Spanish Immigration Monologue

It’s always on the back of my mind, and resurfaces to my thoughts when i’m in any social setting regarding Spanish—my second language. I am Spanish, more so than my other nationalities. My father was born in Puerto Rico, and my mother, although being born here, along with her mother being Czechoslovakian and Polish, my mother’s father was born in Puerto Rico much like my own father. It always boggles me why I don’t look more Spanish due to the more Spanish heritage I contain. When people see me, they only see my pigment—white. They don’t see the Spanish part supposedly until I tell them, then they give me a “Right” or “I see it now” as if they’ve known or had been guessing all along. I can brush it all off my shoulder until I try to speak Spanish to others which I
I learned to avoid this by hiding my Spanish class from those family members going forward. This only got worse much to my dismay when we were asked to present in front of the class a dialogue with the teacher and respond to the teacher’s questions; picked at random of course. About 3 minutes into the conversation with the entire class staring at me, I had run out of general responses to dodge my teacher’s questions which, with time only became more complex. So embarrassed by my display I had fainted in front of the class only to wake up a minute later and spend the rest of my school day in the nurses office until my sister came to bring me home. With my high school reputation diminished, the rest of the semester went surprisingly better, I passed my final exam with a 93% and my aptitude for Spanish had increased with each coming year. Mastering my Spanish regents my junior year with an 87%, and passing the oral examination part with a perfect score much to my