we were here (U.S.),” Brown-Manrique said. “It was very tense. It was very weird.”
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Look here at other reasons why Mexicans immigrated to the U.S.
“I mean I am a U.S. citizen, but I am still Mexican. You are what you are. Your identity is your birth, your family origins.”
Identity
Brown-Manrique received U.S. citizenship in 1982.
“I mean I am a U.S. citizen, but I am still Mexican. You are what you are. Your identity is your birth, your family origins,” Brown-Manrique said. “Which people in the U.S. have trouble understanding, without realizing that is what the U.S. is like.”
When he moved to upstate New York, Brown-Manrique remembers students in his class asking if he wore a sombrero or had a donkey in Mexico.
“I don’t know [how others perceive my Mexican identity], and I don’t care,” Brown-Manrique said.
The citizenship process was not difficult for Brown-Manrique as much of the information on the test was what he learned in social studies in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. He had his preliminary interview in Cincinnati, his final interview in Columbus, with the ceremony in Dayton.
“I don’t know how different I would have been had we not moved to the U.S.,” Brown-Manrique said. When Brown-Manrique finished graduate school, he moved to Houston, TX to be close to the Mexican border as he
Brown-Manrique in a school uniform at age 4 in Havana, Cuba. Photo provided by Gerardo Brown-Manrique.
was thinking – at that time – of wanting to move back to Mexico.
“I’ve thought about it (moving back to Mexico) for a while but never did,” Brown-Manrique said. “So, [in] my time here (Oxford), I sort have given up the idea of trying to go back to Mexico.”
He occasionally visits Mexico for Christmas and family reunions. However, there has not been one recently.
Every other week Brown-Manrique and his sisters get together on Skype, and his older sister – who still lives in Mexico – shares Mexican news with him. There is a family Facebook page, set up for one of the reunions, which many of Brown-Manrique’s family who still live in Mexico post about their lives and Mexico.
His story is representative of how one's identity might change depending on geographic location, however, at the end of the day he has maintained his Mexican identity.
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Check out his favorite recipe here.
Brown-Manrique with his mother and sisters at his primary school graduation at Escuela Rickards, Mexico. Photo provided by Gerardo Brown-Manrique.