Mixed Generations

"White-Washed"

Am I "White-washed"?

To be honest, I don't know. I kinda do feel like it and I kinda don't.

I mean, I get the Hispanic culture. For ejemplo (example), I get the whole growing up struggles of getting hit with la chancla, or the belt, or the hanger, or being thrown at with the remote; I get the whole 'If you hear music playing on a Saturday morning, you know you're gonna clean the whole house'; those things I get.

I even had a qinceañera. I didn't want to be those Hispanic girls who had a Sweet 16 to be more "gueta".

I just think I want to be more connected to my culture but the problem with that is that, I don't speak Spanish. I just can't. I've tried learning and teaching myself, but it's just been hard. I can't even roll my 'Rs'. At this point, you're probably thinking, "Que?! Está niña no habla Español?!"

I know, I get that a lot. Even the dirty looks from cashiers at Mexican restaurants when I don't order in Spanish. Now you're probably thinking, "Obviously, it's part of your culture and if you look like one, they probably expect you to speak Spanish."

I know. The fact that I'm tan and dark-haired and such, I'm scared to even get a job. Here in Nebraska, I live in a town with the mojority of the people being Hispanic/ Latino. Literally, the only jobs here is the grocery store or working at McDonald's in the town 15 minutes away.

The point is, since I look Hispanic/Latina, people assume I speak Spanish. So then I'm in that awkward zone of telling them that I don't speak Spanish. I could read it, write it, and understand it, but speaking it not my forté. I have a somewhat accent though when do try to speak it.

According to my parents, they say that I did speak Spanish until I was in kindergarten. I even remember that I did have to take a ESL/ ELL class (English-As- A- Second-Language, English-Language- Learning) in kindergarten since the school thought I had bad English, but in reality, I was just extremely shy and never talked that much. So that made me then lose all my Spanish.

Now in school, is even more annoying. I'm the only 3rd generation Hispanic in my entire school. Everyone else is 2nd or 1st, and I feel like I don't fit in. So then, I thought "Why make friends with the White kids?", well...that didn't work. I wasn't "country girl" like them. They all knew about they're country music and being in FFA and such. So then, I try hanging with the dancer girls. I was in dance also at the same local dance studio they went to. Problem is, most of them, if not all of them, we're in competition team. So, they were mostly brats and used to make fun of me 'cause of my dark skin (since the nude-colored straps on our dance costumes would always be so light on my shoulders) and called my "Fat Princess" 'cause of my curvy-ness.

So, I gave up on trying to fit in to either group. It's like what my friends say, "The thing is "You're too White for Hispanics but too Hispanic for White people."

It sounded like a bad thing, but I've been trying to make it a good thing.