When I was in first grade, I played house a few times with two blond girls. I don't remember their names but I remember being the dog of the house or the maid... always. I thought we would switch eventually, because that's what was fair, but it didn't happen. I would always be the lowest rank. I didn't make the connection until later, I was “That Mexican Girl” and nothing could change my appearance. I would always be the dog or the maid if people judged me solely on looks. When I started hanging out with two boys, one black, one mixed. Everyone else thought the mixed kid was weird because his mother was a blond and his father was black. I never understood that, they were both nice, I didn't see that it was because they weren't the same race. The three of us were raised not to see race but to treat everyone the same. Our parents taught us that racism was over and everyone was equal now. The problem was that a lot of our classmates very seriously saw race first.

I think though that being automatically put in those roles made me realize that I was different, even though people aren't supposed to judge you by your looks. They will. I had the choice to be a stereotype of I could “prove them wrong” and just be better. I'm very competitive so I chose to be better. I became “That Smart Mexican Girl.” I studied and while the other girls were busy trying to fit in, I was trying to prove how different I was.

In middle school and high school, I didn't know that I intimidated the boys. Sure, I wanted a boyfriend, but why didn't anyone like me?! No one told me that a girl that will tell you when you're wrong and doesn't let you win scares the crap out of teenage boys.

When we moved back to Texas my freshman year, I ran into a new problem. Mexicans didn't like me because I was “trying to be white.”

I never ran into that problem in Arizona because there were very few Hispanics where I grew up. The focus there was that I wasn't “cool,” which I just thought, “OK, I'm not cool by your standards, but you also can't read and I value education so why would I want or need your approval?” In Texas, it was that I wasn't embracing my heritage. I didn't understand. I wasn't pretending to be anyone else.

I still don't see how it matters who I like or what I like to do. I see being Mexican as your ethnicity. Somehow, its become a way of life. And I don't speak Spanish. That's really what gets people mad. I'm a pretty hands off person, I don't care what you do in your time. BUT, my mom's Mexican so I SHOULD speak Spanish. How dare she not teach me? Could it be that my step dad is white and we didn't speak it when I was growing up? Or that I speak English rather well and if I wanted to study another language, it is my decision.

Now that I'm older, I don't hesitate to be vocal of my opinions. If you bother about not speaking Spanish more that three times in a five minute period, I will make you cry. To me, it crosses that line into worry way too much about preserving your culture. Spanish will not disappear, nor will French, or German, or any major language. But I don't hear about the kids of German parents getting harangued about not speaking it. They realise that culture is the language, the food, the beliefs, and the customs. And in America, we have the chance to make a new culture out of lots of different ones. We know where we come from and that knowledge can help us make a new, interesting one.