The way I look, the way I seem can all be described in one word.

Or should I say, one fruit.

A coconut.

Okay, I know what you are thinking, what on earth are you talking about comparing yourself to a hard, hairy fruit that seems to have no correlation to a human whatsoever?

Well, the metaphor was first explained to me when I was in the seventh grade, as my identity was at the brink of sprouting.

I can still remember the moment, and this is exactly how it went:

“You are definitely a coconut,” my seventh grade classmate uttered with confidence, starling me with confusion.

The simple statement sent me in a complicated confounded direction of anger.

What does that even mean? I asked myself staring blankly at my classmate.

Is this supposed to be a new type of an insult?

Do I resemble some sort of round seedling fruit in some sort?

Before I could even reply or even comment on the statement, she began to explain how a coconut is brown on the outside, and white on the inside.

“You resemble a coconut because you are brown, but you act as a white person. You don’t act like a Mexican at all.”

Suddenly, I was hit with a stereotype that I had never come across before.

So how are Hispanics to “act” according to this stereotype, and what is the correlation between my color and my personality? Is there suppose to be a universal way in which Mexicans or Hispanics are suppose to be?

This moment has stuck with me for a long time, and I never really understood what the pressing issue was until now.

The pressing issue behind the statement “what are you?”

Being a Mexican-American woman, my culture and my heritage is a big part of my life. I was raised living a Hispanic lifestyle full of culturally enriched foods, speaking Spanish as my first language and practicing everyday tasks in ways that were passed along for generations.

But in some ways, people would get to know me and would say that they could not identify me as a Hispanic at all.

Why was that, even though I could speak frequent Spanish and knew my ethnic background very clearly?

You see, people of our world, our society, identify Hispanics to have a certain image and way of acting. Just because I didn’t “listen to Mexican music all day and hung out with only Hispanics” did not mean I wasn’t a part of that community. This doesn’t just go for Hispanics but for other ethnic groups as well. African- Americans defined as violent beings and athletic Olympic runners; the expectations and negative stigmas that cause society to act a certain way towards certain minorities.

What culture has taught us is that traditions have created norms. The norms for each co-culture pulls people in specific roles that are played within society. We are the leading cause of segregation, through our fix mindsets.

So Hispanics are known to be “great salsa dancers and cooks”, that does not apply to every Hispanic or Mexican person on earth.

There is a whole different realm of individuals out there that embrace their ethnicity and culture, but are mistreated by their color or stereotyped through the views of people who have a fix mind set on how the world is suppose to be.

Those negative stigmas and stereotypes has become a barrier for progression for co-cultures and minorities.

I should not be an exception of my Hispanic community because I “act white”.

I am a person of strong Mexican descent, a person born in Juarez, Mexico. But, I am also a person who loves going to music festivals, drinks kombucha, and loves listening to indie and electronic music, who speaks frequent Spanish AND frequent English.

I guess people classify me as a white person at heart just by my likes and hobbies, but how do you define being white?

Currently, the millennial generation and Gen X are becoming a part of breaking these set social norms and cultural constraints.

I will always be Hispanic. You got to know that everyone has their own distinct flair. Don’t worry, that doesn’t make you a little less “Mexican” or whatever ethnicity you are.