Personal Narrative: My Stereotypes Of Being American

My whole life, I have always been required to be proud of my ethnicity. I am 18 years old now, and I am an American citizen. However, ask me where I am from and I will tell you, “I’m Mexican.” I say that because my family is and I have been taught to do so. It has become a natural habit of mine and others as well. Not only was I taught by my parents that I am Mexican, but I was always taught that the world is not a beautiful place. That there will be people who will hate me for who I define myself to be. As a child, it was hard to understand, but as I grew, the more I understood that my parents were right. America still is racist and unfair to those of another race. I cannot comprehend how being something other than American gives anyone the

At around the age of 4, I was the only one from my immediate family that was born here in the United states at the time. I have this clear memory of being in the car with my family, and my siblings were making fun of me because I am American, that I wasn 't Mexican like them. I felt embarrassed and wanted to be Mexican so bad like them. I never noticed race as a thing before, until my own siblings pointed it out. It just became more obvious to me over time. Then the concept of racism was taught to me and it was a whole other concept to understand.

There 's no such thing as slightly or extremely racist, that does not exist. If you 're racist, you 're racist. Hard to admit, but my own grandmother is one of those whom is racist. She would hate me if I were to ever marry someone of African roots. Or anyone that isn 't Mexican. She thinks they’re ugly and perhaps more but she expresses looks more. She is what made me first see racism firsthand. My grandmother isn 't as vulgar as some others but she is

It has impacted my life in every way it can. We have all been sort of indoctrinated to believe all these kinds of stereotypes. Which is why we see on television innocent people of color being shot to death by a white officer because they felt “unsafe.” Just like the case of Michael Brown in Missouri. He was killed by the police at the age of 18. Numbers or unarmed people of color being killed by police keep growing and things like this will continue to affect my life. Throughout middle and high school, we were told to never wear ripped jeans, hats that have any symbol on it, even if it was simply a sport, no bean is, not a lot of the color red or blue, no extremely loose pants, or any bandanas for our safety. We were told this was for “our safety.” The police can mistake us for someone or gangs can mistake us for being in another gang that can cause harm to us. I would find it a little ridiculous that we were restricted from so much but as much as I tried to ignore it, it was true. Things like that happens and continue to happen. It even happened to one of our students in my school. A 16 year old boy in my school was shot and killed. I don 't know all details but he would dress in baggy clothes. However, I can tell you that he was an innocent