I JUST WANTED TO FIT IN…

Let me explain…

The Whites and the Minorities

http://www.researchperspectives.org/gtr.grants/grant_0AF7DB52-BFF2-453B-95AD-9E5ED3DBC7FE.png

I was born here and thought that I had the same chances of exceeding in life like the Whites. I thought the fight was over and we were bound to be gifted with equality. And maybe it was written in an important peace of paper but that didn’t mean necessary actions where taken to protect it.

I am a Latin American. Just like most people who were born here and had immigrant parents, I also had to go through the struggle of never having richness or having equal opportunities to the rest of the people out there. Raised by Central Americans who hardly had any methods of striving more then what they already had. It was an everyday struggle and fight. Living in the worst conditions compared to the Whites, even when you where said to be part of them, them meaning the Americans. I was raised thinking I had the same opportunities and could have the same possible lifestyle, but instead I had my father deported and my mother struggle to even find a job to serve food at the table everyday.

Then I had to grow up never living day by day, I had to live worrying about how my tomorrow would look like and not trip over the bumpy roads of life because I knew if I did there was no coming up from there.

I knew then I could never be one of them, I would never reach to the level of the dominant.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/55157912ecad042f6afe0c0d-1190-625/the-wealth-gap-between-black-white-and-latino-families-in-the-us-is-astounding.jpg

That wasn’t the worst thing though.

The worst part was growing up with people who saw me different. I was born and raised here and have the roots of a Latina but what were the odds that in a family in which there is a total of about 11 brown skinned siblings, I would happened to be the only light skinned. Not just that but with tons of work I was the only one in my surroundings able to make it to a university. I was never truly accepted by those surrounding me the most. If we went out to parties, casual events, or any place where there was way more interaction with people I could always feel their stares and hear people ask my mother “ who is she” or “whose daughter is that.” I didn’t look like one of them and most definitely didn’t act like one of them because at the end of the day I had Americanism in me. And for that I could feel the rejection.

And even when I didn’t see myself through them I also knew I didn’t fit with those other people, meaning the whites. I didn’t act or posses none of the experiences and richness of the whites even though my world looked otherwise to someone who was part of the minority group.

I had this double-consciousness

Having this double consciousness is the belief that the Latin Americans in the United States live with two conflicting entities that cannot be entirely emerged together.

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963), In The Souls of Black Folk demonstrates this perfectly when he quotes,

“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.”

The problem was that I wanted to feel part of something. I desired to belong somewhere and that was impossible because the huge gap difference.

“In those sombre forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself, — darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission. He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another.”

I came to the realization that I cannot be sorry for myself. Those fortunate people live and don’t care about our situation. And all we do is live worrying and trying to reach to them.

I needed to realize that I didn’t need to compare myself with these people nor I had to desire what they had. I had to live my life to the fullest knowing that in my circumstances I lived the best I could knowing where I stood and being myself.

http://www.verybestquotes.com/being-your-true-self-quotes/

MY TRUE SELF.