Nobody's Son Sparknotes

In the book, “Nobody’s son” by Luis Alberto Urrea he explains how having two parents that speak a different language and have different cultures has made it difficult to belong into a nation where ethnicity has become important. Urrea’s father was born in Mexico where he spends most of his life before he married Phillis, Urrea’s mother. Phillis, who was Anglo, seem to not care about Alberto’s nationality nor that did he not spoke English fluidly when they meet. However, after they got merry something changed on Phillis prospective, she started to show some antiracial behavior against Mexicans. She disliked the fact that his son Luis Alberto looked more like his dad that he did to her.
Urrea felt divided between two nations that did not accepted

him. He did not understand how a country could accept adapting using words not only from the Spanish vocabulary, but also from around the world and not its people. In one hand, his dad part of the family considers him a gringo because of the poor pronunciation of his Spanish and the fact that he grew up in the United States made him felt not accepted from that side of the family. In the other hand, the side of her mother would also not consider him white. Urrea explains how he felt that his heart was divide by a borde.
Like Urrea, I struggle to find my way in a nation that can sometimes be multicultural painful.

I was born in the United States, raised by both of my parent whom nationality is Mexican. Since I was a little girl, I experience the cruelty that people can have towards someone that looks different from them. When I was in seven grade, I was place in bilingual classes. Even though I grew up in the place, where English is the first language and is essential to know it my parents opted to put me in Spanish classes. When I started to learn English I had a difficult time, my pronation was terrible, and I had an accent. My classmates would call me names like beaner; at first, I would not understand why they would do it. One day I got home and asked my older brother what did beaner meant, he asked me why. I told him that at school they would call me like that. He responded you should never feel ashamed when someone calls you beaner. My brother continued by telling me that from where our parents were from they produced that most beans any can image, and that was the reason the kids from my classroom where calling me beaner and I believed in that for many

time.
Most of the family form my dad’s side lives here in the United States and my mother’s in Mexico.

The first time that I travel to Mexico, it was when I was fifteen years old. The days that I spend it in Mexico, I learned that even though the language that we spoke was the same, we were different in many things. The way that my cousins’ spoke was sometimes confusing, and the things that seem to be funny for them was not for me. I remember that my cousins would call me ‘Guera’ (White) every time that I would not understand what they were trying to tell me. I felt that I did not belong there nor on my dad’s side of the family. The side of my dad that lives here in the United States most of them would barely understand a word in Spanish. The music, places, people that my cousins hang out with, are entirely different from

mine.
Every time that I travel to Mexico to visit my mom’s family, there is always someone that calls me ‘guera.’ It is something that I find funny because that is not the case here in the U.S. I remember one time when I went to the Clinic; the receptionist called my name and began to speak to me on Spanish. I just looked at her and asked on English why was she talking to me in Spanish; she responded, oh I am sorry I thought that you did not spoke English. I do not like to pretend that I do not understand or speak Spanish and denied my roots but it bothers me when others assume that you form certain part because of the way you look or of your last name.
I believed that like Urrea they are many others that suffer trying to find their way to fit in a nation that would not consider them as part of them. For most of the time people suffer and feel unidentified not knowing where they belong, but what can it be respond when you are ask where are you from when you do not even know. Many kids born in the United States by Mexican parents most of the time respond that are Mexicans because they know that if they respond American people would laugh. But when the answer is Mexican people assume right away that their immigrant. People have to stop assuming that every Mexican is an immigrant.