Personal Narrative: The Culture Of Latinos

Shuffling through the grocery store, I hastily pushed my shopping cart along, crossing items off a crumpled list. After eyeing up the prices, I scribbled a line through my mother’s elegant cursive font. I smile at her misspellings of certain foods, despite her previously asking me to correct her. This goes on for some time. I have my items rung up and exchange pleasantries with the cashier, and carry on with my day. While I feel painfully self conscious under the glares of concerned adults, I quite enjoy the isolation. By the time I am done with the day’s errands, I rush home to prepare dinner for my parents. The chopping of vegetables is borderline therapeutic, but even more so when accompanied with dim lighting and a diverse playlist of

Being mixed, I struggled with never feeling Hispanic enough. Though I knew a lot about Panamanian culture, I didn’t speak Spanish, which is something a lot of Hispanic people are intolerant of. Hearing even close friends say that Latinos who can only speak English are a “waste of air” made me embarrassed of my upbringing. Additionally, the predominantly Mexican culture of Latinos in my hometown of San Antonio is completely different than the Caribbean isthmus I often visited as a child. I stood out from even my own family, lacking the coily curls and dark skin I saw in pictures of my relatives. With very little in common with the community, I felt like an

I dabbled in a little bit of everything during school, but my affinity for technology persisted from my childhood. Building computers from scratch, writing my own code, blogging, photography, competitive gaming, and selling digital art for commission set me apart from my peers. In the era before “social media star” was considered a desirable job for many my age, I felt like an odd one out, especially when faced with the subconscious sexism of the stem field. It must’ve been hard for the ignorant students to see me in my frilly freshman dance team outfit showing up to audio visual production class, because I could feel it in every interaction with them. Condescending tones, harsh glances, and judgement prevented me from becoming friends with many who shared the same interests as me. After all, no medical terminology student can carry around pom poms and still be intelligent enough to succeed, can