For some people, when they first see me, they don't automatically see a Hispanic woman. Maybe it's because my skin isn't dark enough to those who believe all Hispanics are dark skinned. Or maybe it's because I'm not curvy enough for the standards society has put on the belief that all Hispanic women are curvaceous. It could also possibly be that I don't have a heavy accent like many people believe Hispanics do. For others, they know right off the bat that I am not white and that I am of some sort of Hispanic or Latin ethnicity. Maybe it's because I speak incredibly loud like most Hispanic women do to make their presence known. Maybe it's the dark, curly hair with the big brown eyes that give me away. Or possibly because the way I say basic words like tortilla is different from the way a non-Hispanic might say it. Whatever it may be, once a person meets me and gets to know me, they learn that I take pride in where I'm from and my heritage.

I don't hide the fact that I'm Hispanic; never have, never will. I grew up with a very large family on my mom's side and holidays were never boring. They were never very quiet either. I remember going over to my aunt's house for thanksgiving and having massive amounts of food out on the counter for me to pick and choose from and all the kids running around, screaming and laughing. I remember her small living room taken over by Christmas presents for the thirty-something grandkids. The laughing and squeals of excitement as the wrapping paper was ripped apart and the gifts were revealed. I remember my grandparents taking me to Cancun for a few days at a time and visiting Tijuana for the day. I remember my grandparents telling me stories about growing up in Mexico and my parents telling me about the things they grew up with. While I didn't grow up in Mexico or with an extremely heavy influence, I did grow up with these pieces of my heritage that gave me this sense of pride in the culture I was a part of.

When I moved to Pennsylvania, to say I had whiplash from the lack of Hispanic influence is an understatement. I had never experienced such a strong culture shock until I started school at Slippery Rock University. I don't believe this experience was a bad one, I think it helped me learn to adapt to my surroundings and learn from the people who grew up in a different culture than I did. I think my worst experience was when my heritage and my ethnicity was abused. Racism was somewhat of a foreign concept to me because growing up in Los Angeles, there was such an eclectic mix of races and cultures that it seemed almost impossible for someone to be racist. Moving to Pennsylvania, I learned that people can be racist and the worst kind is the one that isn't malicious.

There would be things said to me about my race and my culture that made me realize that racism wasn't always malicious. It was the ignorant comments that stung the most because they were assumptions about me simply because I proudly stated that I was Hispanic. My first couple weeks at college, I was accused of being an illegal immigrant and I was singled out by my peers who hid behind an anonymous account on Yik Yak. I was completely mortified and hurt. The only information this person knew about me was that I was Hispanic and my name, so they assumed that I was an illegal immigrant. It was after this that I began to see the racial problems that were going on around me.

I became aware of the white supremacy that still exists, and in most cases it's very subtle. I became aware of the wide-eyed stares I got when I began to speak in Spanish if my grandmother called me. I became aware of how much I stuck out in the crowd because the way I held myself was different from everyone else. I became very aware of the way people treated or reacted to me when I told them I was Hispanic. It was never a bad thing if someone was genuinely curious in my culture and the way I grew up and they kept an open mind but I automatically shut myself off if assumptions were made about me. This happened a lot and soon I learned that instead of shutting myself off, I needed to take a stand.

Now I'm learning to not take offense if someone says something ignorant about my race or culture. I'm learning to puff my chest up a little when assumptions are made about me and use the proud Latina attitude I gained from my mother to defend myself. I'm learning to speak as fluently as I can in Spanish and make it known that I will not be pushed down by racism because that wasn't how I was raised.