My Family Background Of Monte Grande

Family Background
Being a Latina in 2017 has given me a unique perspective and a different outlook on my culture. I was born and raised in Mexico City and immigrated to the United States when I was five years old. I consider my family to be rich in tradition and culture although we have assimilated into the American Culture. Over the past generations, my family has lived in the same small town of Monte Grande, in our home state of Guerrero on the southern region of Mexico. With a population less than 400, this small town was very limited in all aspects. In Monte Grande there is no middle class, there is either wealthy or poor. Half of the student will not make it pass elementary school and have no possibility to even attend middle or high
I was placed out of the ESOL department and was put in monolingual classes. I vividly remember a classmate made my second grade experience horrible, every morning she would come and tell me I belong to the other classroom. Putting my head down I knew she meant the ESOL class which had mainly Latino kids. I didn’t realize how much that impacted me; she didn’t know how difficult it was for me to be at the same educational level as them. I was brought from Mexico I was still learning how to adapt to everything around me, it didn’t really get to me that much but one time she started telling me things about my family. I would always try to sit the furthest from her but it never stopped her from making horrible comments. There was a time when we had to draw our family, she was my partner and we had to share crayons she took all and only gave me the brown, white and black crayons. I excused myself while I cried in the restroom. At the time I didn’t know how to handle the situation and saw myself as the target, now I’m proud of my culture and I don’t let discriminator comments get to
I was almost always spending time with the kids in my neighborhood. I never recall asking myself why other kids were a different shade. But my parents didn’t see it the same way; since they worked for different races they saw people different. Middle school was when I first started hearing the race jokes from my peers. At first it was just jokes and funny but as I got older it became more offensive. One day my older brother was known to be dating a girl from another race and that's when I realize that not everyone was seen as datable in our family. I've had friends of different race and they were always welcomed in my house but somehow I knew it would be different if it was more than a friendship with them. It was not that my parents/family was discriminating; I think it was more that they were scare of change. Being victim of discrimination my parents felt like it would be safe for us to stay with the same race. Fearing that we would be discriminated the same way they