My name is Erin Nikte'ha' Azcona-Beam
Most people call me Erin in English and Nikte in Spanish.
I also have ancestors from North America and the ones I know about were Cherokee (Tsalagi) and Huichol (Wixarikari). I don't have any Maya ancestors but my name is Yucatec Maya because that's a language that my Mami likes and my Papi liked this name a lot. Nikte'ha' means 'waterlily' or literally 'flower (of) water' which is sort of like what my Mami's name (Rosemary) means in Latin. Here is one way to write my name in Maya.
I was born on Thanksgiving, 23 November 2000, in San Francisco. Then my parents brought me home to Mill Valley.
I look a lot like my abuelita when she was little.
My abuelita lives in Mexico and she has a dog named Cookie. I also have LOTS of aunts and uncles and cousins and even nieces and nephews who live in Mexico, and I have lots of friends who live there too, and also teachers like my Maestra Oli & Maestra Leti.
We live in Mexico part of the year every year. We go there to visit my family and friends and also because my Mami works there. My Papi grew up in Mexico. We had a hard time finding his papers for me to become officially Mexican, but now my Tia Caro found them so soon I'll have papers too. If my Papi were alive, my Mami says he would say "Papers? We don't need no stinking papers!" and then he would laugh.
All my life we've been travelling. Me and my Mami and Papi used to take lots of road trips around the United States and Mexico. Sometimes it was crowded in the back with all the things we took with us.
We also went to France
(And technically I've also been to Monaco but I slept through it in the back seat of the car)
And Italy
And the next thing I knew we moved to Australia
And so now we are really living in three places: Melbourne, Mill Valley, and Oaxaca. And in between we go places like Japan.
And Vanuatu
Last year in Australia we made some friends from Ireland and we went to visit them and to see where me and Mami's ancestors come from.
I have a really happy life but there is one very sad thing that has happened in it. My Papi got a sickness called cancer and when I was five he died. My Mami says that our bodies are made of cells, and when you have cancer the cells go crazy and they grow too much and they get in the way of the healthy parts of your body, so that your body doesn't work anymore. The kind of cancer that made my Papi die only happens when you smoke. A long time ago my Papi used to smoke and he also lived with people who smoked. My Mami says that back then a lot more people smoked, even at work and in restaurants and other places, because people didn't know how bad it was. My Papi didn't smoke very much, and he stopped a long time before I was born, but just that little bit of smoking was enough to give him cancer. I'm not going to smoke when I grow up because it's not healthy and I don't like to see people smoking because it makes me sad.
I really miss my Papi, but I'm glad that I have other people in my life, like my Mami
And my Tia Tere
And Granny
and Aunt Serena
And lots of other people and animals who make me happy
(This page was developed in collaboration between Rosemary & Erin. All content is Erin-approved and/or suggested, even if written by Rosemary).