I would describe my racial identity as Mexican American. I was born in Detroit, while my parents were born in Mexico. My racial identity holds many values such as respect, culture, and family. My family likes to get together every weekend and celebrate each other with food and talking about memories and future events. This is important to me because it show how much my family likes to stay together. I benefit from my identity because I speak English and Spanish which is something I think can benefit others more than me. This way I can translate for my family if needed or help a stranger in need if they don’t speak English. I used to translate for my grandmother especially growing up because of she would usually work night shifts while my mother works day shifts, so this means I was always at the store or with my grandmother at home.
I didn’t really speak proper Spanish growing up, so I would say it got better the more I practiced, although I don’t believe it could ever be perfect. I did miss out on things like field trips, going to my friend’s house, or even going to birthday parties because a Mexican Household can tend to be the strictest on the daughters of the family. I didn’t get a cellphone till I was 15 and didn’t really have the same gadgets most people do now. Like my own TV, computer, or tablet. I don’t really know what else I could benefit my racial identity… Except that my culture teaches us to be helpful, strongminded, and hardworking.
I’ve also had many experiences with my race that made me feel differently about them growing up. During elementary, I went to school that was mainly filled with Hispanics that spoke Spanish better than me, which already made me feel embarrassed that I couldn’t fully connect to my peers because of this language barrier. Their main language was Spanish, and this made it hard to be friends with them. They would also judge me because I didn’t speak Spanish as well as they did. So, this made me become friends with other kids in my class because I was able to speak English with them. This has shown me how important it was to speak Spanish as a Mexican. It can be confusing when you get discriminated by your own race just because you don’t speak the same language as they do or speak it as well as they do.
