Like Linda, I’ve been thinking a lot about home this week as I’ve made my way through our readings and “The Salt of the Earth.” These two song have accompanied the thought process for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqg_ZGcuybs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HNY0rx2fw4
Whenever I think about the notion of home, a certain memory reappears. Last November, I visited a college friend at his “ancestral” home outside of Nashville, Tennessee. We chatted with his parents about shooting down mistletoe in their hand-built home before walking into the hollow behind the house. We walked through the streambed stopping to take photos of turkey tail mushrooms and dried brown leaves. We ended our walk at the family cemetery. Before returning to the warm house for Thanksgiving leftovers, we stood around the tombstone of Elijah Jonathan Trimble-- my friend’s great-great-great-great grandfather and namesake. We imagined the patriarch’s life. He lived in the time of marching Union troops and homemade clothes. He farmed tobacco and built the stone foundation for the house the Trimble family has inhabited for generations. After our visit, I was filled with envy. I envy the connection my friend feels to one specific, particular, unique place-- it really is his home.
The Mexican-American characters in “The Salt of the Earth” consider Zinctown, New Mexico home because their families lived and died there for generations even though Delaware Zinc now owns the house they live in, the shops they shop at, and the land they mine. As Linda points out in her post, Esperanza poignantly says, “This is our home. The house is not ours. But the flowers... the flowers are ours.” The difference between house and home is acute in this statement. The major irony of the films comes when the Anglo foremen treat the miners like foreigners when they’ve been in New Mexico for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, Ramon’s family used to own the land where Delaware Zinc is now located.
If the Trimble family no longer owned their plot in Tennessee, would they still consider it home? “The Salt of the Earth” gives the impression ownership and claim isn’t fixed. Time progresses sometimes right over you. Esperanza and Ramon, however, still consider that specific, particular, unique place in New Mexico home. To me, this is a testament to humanity’s need to connect to a place and I’m not sure any place will do. There's no place like home.
Posted,
Laurel
Laurel, first of all, beautiful photos!
ReplyDeleteI also have "home-envy." I don't feel connected to any one particular place in the world. In a sense I feel connected to none, and in another sense I feel connected to many. But there is no one place that feels like home.
I suppose one of the reasons I feel this way is because there is no line to trace, from one generation back to the next, connecting me and my family/ancestors to a particular place. On my father's side, my dad was the first born in this country; on my mother's side, my maternal grandmother was the first. The paternal side of the family made their lives in southern California; the maternal side in Illinois. When I was 12, my parents and I left California for Colorado, where everyone has remained since--except me. I fell in love with Colorado's beauty, but I always had the sense that we weren't "supposed" to be there. We had roots in California and Illinois, and we, by some event of chance, ended up somewhere in between. We had no roots there, no family (except each other), no stories connecting us to that place. But now, another generation of my family has been born there, call Colorado their home. And this, I suppose, is what we do: find ourselves where we are, put down our roots, and grow.