Heritage

So I’m sitting in a computer lab during school and have over heard some classmates talking about a famous Hispanic artist named Selena. They started singing one of her songs, which I have on my phone, and I couldn’t help but sing along. I was singing quietly when I decided to just tune them out and play the song. Soon after, here I am, sitting and singing "Como La Flor" when I try to forget that I don’t have many friends of the same heritage as myself…and I miss that.

When I was in elementary school I was surrounded by people who are of similar backgrounds and now I’m always with people who are different. I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining because I’m not, I just wish I had more friends who I could mess around with and we could relate.

You may wonder why I don’t just make friends with the other students that were singing Selena, and that’s an excellent point you make. But the issue is that I can’t. Or rather, I don’t know how. They were speaking perfect English and I know they will understand me but I feel like somewhere along the line I’ve come to look down upon my culture and the people within it. Watching the news or hearing about people in my family/distant family friends, I learn about the mistakes some people have made and I can’t help but be disappointed. Here we are as one ethnicity and we hate when people judge us by the color of our skin, but yet we continue to give them reasons to degrade us!

Please, explain to me why some Hispanics get so defensive when the people who are judging them have every reason to do so? Do we, as a separate culture not provide them with the "ammo" to treat us the way they do? And by they, I refer to anyone who looks down on Hispanics or sees them as a lower social class.

Well…this entry has taken an unexpected turn. I was suppose to just talk about how I didn’t know how to befriend the Hispanic kids at school because I had spent so much time with Caucasian people. Cultures and lifestyles tend to rub off on you…again, not that I’m complaining.

Jeez, this is so not coming out right.