I am Paco Diaz, Gen Z, born in 1999 into a strong Mexican-American family-based community. The current American Cultural AI is limited to the visuals it can produce, and for this Memoir Interview, I've agreed to this depiction, even though it doesn't accurately capture me.
I'm a character in Cappy Kotz's normative fiction novel, FLASH Championship Games, a Trilogy Finale. I'm seventeen and follow my family's boxing tradition. But, when I joined a boxing club run by a white coach, my life changed.
Boxing is in my blood. All great boxers are Mexican. We are fiercely disciplined, devoted scrappers, and relentless to the end. However, acknowledging feelings is ignored, and I am here to address that. I am devoted to my Mexican-American Influence, no matter how that comes about, even if I train at a white-owned club.
Jake Diamond, the gym owner, is tough, just not in the way I'm used to. He trained at the White Center PAL when he was a kid and won National and Regional Golden Gloves, but when he went home at night, he didn't return to an ancestral enclave. I was born in America, too, but I'm Mexican first. He's just a white dude who paints houses and lives alone. The boxing gym is his family blood. But he sees boxing as more than just a sport, more than ethnic ownership. To him, boxing is a direct channel to the inner realm, where fear and confidence seek balance. In my culture, courage is honored, but there is no place for fear or insecurity. People who have had it hard cannot take the time to dwell on emotion.
My dad is disappointed I'm not training at Azteca, where all the Mexican kids go, but he doesn't get in my face about it. At first, it was strange being the only one speaking Spanish, but I got used to it, and now I appreciate it doesn't matter who we are outside teh gym. When we cross that threshold, we are a family of boxers.
