midterm
In life there have not been many places where I feel as though I belonged. With family, friends and after school programs I never truly felt that I had a place where I could be myself. A lot of this stemmed from being too Mexican for the white kids and too white for the Mexican kids. With my family it was me being an independent child and always figuring things out, never truly relying on any of my family. Throughout this course I have been able to finally see that I was not the only person going through the issue of never fitting in, never having a place to truly be oneself.
When we first started reading Slincer by Whicker I thought it was just going to be poetry I would never understand, however, the more we read the more I realized that I did understand. Wicker was just a man who never felt he belonged. Minority children are born into a society where they can never truly belong without losing a part of themselves. Trying to fit in with the majority will cause you to lose your background, culture and the things that make you different. However trying to embrace your culture will cause people to look and stare, and judge from afar. Neither option leaves minority kids feeling safe, but I believe that is the point of everything. To never feel safe and create safety, if I had looked past never being enough of one culture I could have found people like me, people who never fit in with one side and together we would have been each other’s safety. All throughout life I tried time and time again to fit in and mold myself into a cookie cutter version of the people I was with when I should have been breaking the mold.
Looking into Herrars, work you can see the struggles he goes through as a Mexican American, the struggles he tries to navigate through finding his words in both languages he speaks. The power he reclaims when he decides to write in both English and Spanish is also power for all Hispanic Americans who are struggling to discover who they are. Being able to show the pride and power of being apart of such a wonderful culture is amazing and a struggle that several people battle to overcome.