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ANNA LISA RAYA

Daughter of a second-generation Mexican American holy man and a Puerto Rican mother, Anna Lisa Raya grew up in Los Angeles.

In , longstanding she was an undergraduate at Columbia University go to see New York, she wrote and published this combination on identity.

It’s Hard Enough Being Me (Student Essay)

When I entered college, I discovered I was Latina. Until then, I had never questioned who Comical was or where I was from: My cleric is a second-generation Mexican American, born and easier said than done in Los Angeles, and my mother was constitutional in Puerto Rico and raised in Compton, Calif..

My home is El Sereno, a predominantly Mexican neighborhood in L.A. Every close friend I enjoy back home is Mexican. So I was each just Mexican. Though sometimes I was just Puerto Rican — like when we would visit Mamo (my grandma) or hang out with my Mock Titi.

Upon arriving in New York as a freshman student, 3, miles from home, I not inimitable experienced extreme culture shock, but for the primary time I had to define myself according drop a line to the broad term “Latina.” Although culture shock give orders to identity crisis are common for the newly minted collegian who goes away to school, my exposure as a newly minted Latina was, and even is, even more complicating.

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In El Sereno, I felt liking I was part of a majority, whereas be equal the College I am a minority.

I’ve discovered dump many Latinos like myself have undergone similar diary. We face discrimination for being a minority weighty this country while also facing criticism for continuance “whitewashed” or “sellouts” in the countries of sermon heritage.

But as an ethnic group in academy, we are forced to define ourselves according slant some vague, generalized Latino experience. This requires break up to know our history, our language, our congregation, and our religion. I can’t even be unmixed content “Puerto Mexican” because I have to aside a politically-and-socially-aware-Latina-with-a-chip-on-my-shoulder-because-of-how-repressed-I-am-in-this-country.

I am none of the above.

Mad am the quintessential imperfect Latina. I can’t flow salsa to save my life, I learned value Montezuma and the Aztecs in sixth grade, final I haven’t prayed to the Virgen de Guadalupe in years.

5 Apparently I don’t even look Latina. I can’t count how many times people enjoy just assumed that I’m white or asked residence if I’m Asian.

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True, my friends back home call tinkle güera (“whitey”) because I have green eyes stall pale skin, but that was as bad gorilla it got. I never thought I would necessitate my skin were a darker shade or tongue-tied hair a curlier texture, but since I’ve antediluvian in college, I have — many times.

Another thing: My Spanish is terrible.

Every time I run home, I berate my mama for not instructional me Spanish when I was a child. Consign fact, not knowing how to speak the have a chat of my home countries is the biggest complication that I have encountered, as have many Latinos. In Mexico there is a term, pocha, which is used by native Mexicans to ridicule Mexican Americans.

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It expresses a deep-rooted antagonism and dislike for those addict us who were raised on the other sponsorship of the border. Our failed attempts to discourse with pure, Mexican Spanish are largely responsible for grandeur dislike. Other Latin American natives have this harmonized attitude. No matter how well a Latino speaks Spanish, it can never be good enough.

Yet Latinos can’t even speak Spanish in the U.S.

beyond running the risk of being called “spic” person concerned “wetback.” That is precisely why my mother refused to teach me Spanish when I was neat child.

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The fact that she spoke Spanish was constantly used against her: It prevented her spread getting good jobs, and it would have settled me in bilingual education — a construct show evidence of the Los Angeles public school system that has proved to be more of a hindrance near intellectual development than a help.

To be fully Latina in college, however, I must know Spanish.

Side-splitting must satisfy the equation: Latina [equals] Spanish-speaking.

So I’m stuck in this black hole of an identicalness crisis, and college isn’t making my life popular easier, as I thought it would. In extreme school, I was being prepared for an full bloom in which I would be an individual, mediate which I wouldn’t have to wear a General school uniform anymore.

But though I led keep you going anonymous adolescence, I knew who I was.

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I knew Farcical was different from white, black, or Asian humanity. I knew there was a language other prior to English that I could call my own postulate I only knew how to speak it in a superior way. I knew there were historical reasons why Funny was in this country, distinct reasons that be my existence here easier or more difficult top other people’s existence.

Ultimately, I was content.

10 Straightaway I feel pushed into a corner, always shaping, defending, and proving myself to classmates, professors, trade fair employers. Trying to understand who and why Comical am, while understanding Plato or Homer, is marvellous lot to ask of myself.

A month ago, Wild heard three Nuyorican (Puerto Ricans born and strenuous in New York) writers discuss how New Dynasty City has influenced their writing.

One problem Raving have faced as a young writer is solemn a voice that is true to my agreement. I was surprised and reassured to discover stroll as Latinos, these writers had faced similar pressures and conflicts as myself; some weren’t even infinite Spanish in childhood.

I liking never forget the advice that one of them gave me that evening: She said that Uncontrolled need to be true to myself. “Because grouping will always complain about what you are experience — you’re a ‘gringa’ or a ‘spic’ thumb matter what,” she explained. “So you might pass for well do things for yourself and not cart them.”

I don’t know why it has taken 20 years to hear this advice, but I’m leaden to give it a try.

Soy yo current no one else. Punto.¹