The Story of Genoveva Fonseca

Lindsey Stratton is a VDC Project Coordinator at CRB 's Kansas City office. She also serves as the lead of CRB's Racial Equity & Diversity (RED) employee resource group. She wrote this personal essay as part of RED's Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration in 2023.

Growing Up in Panama City, Panama

Genoveva Fonseca is my grandmother’s birth name.

In her lifetime, she has had many names; Genevieve, Genny, Nana, and later GG. I could continue, but I will start to sound like I am introducing royalty in an episode of “Game of Thrones.” I would have bent the knee to her, and if you had the opportunity to acquaint yourself with her, you would feel the same way.

She was born in beautiful Panama City, Panama. Even while growing up in Panama, she lived a life that paralleled the lives of U.S. immigrants past and present. At home she and her familia spoke Spanish, while at school she spoke English. Her schooling was through the U.S. government as they occupied the Panama Canal Zone. Schools there were segregated, like other U.S. school systems at that time. Afro-Antillean and South Asian children of U.S. employees attended different schools. Because my Nana and her siblings had relatively lighter brown skin tones, they were allowed to attend the schools reserved for the children of white U.S. employees. There is some uncertainty in the story, but I believe she was able to attend the schools due to her father being a Puerto Rican-born U.S. citizen and his military affiliation. In school, they called her Genny, Jenny, or Genevieve. It’s unknown if she decided on the new moniker or if someone decided it for her out of endearment or convenience. Her classmates came from all over the U.S. The schools in the canal zone exhibited national diversity and even welcomed the vibrant culture and customs of Panama. However, they regrettably maintained racial segregation.

Life in the United States

In her 20’s, she came to the U.S. to attend her brother’s wedding in Kansas City and never left. It was around that time she met my papa, Morris Ganaden. He lived across the street and his family owned the salon in the lower level of their house. So, the story goes, she came for a family wedding, got her hair done, and stayed for the nice neighbor boy above the salon. I’m sure it was more complex than that because she is complex and has main-character energy, but it’s cute to sum it up that way.

By the time I was born, her sister and her mom had also moved to the States. Loud Latin music and Latin food filled the air at our family gatherings. Think reggaetón, cumbia, merengue, rice, beans, plantains, and empanadas. We also weren’t above Olive Garden and other various types of loud music. Due to an expectation of cultural assimilation in 1950s America, coupled with advice that teaching your children Spanish would only confuse them, my aunt and mom never learned to speak Spanish. This, among unspoken safety measures that people today still face when showing up as their authentic selves, limited my exposure to the language. Despite these challenges, my Nana and her sister often spoke to each other in Spanish. She even shared her love for her culture with her students as a Spanish teacher at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy. While she was praised for it in certain spaces, like when translator was her title, she was also criticized and harassed occasionally in public spaces when speaking Spanish with her sister. It was upsetting, but she didn’t let that change who she showed up as every day. It was her faith that kept her going. Her faith in humanity and her faith in general. Even without sharing the language, she brought something that no one else could bring to our family: herself.

Connecting With My Latin Roots

During my own identity renaissance, as I connected with people who shared my experiences, I grappled with the feeling that I didn't fit neatly into any one cultural category. I felt I couldn’t fully identify as Latina, white, or Asian. It was during this period of recognizing the diversity of experiences like mine and starting to fully embrace my Latin roots, that an accident profoundly affected my Nana’s ability to communicate. She endured a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) that affected the speech center of her brain. Her life and ours would never be the same. For months she slept. Those who didn’t know her would say she did the impossible, but we always had faith. Despite the injury, she continued to persevere. But while she was physically getting stronger, she couldn’t control when she spoke Spanish or English. Speaking Spanish and sharing childhood memories was home to her. Even with a TBI, she managed to win her caretakers over with her presence. Her personality transcended any language. They called her GG and abuela. She couldn’t communicate in English or Spanish like she had before. Her sentence structures were often disjointed, and her level of independence didn’t look the same without being able to walk. Her life and ours drastically shifted. After the initial shock, this brought unresolved feelings to the surface for me, wishing now more than ever that we would have learned Spanish.

After the accident, I made it my mission to be with her. I wanted to understand her culture and language, and all the recipes she kept in her head that I would never get to learn. At that moment, and for years later, I thought I had missed out on everything. After reflecting, I realized she had been such an integral part of my identity all along.

Her culture is my culture.

She always had duality in her life that didn’t make her any less of who she was. She was Latina. She was Panamanian. She was American. She spoke multiple languages. She embraced new cultures, new ideas, and new ways of living, even when faced with the unimaginable. She lived a fulfilling life and shared that life and her heritage with the people she loved and the many people she connected with as friends and students alike.

To those dealing with questions of identity, who find themselves outside the confines of checkboxes on forms, and who may wonder, "Am I sufficiently Latina?" or "Am I 'enough' in any aspect?" – the resounding answer is, "You absolutely are!" You can be Genoveva, Genny, and GG and all can be true at the same time. It doesn’t diminish any part of your identity. But if you don’t ironically or unironically like Pitbull, are you even Latina? After much research and speculation, the answer is also yes!