As a Mexican-American male, my racialized identity has definitely come into play, both positively and negatively, with regards to influencing my schooling experience throughout my academic life. However, before we begin the discussion about how race has impacted me up until this point, I believe it is essential to discuss my family’s background and the neighborhood in which I was raised in.
There are many interesting paradoxes that come into play with my race and my upbringing. I come from a single mother, low-income household and I am the oldest of three with two beautiful younger sisters. Despite the fact that I grew up in a low-income household, my mother made a sacrifice and worked two jobs while I was growing up so that we could afford to live in the wonderful, suburban, island city of Alameda, California. Alameda rests right next to Oakland, California and while we are connected by three bridges and a tunnel, the two cities could not be more different in all aspects of demographics, politics, socio-economic status, and so forth. My mother always valued education and that was the motivating factor behind her decision to make so many sacrifices to live in a tiny apartment in Alameda. The public school system in Alameda is unrivaled by Oakland and other neighboring cities.
Since, elementary school I was always a great student, but race always seemed to come into play and I could not help but notice that I was different from my peers in terms of the color of
my skin, the music my family listened to, the way we celebrated birthday parties, my language, and socio-economic status. Thus, began my process of trying to “fit-in,” or assimilation. I remember in second grade I was sent to work with an English learner instructor and would be taken out of class, which made it even more obvious that I was different and needed extra support. However, my EL instructor quickly learned that, in fact, I did not need this extra support and was shortly thereafter qualified as a gifted learner.
The reason I was referred to an EL instructor was not because I was struggling in class with speaking, reading and writing, but because my peers would complain that they could not understand me sometimes because I spoke “spanglish,” a combination of both English and Spanish, which was a result of my racialized upbringing. Even at such a young age I had the ability to code switch and did not use “spanglish” in the formal classroom setting, but only outside in the playground when communicating with my friends. The teacher thought that perhaps I was copying other students or happened to slide under her radar, which is why she had not noticed my so-called language disability. Luckily, my EL instructor was able to see me as the individual that I was and understood why “spanglish” was not an indication that I needed extra EL support, but that it was simply the way I grew up communicating with my family. My mother came to the United States when she was 9 and attended school here in the states, however, because my mother worked two jobs to be able to afford our rent in Alameda, my grandmother came from Mexico to take care of me and I would only speak Spanish with her and English with my mom.
Once I was classified as gifted, I was enrolled in advanced classes with other smart students and I decided to run with this concept of being gifted because it allowed me to fit in despite the
differences in my race, culture and socio-economic status. My intellectualism became my tool for assimilation and to be respected and accepted. I even went on to win the school-wide spelling bee as a fifth grader. While there was definitely a lot of extrinsic motivation involved in my reasons for wanting to be successful in education, I also found intrinsic motivation because I truly enjoyed learning and found pleasure in displaying my intellectual abilities.
In middle school I experienced more academic success, in addition to the identity struggles that every student in junior high goes through. After five years in elementary school I had established myself as a complex and racialized individual. However, in middle school I encountered the repeated need to always have to prove myself. I remember walking into classrooms and almost being able to feel the imposed stereotypes about the type of student that I was based on my exterior. It was not until I would open my mouth and read or turn in my first written assignments and earn high grades on tests that I would begin to be seen beyond my exterior by teachers. My skin was tough and my mother always taught me to hold my head high and to know my worth and to use others’ perceptions about me as motivation to prove them wrong. From a young age this mentality to prove people wrong became the norm and I drew pride from it, despite the physical, mental and emotional drain that it had on me. Furthermore, my racialized struggle in middle school can be seen by looking at my yearbook and seeing how each year the group of students I hung out with changed. In sixth grade I hung out with the rebels and spiked my hair. In seventh grade I hung out with nothing but Asians and watched Pokemon and joined the breakdancing club. Finally, in eighth grade I joined the basketball team, which was comprised of a majority of students of color. I found common ground with my teammates and the phrase “i’m broke” was one that we shared in solidarity and found other ways to entertain ourselves, in contrast with many of our peers who had mom and dad as their personal bank. I want to make it clear that I do not mean to generalize the socio-economic status of my counter peers because I do acknowledge that there were White and Asian students who also shared similar struggles as me, but the general perceptions of them and their privilege was evident in this community.
