Essay On Mexican Identity

When I have children, I will tell them about the iconic scene from the movie Selena, where her father says “Being a Mexican-American is tough. Anglos jump all over you if you don’t speak English correctly. Mexicans jump all over you if you don’t speak Spanish perfectly. We got to be twice as perfect as anybody else...and we have to prove to the Mexicans how Mexican we are, we got to prove to the Americans how American we are. We gotta be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans both at the same time. It’s exhausting.” I’ve always been aware of my race since I was a little girl. My first language was Spanish which to this day has affected how I say certain things in English. I am also aware that there is more melanin shown on my skin that comes from my native ancestors from Mexico, Africa and Spain. With the knowledge that I have of my race and historical background, I had started to hide my true identity. Today, I identify with a mix of the Working Through Stage and Successful Resolution Stage of the Latino

My mother always reminded me of where she came from and how she became the person she is now. I remember vividly how ever year she would take me to events like Dia De Los Muertos to celebrate our loved ones who we have lost, dressing up in a traditional dresses like the Escaramuza Charras for Cinco de Mayo and learning the dances from our traditional Aztec heritage. I grew up in a predominantly latinx community and around the minority group where we learned things about people Jose Marti, Ceasar Chavez, Luis Alfonso Velázquez Flores. I even went to Cuba illegally at the age of three to listen to Fidel Castro speak. In fact, you’ll often hear from my family on how I did in fact interrupt Fidel Castro's speech by screaming. I was taught the good side of Pancho Villa—how he was related to my family history and about the amazing side of Che