Hey Woke Brown Girl,

I see you. I see how difficult it is to fight stereotypes that surround you everyday. I feel the same way almost all of the time. I get called "sassy" and "spicy" all the time. I am told that I am too loud and that I care too much about other people. Honestly, all of these things are hard to change or to stop. Trust me, I have tried.

I am what people who call a "typical" Latina. I have dark eyes, dark hair, big hips and a big mouth. Lately, I have found myself sort of policing myself when it comes to having a big mouth.

When I witness injustices, I get fired up. I mean really fired up. I feel like if I don't say anything, it will bother me forever. I cannot help it, I just can't keep to myself, especially when it comes to defending myself. At school, there was this kid, right? He would make comments about Trump and it would make me question if he was a Trump fan or not. We would sometimes get into little debates, but they never escalated.

Once, he was playing "Rap God" by Eminem, talking about how fast he was rapping. He was talking about how he had never heard anyone rap faster then that. Well, me being a Latina and loving to listen to reggaeton, I have heard way faster, and Eminem has nothing on "Boricuas." I played him a song with Maldy and De La Ghetto where they rap SO fast, I had to look up the lyrics to see what they were saying. He was like: "Well they only rap faster because in Spanish, you have to use more words so that's why they rap faster."

Mind you, this guy was in Spanish 101 or something. Then I told him that he still had more to learn about Spanish and I was about to start talking about the differences in dialect when he hit me with this:

"Well I speak better English than you so..."

Oh no he did not. It got pretty ugly after that.

I went off. I was like: "because I'm a f****** wetback, right?! Because I just crossed the border to steal from you?!"

hijole.

So, if anyone knew anything about me, they would know that I did not grow up speaking Spanish. English in fact is my first language, my native tongue. However, because of my brown skin and nasty stereotypes about Latinxs in general, this guy thought that I cannot speak English as well as he does. Somehow, his white skin makes him superior and smarter than me. He somehow deserved to be there (in college) more than I did.

I felt terrible for the way I reacted. I kept thinking about how this was only going to add to the stereotype of loud and emotional Latinas. I mean, we see it all the time. Think about Sofia Vergara in "Modern Family," Jennifer Lopez in "Maid in Manhattan," the list can go on and on.

It was not until months later in my "Women's Concerns" class from a few of my classmates did I realize that I don't need to be policing myself any longer. I told them the exact same story as I just wrote and I talked about how bad I felt for being so angry and emotional about it. One of my classmates told me, "but it was okay for him to tell you that? You had a right to be upset!"

They have a point.

Why is it that he can tell me something with racist undertones, but I can't respond with anger? Is it something I learned? Well either way, I am done policing myself.

So, I have a list statements to help myself remember this, and maybe it will help other Latinxs out there, too.

1. Your feelings are valid, and you can express them anyway you want to.

2. Don't feel bad for reacting the way you do when someone tries to put you down, especially when they don't feel like they need to apologize.

3. Always defend yourself. You have some this far, and you do not deserve to be treated like this.

4. Keep fighting against injustices. I know it seems hard now, but one day it will be worth it.

I will just leave you with one more thing, a quote from the great Gloria Anzaldua:

“Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out.”

Sigue luchando, chulas.

xx