Born into a hispanic family and being a first generation American, I am very cultured. It is tough growing up in an American society and being raised to the ways of my parents. They were born and raised in Mexico and America is very different. I have the stereotypical parents. My mom is a maid and my dad works with air conditioning and refrigeration. When my parents grew up their was not a big emphasis on minorities to go to college as there were not as many resources available. Now people realize what minorities have to offer. My parents see me and hope that I make something of my life and encourage me to be more than just a maid or a care taker of myself. Minorities, like myself, have more to offer than the world than we are given credit for. People are realizing that minorities can do more than mowing lawns. I am an only child and my mother and father came to America with a dream to make a better life for themselves and for their children. I know I struggled with language since Spanish was my first language. I was born and raised on the Spanish language and as I grew older, I discovered the Spanish-English language barrier. Since I was young, my parents really put me out there and made me take control of conversations, because there was a wall and I was the only one who could communicate. So growing up I felt that I was always my own parent. I had to be the one to talk to the teachers about what was going on in my life and with people to get anything that needed to be done or bought. Sometimes I felt like I was seen as less or inadequate. Not only that, I suppose since I am not Caucasian, I was never really looked at with respect. I always felt lower or pushed aside. I felt ashamed of my race, my culture, my color. African Americans had their voices heard in the Civil Rights Movement, through hard work and perseverence, but our battle is just beginning. We have always just been over looked, now with planned construction of a wall to separate Mexico and the U.S. This has stirred up a big struggle and we are slowly starting to rise. We need the support of African Americans because they know what we have been going through and the hardships that are to come and they have still been making their way up in this world. I think Hispanics should be mentioned more in History, with our advancements and struggles we have had to overcome. Our achievements may not be as great as those of African Americans' but, they are significant to us because we accomplished important goals we had. We should not be separating ourselves from other minority groups, since we cannot contest alone. We should be uniting together with such groups as African Americans, as a means of support. We should be educated in colleges in order to gain knowledge, which will in turn aid us in obtaining better, respectable jobs, resulting in a contribution to the economy. I can only hope that we will work toward a better future and that all races will join together for the good of common man. I know as a young Hispanic female, my role will be to contribute and do my part to see that views are changed, stereotypes buried, and minorities prevail and find success. Finally as a minority, I will stay optimistic that the world can change its perspective of minorities through hard work distributed in schools by people like myself.
