Sidenote: I know Cinco De Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day (I do it to make a point). Also, this story is made up of pure fiction, small experiences, and my opinion.

"Whenever it was Cinco De Mayo at my school, everything in my classroom would be in big bright colors, like white, red and green. There would always be cool decorations around, like colorful maracas, big hats, and pictures of people wearing mustaches. My teacher would tell the kids all about Mexican Independence Day, and how the Mexicans fought against the French to get their independence. And while the teacher would talk about Cinco De Mayo, the other kids would stare at me, as if I was Mexico to them. My teacher would then stop talking and ask me if I missed anything. Like I knew more than he did!

"But my family and I never held parties or wore big hats when it was Cinco De Mayo, except my Aunt Consuelo, who lived in Puebla. Our house never changed, we even kept our American flag hanging outside all year while the other houses would always put a big hat or 2 maracas on their porches to celebrate Mexico’s Independence Day. I always asked my mommy why we never celebrated Cinco de Mayo. She responded 'because we don't', as she looked outside at all the people heavily drinking on their front porches.

"My mommy gets stared at too sometimes. I remember this one time when we were at Trader Joe's, Mommy was talking to my Tia Consuelo on the phone in Spanish when I saw an old lady glare at her, then turned to her other friend and said something that sounded bad. My mom’s face turned red and then went up to the two old ladies. I kept on hearing the words 'You’re in America, speak English!' and 'Go back to Mexico!' over and over again as they argued. Eventually, a person working there broke up the scene, but it’s something I won’t forget.

"But I definitely won’t forget this one thing that happened to me at school. Before school started every morning, my mom always said goodbye to me in Spanish as she dropped me off in the parking lot. But one morning after my mom and I did this, one of the class mom’s saw us; her face turned red and she gave us an angry look. Later that day, my teacher told me I had to go to the principal’s office. I told him, again and again, I didn’t do anything to get in trouble, but I was sent there anyway. When I went into the office, I saw 2 men in black with shiny badges sitting across from the principal. Mr. Mayer (the principal) told me to sit down, pointing at the chair by the corner of the table.

"The men in black started to ask me all of these questions, like 'Where was I born?', 'What was my birthdate?', and 'Where are your brothers and sisters?'. I answered 'California', May 3rd, 2007' and ' I don't have any'. But the weird thing was that they spoke to me very slowly like they thought that I didn’t speak English or something.

"After a long time of answering their questions, my mom barged through the door, and she looked mad. Mr. Mayer started to say something, but she interrupted him and spoke so fast I could hardly understand her. All I could make out was 'Who called the INS on my child?', 'Why would you allow them to interrogate Emilio all by himself, he’s 10 years old!', and 'Here are our US passports, by the way, we are US Citizens!'. I felt someone watching me while this was all happening, so I turned around, and I saw the same mom from earlier staring at me through the window, weirdly smiling at me. I didn’t want to be rude, so I smiled back and waved.

"I got to leave school at lunch that day since my mom was driving me home. But it scared me how angry she was. She talked to Papa that day when he got home.They were both mad after they finished talking, and started to look up other elementary schools in the area on their computers.

"After an hour of this, my Mom took me up to my room and sat me down. 'Mijo' she said, 'I am so sorry about what happened to you at school today. I hope that you're ok, they shouldn’t have done that to you'. 'It’s okay Mom' I said, 'I can handle it'. My mom said, 'Now Mijo, you were born in San Francisco, CA, in America. You were born here, you are an American, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You see, Papa and I were not born here, but we moved to Los Estados Unidos to provide a better life for you.'. She paused for a moment and continued. 'Now, people are going to call you names, insult our culture, and try to put you down because of it. But you be proud, proud to be Mexican-American. You deserve to be here just as much as everyone else does, and don’t you forget that'. My mom had tears in her eyes while she said this. 'You don't have to be born in America to be an American'. She then got up, smiled, and went downstairs."

-Emilio Gonzales May 5th, 2017

I felt tears smoothly glide down my face as I placed my father’s journal back in my backpack. “He and my grandparents went through so much, and now, now I’m here. I’m the first one in my family going to a 4-year college” I thought looking up to the entrance of Fordham University down in Manhattan. “Si puede hacerlo, lo haré” I repeated to myself, as I walked through the double glass doors of Lowenstein, and took the long journey up the stairs to go to my first class.