Discrimination in a Miscellaneous World

Discrimination has always prowled around myself, my family, and many people homogeneous to us. When I was born, my mom came to the United States so that I could be born with citizenship. She did this in order for me to have the privilege of going to college and secure to American benefits so that I may live a better life. Growing up I was lucky enough to be around the Spanish and English languages. I caught on immensely quick to Spanish by constantly practicing and speaking the language with my madresita, papa, y mis tias/tios. On the other hand, I learned the English language by speaking it in school, with my friends, and my cousins. Although I did my best to learn English and felt as if I was doing particularly well, it still was not enough for the school system or to be competent to translating for my mother in certain situations when she needed that help.

Often times, throughout my childhood I strived for the improvement in my reading and writing in the two languages in order to make my life much simpler and in order to help my mother with translating, which was one of my main priorities. My mother would remind me about the significance of knowledge especially in knowing how to read and write in English living here in the United States. In the reading, How to Tame a Wild Tongue Gloria’s mother states: “Pa’hallar buen trabajo tienes que saber hablar el ingles bien. Que vale toda tu educacion si todavia hablas ingles con un ‘accent,’” (Anzaldua 411) meaning that there is basically no worth in one’s education if the person is still speaking with an accent. This specific quotation connected with my mother’s words and advise that she gave me on a constant basis. To my mother, and Gloria’s mother as well, I felt like being able to speak English properly meant a lot to them because they understood that life in the U.S. would be difficult without this knowledge, and to get hired in various jobs English was required to be spoken. With all of these concerns in mind, I would purchase journals with my weekly savings and write short fiction stories about my ideal life as a superhero helping make the world a better place. Like Malcom X asserts: “I was lucky enough to reason also that I should try to improve my penmanship” (Malcom X 577); I too tried to improve my penmanship. This was important to me so that I could decipher my own notes and so that others could interpret my writing too. After all, if I was going to be writing short stories, my writing should be legible for the readers.

Throughout Elementary school, the system would always have me positioned in speech classes and ELD classes. Usually in school the students would refer to me as stupid, slow, or retarded and many other things due to the fact that I was placed in those classes. Often, I would experience my friends speaking English with their parent and always wished I could do the same with my own. In effect, I felt locked away and hidden from how I was as a person due to the judgements of others. Especially because I did not look “Mexican”.

Despite all of the inconvenience, agitation, and distress, I still pushed hard for my education. My main reason for working hard was principally done for my mother. I wanted to be able to translate for her when she was in need. She would get discriminated or ignored for simply asking “Tienen a alguien que hable espanol?”. For example, a terribly hurtful moment for me was when my mother wanted to take a look at a home that was presented for sale and the sales person made a remark where she stated that we could not afford the home. I feel as if she made this comment due to my mother and I speaking Spanish. This particular situation that my mother and I experienced with discrimination related tremendously to what Tanya Barrientos implied in her literacy narrative “Se Habla Espanol”. She specifically indicated: “speaking Spanish translated into being poor. It meant waiting tables and cleaning hotel rooms.” (Barrientos 561) which basically means that most people who were not of color stereotypically saw anyone who spoke Spanish in this way. This quotation felt extremely relatable and accurate because in most personal experiences like being denied from jobs or being discriminated strictly due to my Spanish, I felt as if things were actually that way and as if they would remain to be that way for the rest of mine and my family’s life.

At a certain point in my life, specifically the summer before high school I witnessed discrimination that was aimed towards my father and his fellow co-workers at the watermelon fields. I was sent to Northern California to work alongside my father, and my eldest brother so that I may learn a valuable lesson of appreciation. The days would get so hot and the owners of the land were supposed to provide the workers with enough shade and water to be able to rest during their break times, but did the complete opposite. There was even a time when the field manager was conversing with the workers and commented that us as Mexicans should already be used to working under bad conditions and that this was going to continue throughout our lives as if he were trying to imply that we are worthless. When I would listen to these remarks and see the actions that were occurring in the fields it touched and hurt me because I realized that this occurs every day to people around the nation, even to my own family.

When I took one of my trips to Mexico three summers ago for the first time in a long time I was very shocked and upset by the comments made by the people there. My cousins, brothers, and I went on a hike to the mountains in our home town named Lombardia but before going on the hike we stopped by El Mercado to purchase drinks and snacks to stay energized along the way. When my younger brother Emmanuel was ordering his drink, he accidently asked for the price of the drink in English since he was so used to speaking it back home in the U.S. and the reaction he got was upsetting because the store cashier laughed and called myself, my cousins, and brothers “Pinches Gringos”. During his remarks, other people in the store saw as well and instead of helping us against the cashier’s discrimination they went along with it too. Sadly, the same things going on back in the U.S. continue to happen anywhere else. Discrimination is something you cannot escape and something that will definitely continue to happen as long as we continue to divide ourselves by our race, sexual orientation, skin color, and religion.

I realized that throughout life I will meet and run into people that will expect me to be or speak a certain way. In today’s society, there is a lot of racism that still creeps around the world and so much judgement to go along with that as well. People will focus on race, beliefs, skin color, physical appearance, the way you live, and on the way you speak and use those things to keep each other divided when in reality we should stay close together as humans regardless of all of these things. We should all truly acknowledge that our own differences are what makes us all great and unique. As a student at CSUN I hope to achieve my 4 years of college and hopefully continue to push myself for greater things academically. At this very moment, I do not see any barriers and if any do come my way I feel as if I can overcome any of them. One of the main things influencing my academic success is my family and my great ambition to succeed in this world. I want to be able to make something great out of myself and achieve all of my dreams and aspirations in order to help people around the world. I personally feel that my main goal and purpose in life is to help others and spread the love and kindness that I have gotten all of my life from my mother and family.