Why must we do these two things? One puts people into boxes, labels them, and creates some sort of checklist onto them. There are too many people in this world that those boxes cannot capture one single race or ethnicity into one. Reading about Aleichia’s experience growing up makes you think and realize that so many people have had this very same experience as if it were a right of passage to self-awareness of your very own skin color. Something you never pointed your mind to because you are just a kid not self-aware of the world around you. A world that will judge you and treat you one way just for your skin color.
While it may be normal to find so much diversity in New York as one of its nicknames is the “mixing pot”. But for Aleichia moving to North Carolina things were very different. Here people just didn’t “mix”. Everyone keeps to their own race. For Aleichia this not only causes confusion as to who she is but self-awareness of her skin color. Something she normally paid no mind to. Her skin color says she’s black, but her culture says she is Latina. In her case, she cannot be both. This is because people cannot comprehend that a black person can be more than the stereotype that society has created for them.
I think for myself and many others being first-generation Mexican- American there is the issue of not being enough Mexican for my parents, because I don’t speak Spanish all the time, or because I don’t follow the traditions of my culture. But I am not “fully” American because I am not “white”. Honestly, I was somewhat embarrassed about being Mexican because of the stereotypes people made up of Mexicans. But I grew up to love and be proud to say I’m Mexican, that I speak two languages, come from a culture of amazing food, music, etc. I will also say I’m American, not just because I was born and raised in America but because I am made American, I am made Mexican, it is who I am.
In the Power of Identity Politics, something that stood out to me was the conversation of representation in cinema. It correlates to how we view other ethnicities and cultures. Movies and tv are our glimpse into cultures we have not associated with. Just how people think Mexicans come from drug dealers, and all Mexican girls get pregnant as teenagers. Why do people think this because of what they see? But we all know you can’t believe everything you read and watch on tv or online. But for this very reason, we need more representation because right now there is this idea that a black person cannot be Latina because of her skin color, that she must choose one and place herself in a box.
