My Family's Experience with Racism

Racism is a setback in personal relations between people of different cultures. My family comes from Mexican descent and is constantly being shunned. I personally had never been discriminated because of my race or my culture, but it all changed the day my mother decided it would be a good idea to take a trip with my father. My family isn’t a family hard to identify; we look, act, and talk like Mexicans and that caused a bitter disagreement up north. For the first time I experienced the horrors of racial discrimination.

My father was working as a truck driver, and at the time of the incident, was assigned to go to Denton, Texas. The city of Denton is located in the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex area up north in Texas. My father was used to traveling all over Texas. He’s rarely around in the house because of all the work. My mother, brother, and I had never accompanied my dad when he was working. This time it was different because it was around Christmas time; my brother and I were on winter vacation, and snow had fallen near the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex area.

Since we rarely see our father, my mother decided, “Pack, mañana we are leaving to Dallas.”

“Ma, we’re going to the city of Denton. Not Dallas.” I responded.

My mother kept getting the cities confused. I remember being very excited to finally go with my father. We packed our clothes at night and woke up at three in the morning to head to Denton. The following morning my brother and I sat impatiently in the 18-wheeler trying to make time go by. He had seen on the news snow had fallen near Dallas which only made us more excited. And as anxious as we were to get there, we were also anxious to spend time with our father.

“Are we almost there? How much longer? I’m getting ti...

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...cold hatred I asked, “Why would you let him talk to you like that? Why would you let him say that about us?”

My father had no way to justify what had occurred, but only said, “I have to respect his decisions,” as he saw the sad look on my brother’s face.

My mother sat in silence as if too shocked to react. Gustavo did not want to release my father from that job, but Jeffrey did not want us there. My father left the shipment there without doing any of the work, and we took off back home. Ever since then, my dad has not returned to the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex area. Gustavo wanted to prevent another situation from happening.

I felt really insignificant. Along with that, I felt small and unwanted. The way Jeffrey spoke to my father was unbelievable. I didn’t know so much hatred could exist. Jeffrey was as rude as dry winter. Who was he to tell us we weren’t good