Sarah Menkedick

“Americans have always had issues raising their children as citizens instead of tiny, mighty monarchs.”

Sarah Menkedick profiles Vianney Bernabé, exploring what it means to be second-generation Mexican American today — a person with deep roots in Mexico and feet and future planted firmly in America. Educated, ambitious, and principled, Bernabé is destined for success. Menkedick posits that if America cannot reject this myopic resurgence of nativist (white) populism to embrace the skills and culture of Bernabé’s generation, it does so at its own peril.

Eight months pregnant on her family farm, a woman who’s lived her active life “perpetually looking forward to: to the evening, to the weekend, to the next year in a new place” learns to redefine her relationship with time and space. As she says: “I’ve always hated waiting.”

“My life is conducted in Spanish, English, and Spanglish, and I have chosen these situations, but not entirely.”