Recently, I came across a post by a lovely young woman, Monica, where she was apart of a exhibition, "Politics of Womenhood," where it explores what it means to be a woman, where one redefines stereotypes and expectations. It was created by a young artist, Zuly Garcia. You can find her empowering work here. After reading Monica's instagram post, it made me think about my own experience about struggling accepting who I am and where I came from.

As a child, I never wanted to embrace the fact that I came from Mexican-born parents. It wasn't because I ashamed of them but it was difficult growing up in vastly different environment compared to where they were raised. They were surrounded by people who only spoke Spanish, who looked similar to them. However, I didn't have that. Even though New York City is melting pot of so many backgrounds, I couldn't help but feel somewhat isolated.

Even though I had some hispanic friends, majority of my childhood friends were white. I didn't intentionally make white friends, but I never found people that came from the same background as me until later in life. In those particular instances I felt different from them, mostly because they were much light than me and I was darker than them.

Growing up, I was made to think that looking white and skinny meant that you were beautiful. Through movies and television shows, all I ever saw was white people and in particular white girls and essentially them being praised as being beautiful. But I never once saw someone who looked like me being represented in the way white women were through media.

European beauty and Eurocentric features was all I ever saw and it made me question if I would ever be as pretty as those white girls. It was the biggest insecurity I kept fighting as a young girl and it was the roughest years of my life.

Compared to the white girls I went to school with, I always compared myself to them. They were vastly different from me. They had slender bodies where I would have a curvy one. Their blonde straight hair would make me feel insecure about my long thick brown locks.

I distinctly remember getting made fun of my big head and nose in my elementary/middle school days. My nose in particular was something that affected me the most. It's scary that those comments from people had an impact on me at such a young age, it was traumatizing.

There was also another elementary school incident, at the time this girl was supposedly my friend, but after what she said, it changed. This was the time where the H1N1 influenza broke out and it affected people in Mexico. This was weeks after I had just come back from visiting Mexico for the first time. This girl had the audacity to tell people I had the H1N1 virus just because I'm Mexican. Her wrongfully aimed 'joke' was uncalled for.

But somewhere along the lines, I finally was able to accept who I am. My brown skin is something I cherish and love more about myself. My beautiful pierced nose that was brought down to me by many ancestors.

Those particular moments made me insecure about who I was and overall hiding the fact that I'm Mexican, simply because I was afraid of getting made fun of simply because where I came from.