Proud to Be Latina?

My name is Martha, I am full Mexicana, and I have never been proud of my ethnicity.

Allow me to start from the very beginning. Martha is my given birthname, a classic Mexican name usually pronounced “Marta”, also shared by millions of others. It’s basically the Ashley or Sarah of Mexican names.

And I got my adopted Father’s last name, who just happens to be a Tejano (Texas Mexican). I was adopted at the age of four by an interracial couple. My mom is a white woman whose family immigrated from The South. She considers herself to be a Caucasian mutt. Well, she fell in love with my dad and they adopted me, a little Mexicana from foster care. Mom said she was forced to select an ethnic group before the social worker could start picking out children for them to meet. Dad is full Mexican and I suspect that may be why my mother picked my ethnic group, lucky for me anyway, she liked me and I liked her. And we became a little happy family. For a while.

Dad wasn’t too present growing up. And I’m not boo-hooing over it, that’s just to prove that as a dad he could have potentially played a bigger role in my life than he did. And since we share the same heritage that probably has some relevance here.

Mom had to play the mother and the father role, therefore I got most of my life lessons and cultural quirks from her. Though, I did learn about Mexican cuisine when my Dad would often make enchiladas, menudo, and Spanish rice. He also taught me how to roll my R’s and that helped when I took Spanish in high school, even though he could speak it fluently. Mom tried to get him to teach me Spanish, but it just never happened. She knew it was important for me to learn about my heritage as much as I was learning about her’s.

I never got to meet my dad’s side of the family, who are all still living in Texas. Thus, the family that I grew up around were all white.

You see where I’m headed with this, right?

White culture was what I was used to, I grew up in it. My dad’s home cooking wasn’t enough to make me feel part of the heritage that I shared with him. I was essentially a white girl.

Largely, I learned of my Hispanic heritage through portrayals on television and from the other Latinas at school. There weren’t too many of them and they weren’t very friendly to me. They didn’t see me as one of them. My features are somewhat ambiguous, if it wasn’t for my name, they’d never believe I was Latina. My eyes are often mistaken to be that of Asian origin, my hair is wild and curly and my skin is a light beige. The Mexican girls at my school had straighter hair and darker skin. But Mexico is big and we come in all shades and varieties. Obviously, there is ignorance even within ethnic groups.

In grade school, despite my mother telling me how beautiful my hair was, I desperately wanted straight blonde hair in place of my dark and thick curly mane. She said the kids were just envious of my good hair when I told her how they teased me. They called my hair “poofy” and “giant”, because they weren’t used to seeing hair as thick as mine. The boys liked to throw things at me to see things like erasers get lost into the coiled abyss of my locks. In high school, people mistakenly thought I must be part Black, regardless of the fact that my hair didn’t resemble the texture or look of their hair either. As soon as I could, I started straightening my hair to fit in.

The Mexicans at my High school stuck together and spoke in Spanish all the time, so they weren’t an easy group to infiltrate. My best friends were white, and I was enrolled in Spanish 1A learning to speak Spanish alongside them. To them, I was not a true Mexican.

I started to despise my Mexican culture because I felt excluded from it. As I got older I realized Mexicans had a negative connotation, and I decided I didn’t want to be a part of that stigma anyway. They were the butt of jokes; the taco man, the gardener, the house cleaner, the illegal. Since I could pass for nearly anything, I started telling people I was Polynesian, Creole, Egyptian even, anything but a whitewashed Mexican. At least being exotic made me interesting, instead of being labeled as one of them.

Keep in mind, this WAS my thinking growing up. I have now reached a decent understanding of how things came to be in our present-day society. I am no longer just aware, but I comprehend why there are stereotypes about different ethnic groups, such as Mexicans.

That being said, I see there is a big gap between my ethnic group and others, similar to the gap faced by African-Americans in society. Mexicans have a higher likelihood of teenage pregnancy, dropping out of school, and going to prison. Mexicans are behind, and this is due to a lot of reasons.

For example, I can’t help but notice at my corporate job, the other Latinas around me are part of the janitorial staff, taking out my trash and cleaning the windows. In fact, there is only a small percentage of Hispanic woman who hold white-collar positions at my company. But I see this everywhere. There is a basic education level for many white-collar positions that far less Latinos hold than their Caucasian, Asian, and Indian counterparts.

What comes to your mind when you think of a Latina?

On social media, they are profiled for being curvy, loud, good at cooking, being good dancers etc. But Latinas are not commonly associated with being smart and successful. Sure, Latinas are known for being ride or die girlfriends and doing makeup, but not entirely known for being well educated or ambitious. The real reason why I didn’t fit in with the Latinas at my school growing up wasn’t really because I didn’t speak Spanish. It was because I was on a different playing field. The day that I got adopted into a white family I was set on a different path. I was groomed to go to college and be my own person, they were groomed to get married and take care of their families. Different cultures, different income levels, different playing fields.

This is why I don’t say I’m proud to be a Latina.

But I’m not ashamed either.

I want to encourage other Latin women and men to push themselves. I want to see more of us going to college and competing for white-collar jobs. I want to see less of my people in prison and more at the table in business meetings. Mexican-Americans may be behind, but we are just as capable of success.

I am slowly beginning to appreciate my heritage and the history of my ancestors. It doesn’t matter how people choose to profile you, as long as you know who you are and don’t change yourself to fit into a mold. I still don’t quite fit into either the White or the Mexican mold, and that’s OK.