When I tell you that I have been told I look like everything BUT Mexican, I seriously mean it.
Growing up, I actually never understood the fact that I was Hispanic, nor did I even realize it. Both my parents and my grandparents were born inside the United States, but my great-grandma immigrated here all the way from Mexico back in the early 1900s. Needless to say, due to the nature of the times back then, and one can argue even now, being proud of your Mexican roots wasn't exactly praised. Heavy assimilation was common, and is still currently the norm, but it didn't quite stop my family from maintaining certain "Hispanic family values."
Nonetheless, I never felt different from anyone around me while I was growing up.
Sure, I had tons of second and third cousins, my grandpa played his "Canciones" occasionally, and I thought the words "Avena" and "Mija" were English, but I never knew that wasn't "normal" until much, much later on.
High school opened my eyes in more ways than one, including where I fit in ethnically. This was very weird to me because I never thought I would have to question that part of my identity, but my oblivion towards my cultural background was only taking me so far. Even the thought of entertaining the idea that I was ethnically and racially mixed felt uncomfortable because I didn't feel like I fit in, even into the category that accepted people of multiple backgrounds.
The most important part, in my opinion, of my entire complex background, is that where I grew up, I was treated as if my Mexican heritage was not an entire half of me. Even though my mom is 100% Mexican, I never felt like that was significant to my identity because in society's eyes I was White, and that's all that seemed to matter. I wasn't fluent in Spanish, I had never visited Mexico, and I didn't even tan that well in the summertime. It was like if you didn't look it and you didn't act it, then you weren't it; whatever that "it" may have been.
A lot of this started to become apparent to me during my senior year of high school. Up until then, I had surrounded myself with a lot of racially diverse people, but the only mixed people I had been around were those that were both Black and White. As I continued to explain to people that I am, in fact, a great blend of Mexican and Irish, I noticed that I am technically mixed. Knowing the exact definition of the word, I was, on paper, ethnically mixed; however, it never felt that way, and it still doesn't to this day.
I have never been one who has wanted to take anything from anyone, and by that I mean I don't want to take a word that has a certain cultural meaning and adapt it to fit my more complicated identity. The reality is that most mixed people face a lot more discrimination than I will ever have to because of my outward appearance. Regardless of that, though, I still hold people accountable when they forget that I am both White and Mexican because no one can choose which part of me to acknowledge.
I like to think of my cultural and ethnic identity as being more diverse than anything else, and I challenge others in my situation to do the same. To be honest with you, I would love to be recognized as an ethnically mixed person, and maybe ten years down the road I may begin to be seen as one, but that identification is in society's hands and comes with a lot more responsibility than one may ask for. As for now, though, I'm perfectly happy with being the White girl that looks Greek whose grandparents call her "Mijita."
