What I Believe: Veronica Benton

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By COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star

Veronica Benton is 16, a junior at Pius High, a girl from two cultures.

Her mom’s side is Mexican. Her dad’s side is Irish, English and Scottish and “very traditionally American.”

Her mom’s parents came from Guadalajara, Mexico. Her grandfather was a migrant worker who came to the United States in 1952 to pick cotton and fruit.

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Veronica Benton (Heidi Hoffman)

Veronica Benton (Heidi Hoffman)

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Her dad’s parents met during World War II. Her grandmother served in the Navy as a WAVE,  Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. Her grandfather was a sailor on the USS West Virginia, which sank in Pearl Harbor. He survived by going from boat to boat until he got to shore.

Veronica makes piñatas and dances folk dances in long, colorful dresses with her dance group, Sangre Azteca, which means Aztec blood. She sings Spanish songs in a band with her cousins.

She also runs track at school and swims for the team and gets her nails done and likes to shop with her friends. American Eagle is one of her favorite stores. She named her dogs “American names” — Kate and Fenway, Fenway in honor of her dad’s mom, who grew up in Boston and loved the Red Sox.

Veronica watches the Red Sox on TV with her dad’s side. She watches “football” with her mom’s Mexican side. To them, football is soccer.

Family picnics are a mix of hot dogs and enchiladas, blondes and brunettes.

Her parents met in college. They said their marriage vows in Spanish and English. The family jokes that maybe the vows aren’t legitimate, because her mom broke down crying as she spoke them in Spanish and never made it to the English part.

Veronica is the oldest of five. They speak Spanish and English at home. She understands more Spanish than she can speak. She still isn’t perfect in conjugating her verbs, so she’s taking Spanish at Pius. She will go to Mexico in a couple of summers to live with an aunt who’s a nun in Guadalajara.

Veronica’s family goes to St. Teresa Catholic Church except for one Sunday a month, when they go to Spanish Mass at Christo Rey Catholic Church.

Her family’s home in east Lincoln is a blend of styles. Her dad, who sells tile and granite countertops at Midwest Tile, installed terra cotta-colored tiles in the kitchen and dining room to give the home a hacienda feel. He put wooden beams on the kitchen ceiling.

Magnetic words cover the front of the refrigerator, to form sentences or poetry in Spanish.

On the stove is a comal, a Mexican grill Veronica and her mom use to make tortillas. Veronica makes gorditas and avocado dip. She also makes potato salad and chicken pot pie and BLTs, some of her dad’s favorites.

On a kitchen shelf is a heavy old crock, the kind used to cook baked beans. It came from her Boston grandma. 

Some young people from mixed backgrounds might feel torn, she says, but she believes it’s a blessing.

“I feel like they both come together to form me, who I am.”

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.