If you have not heard about our racist president, you have been living under a rock. Since his election, many conservatives have felt the need to finally speak up and become openly racist. Since then, I have had some unfortunate encounters with White Americans.

As much as I am proud and bound to my Mexican culture, I am American. I was born in Texas, therefore, I am as American as many. When I am speaking my native language, Spanish, in public I sometimes get judgemental looks from those around me. As a young girl, I was naive as to why the public would see us that way.

As I matured, I started to understand that we are in America, so we should speak English. That is what I was told many times. The thing people do not understand or just do not want to is that my parents, as immigrants, have worked hard to get to this country and make a life of themselves.

That is not to degrade any American’s hard work, but when you live in a third world country that does not offer any opportunities to grow professionally, you become desperate.

In that moment of desperation, adults do what they have to in order to give their kids the best life they can. Grant it, in my case, my parents came to the US with no kids, which in a way made it easier for us to have completely grown up here.

My siblings and I do not know what it was like growing up in Mexico and having to pick up and move to another country. We do, however, know what it is like to have to live in a country that does not fully accept us.

It is astonishing that Americans can be so closed minded when this country was founded by immigrants. The Latino population is slowing crawling to the top, but people cannot seem to accept that we are here to stay.

Whatever race, culture or ethnicity you are, keep speaking in your native language. Celebrate your culture that you identify to because at the end of the day, you are doing what makes you happy and representing in the way you know how to