Personal Narrative: I Am Mexican By Langston Hughes

Growing up in a Mexican culture, where my family came straight from the motherland, my first language was Spanish. Spanish was my first language because I lived with my grandparents who only spoke to me in Spanish. I made myself believe that I was born in Mexico because Spanish was my first language. Of course at school there are many ethnicities, when people would ask me what I was I would say “I'm Mexican.”. This “name” or “calling” of Mexican greatly impacted my life in the way I see myself and in the way society sees me.
In elementary school there are many different races. Since we all looked different we would just ask each other “What are you?” what you would respond was whatever you wanted to be in that person's eyes. When I would be …show more content…
Thus, I become very offended when people in society refer to us as wetbacks, churros, beaner, and worst of all alien. In Langston Hughes short essay “that word black” the person that’s dialogue as Simple says “‘[…] Now, as I was saying, the word black, white folk have done used that word to mean something bad […]’” (Hughes 85). By Hughes mention of white people making the word black mean something bad I interpreted it the same for the word alien. People have made the word alien mean something bad to a Mexican. Alien means belonging to a foreign country or nation, but they call us aliens because we are said to be trespasser who look different and not do not have identification. That is wrong, because we have identity and we are humans just like everyone else. I strongly believe being called an alien by anyone is intolerable, but now society makes it seem like its “ok” to be called an …show more content…
Some stereotype jokes that i get are “Hey Tati is that your dad? That gardener over there?” or “Hey Tati how much does your mom get paid to cut fruit?” When I hear these stereotypes I get angry because my dad isn't a gardener and my mom doesn't sell fruit at the corner. in Hughes essay he says “ ‘God knows there was few, if any, Negroes selling stuff on the black market[…]’ ”(Hughes 86), he says this because blacks have the stereotype of selling illegal stuff in the black market but he mentions that there probably wasn't any black people involved with the black market. It’s just a stereotype that is given to black people by society just like society says that all Mexicans are gardeners and fruit stand sellers. Not all Mexicans have those jobs, most actually retain real jobs, like my dad who trains people to make JBL speakers.
I may not have been born in Mexico, but I do hold a lot of that county. I may be called out by society, may be called all these offensive names that are misleading of my ethnicity, and yes I may even have all these stereotypes but that’s all society. I know that I'm none of those things. I'm proud to call myself a Mexican because one day I will be that Mexican that society will call an engineer, doctor, or Mexican scientists that found the cure to