High school was not a game for me because after so many years of talking about college with my friends and family, I was finally entering the four years that would determine my fate in higher education. I was a straight edge student and I was lucky to find a solid group of friends. My “click” was made up of Filipino, Asian and White students. Many of the students at my high school came from strong socio-economic backgrounds and their parents were not shy about providing their kids with ways to show their status off. In contrast to many Title I schools, such as those in Oakland, it was not cool to fail classes and it was certainly not cool to not go to college. The academics were challenging and competitive. Like in middle school, I once again had to establish myself beyond my exterior to many, but not all, of my teachers. I quickly became known around the school by teachers because I was a rarity in almost all of my AP classes.
Some of my favorite common phrases were: “You don’t sound Mexican when you talk.” “You speak so eloquently for being Latino.” “You are different from the other Latino students at this school.” “You’re my favorite Mexican.” These were a few of the phrases that I did not realize were racial microaggressions at the time, and up until this day I am not sure how they affected me in the long run aside from serving as evidence in some circumstances that I had proven them
wrong about judging me based on my exterior. However, I also have not had the appropriate space where I felt comfortable exploring these concepts, except for briefly in my teaching credential program.
Before I tell you which college I attended, I want to first give you an idea of the competitive environment of my high school. I barely graduated in the top 15% of my class with an overall GPA of 4.2. I worked really hard to earn those grades and took as many AP classes as were offered, I was an editor for the school paper four years in a row, I was an all-star cross country and track and field athlete, served as captain for both teams, was actively involved in Key Club and served as president of this national community service organization. When I received my college acceptances I was a bit overwhelmed, but overjoyed as well that all of my hard work paid off. I was accepted into ten out of twelve schools that I applied to, which included UC Berkeley, UCLA, Claremont McKenna, and Columbia. I remember the day after acceptance letters went out everybody was sharing where they got in or got rejected to and when it came for me to share there were mixed responses. Some people were angry that they had not been accepted to some of the same schools, others said the fact that I was Mexican is the reason I got in over them, and those that were closest to me and knew my struggle were extremely happy for me. At that point, I did not care to feel the need to prove myself to those that felt my race played a role in my college admissions, because at the end of the day their opinion did not matter to me because I was grounded in who I was and my abilities.
Once in college I no longer felt the need to prove myself because at Columbia everyone was amazing and if we were there it was for a reason, and that seemed to be universally understood. It was a cutthroat academic environment, but due to my intellectual vitality and strong
back bone, I was able to excel. Also, for the first time in my academic life I had Latino friends who shared common stories with me, culture and language. I immediately got involved in the Latino community and the solidarity that we shared with each other and our goals as individuals, in addition to our goals for our families and our community, were empowering in and out of the classroom. I graduated Columbia feeling on top of the world and capable of excelling in anything that I chose to do. However, once I began to enter the workforce I realized that the many of the same perceptions and racialized situations that I dealt with in primary and secondary education were not gone. I once again felt the need to prove myself and to show evidence of everything that was on my resume. Post-graduation, one of my favorite comments about being asked what college I went to was: “Oh, I did not know you were Colombian. What was college like in that country?” It was a rarity in many spaces of the real world to fathom that I was one of the few persons of color that attended such a prestigious university. The need to prove myself is a constant cycle that repeats itself upon entering a new social, cultural, economic, political or professional space.
While there are many negative things to be said about some of the struggles I have encountered with my racialized identity, I believe that it is safe to say that my racial identity has made me a strong, grounded, and resilient person. I do not know if I would be where I am today if it was not for these educational experiences. There are many factors that come into play in determining a student’s success in education and in the real world. I can say that I am bothered by the constant need to prove myself and qualify my identity, however, I would like to think that I have learned to embrace this as a part of my identity and see it as my duty to question and challenge others’ perceptions of not only me, but of people of color through dialogue, education and activism.
