The first time I remember hearing the word "Chicano" was in a b.s. class in high school in the eleventh grade. The teacher was showing us a movie about the California Chicano school walkouts: "Walkout". (Keep in mind, I am in Dallas, Texas, and my grandparents were some of the first Mexicans in a formally white neighborhood, however Dallas today is 40% Latinx)

I had to Google the word for more information. It would be nearly two years before I starting using the word to identify myself.

I have struggled with my identity since, well ever. My sisters always said I was not related to them because I was basically white: I didn't speak Spanish, I hated beans and cheese, I did not like old school Mexican music, or hip-hop; seven more Mexican stereotypes I did not fit. In my neighborhood back in Dallas, there were three things you could be: black, Mexican, white.

I am not black. I am not Mexican enough. That left me with one choice: gringro or "white-boy".

I lived with that identity in my 99% Latinx majority elementary and middle schools.(I would share a picture from this time, but I hated cameras until the age of 15, when puberty finally hit).

My magnet high school was significantly more diverse, and I saw actually white people on a regular basis, and I realized that I definitely was not white. I started using the word all government papers say: Hispanic.

Me: before freshman year of high school. That is a 2XL shirt and I was 14.

it sounded right. Hispanic. No one really questioned it, especially after the age of 15, when I finally hit puberty and at least looked like I could defend myself

My sister, father and I: from the last picture about two years past, and I grew 6 inches and lost 20lbs.

Then I watched that movie in the 11th grade, and for two years, on and off, I wondered about that word: Chicano. It sounded somehow more Mexican. Hispanic seemed like an American word, but Chicano rolls off the tongue like a Spanish word.

Then I got into college in California, and I got an email from the Chican@/Latin@ Student Affairs (CLSA) Office and a Facebook message from my CLSA mentor. I was too ashamed to admit I did not fully understand the word Chican@, or even ask what the @, meant let alone why I needed someone to mentor me about being Hispanic.

When I moved into my predominantly white and black college hallway, I was the only one who was alone, and it was the loneliest I ever felt. Then my CLSA mentor and her friends came to my lonely, tiny room. I was so happy to see their brown faces, and I made an idiotic comment about a white-Latino, that I regret to this day, because I did not know we came in all shades of the rainbow yet.

Then I went on the CLSA retreat. I had never felt so comfortable in a Latinx space. I was never Mexican enough in Dallas, but no one really cared there.

I have not felt that comfortable since; I would not take a class about Chinc@s for another year.

I would not learn about Lydia Mendoza, or Zapata, Operation Wetback, the Soladaras, Pachucos, xicanos, Cortez, Atzlan, Doreles Huerta, the Spanish Castas, and the so much more that the State of Texas and the Dallas Independent School District thought a large minority of their residents did not need to know about, until I was a legal adult.

I still question exact what the fuck I am. I know there is a level of Chicanoness I do not adhere to because it is still very machista and I still don't know exactly what to put when this pops up.

I am not any of those things, I fact I am probably some part all those things (yes there are Asians in Mexico).