[Music]
[Laughter]
you
I am a procrastinator this speech was
procrastinated until the last minute and
I’m not ashamed to share that with
anyone you see I had this idea that’s
what a talk is isn’t it but I got myself
down with all the pressure that I felt I
felt as though I had no right to speak
for anyone but I realized now the only
person that I can and will speak for is
myself now moving to America is a
struggle that I will never know it seems
like some sort of scaring story that
I’ve only ever heard from my sister a
tale woven intricately but muffled by
time almost like a game of telephone she
told me that my great-grandmother Nina
moved to this country from Mexico across
from the border into Texas she did this
in roughly the 1950s
no one knows for sure since Nina is a
distant memory for most everyone and my
family during this time America was
divided and very heavily into a certain
social hierarchy White’s on top
african-americans second tier and
Mexicans on the bottom Mexicans were
seen as dirty and were taught to be
ashamed of their ancestry my grandmother
saw this and decided that if she was
going to survive she would have to
assimilate into American culture when
Nina had children she sent them to
school and she asked them to teach her
English and other American customs as
they became more Americanized she beat
her children if they spoke even a word
of Spanish or acted Mexican at all this
mindset has been passed down through my
family and it is the main reason for my
lack of knowledge on my heritage and the
reason that I do not speak Spanish when
I was younger I had a very small
perception of the world around me but
the one thing that stood out to me the
most was the color of my skin I grew up
in sunny Southern California sir
by people who were just as dark as
Iowa’s we shared brown hair and brown
eyes but there was something that I
lacked I didn’t speak the same language
since I was young I didn’t give it much
thought when I finally got into school I
realized that not all the kids looked
like I did some were pale with freckles
blond hair blue eyes others was skin
much deeper than my own there’s a very
clear divide between all of us that
divide being culture the white kids were
always more popular deemed prettier and
overall better than the rest the Mexican
kids spoke a language that I had only
ever heard and whispered conversations
between family members but louder and
always seen as troublemakers since I
didn’t speak the same language as the
other Brown children and I wasn’t
exceptionally popular or very involved
in school I began to have a pretty big
identity crisis for a child I drew
myself with the skintone crayon which
definitely wasn’t brown blond hair and
blue eyes
I took my kindergarten self-portrait
home to my grandmother who seemed
shocked and told me that’s not what you
look like at all to which I simply
replied it’s what I should look like as
I’ve gone as I got older I’ve been told
that this world is separated into two
specific categories black and white
you’re one thing but never the other
nothing in between no gray I started to
feel weird and my own skin always three
shades darker than my white friends who
weren’t even white mind you they just
didn’t speak Spanish everywhere I looked
people were so proud of being Makana
they were proud of their culture the
language that they spoke and the
traditions that they practiced and I
know none of it it was completely alien
to me and
I don’t know it just it made me feel
outcasted in a sense feeling like you
don’t belong in a place where people
assume you belong because the color of
your skin is a pretty rough position to
be in
other Chicanos looked at me and talked
to me with shame and oftentimes disgust
no foul and the friend day or fearing
that I hated the culture despising that
I could not converse with that in the
tongue that was most comfortable to them
but most foreign for me I felt like a
smudge in my gene pool an embarrassment
I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t
know where I belonged was a too
late to reassembly and some Mexican
culture or when I remained whitewashed
and ashamed I chose to embrace my
heritage and to be proud of my roots
instead of being embarrassed
I asked more questions now that I’m
older and I have a better perception of
the world around me I love my skin I’m
learning more about my culture and the
language every single day and I’ve
learned to find some sort of strength
within this extensively awkward but
exceptionally more colorful gray area it
took me most of my teen years to find
confidence within my cultural cocktail
but why don’t we teach this to our
children when they’re young so many
families come to this country and are
taught to be ashamed of where they came
from but why perhaps it’s because when
you flip through the mail daily you
don’t see many brown children how many
brown men and women do you see on the
front page we lack the representation
that our children need to realize that
they’re just as important as everyone
else we need to teach our children that
just because their skin
swimming in melanin does not mean that
they are less than we need to not let
their minds be filled with doubt because
they’re not represented within
mainstream media we need to let them
know that they have the strength to
choose who they want to be and what they
want to do and not to let other children
push them out of the spotlight with
shame the real revolution that I am
trying to start is one that encapsulates
the beauty and accepting our differences
and to not be should be ashamed of
living in this gray area thank you
[Applause]
you
[Laughter]
you
I am a procrastinator this speech was
procrastinated until the last minute and
I’m not ashamed to share that with
anyone you see I had this idea that’s
what a talk is isn’t it but I got myself
down with all the pressure that I felt I
felt as though I had no right to speak
for anyone but I realized now the only
person that I can and will speak for is
myself now moving to America is a
struggle that I will never know it seems
like some sort of scaring story that
I’ve only ever heard from my sister a
tale woven intricately but muffled by
time almost like a game of telephone she
told me that my great-grandmother Nina
moved to this country from Mexico across
from the border into Texas she did this
in roughly the 1950s
no one knows for sure since Nina is a
distant memory for most everyone and my
family during this time America was
divided and very heavily into a certain
social hierarchy White’s on top
african-americans second tier and
Mexicans on the bottom Mexicans were
seen as dirty and were taught to be
ashamed of their ancestry my grandmother
saw this and decided that if she was
going to survive she would have to
assimilate into American culture when
Nina had children she sent them to
school and she asked them to teach her
English and other American customs as
they became more Americanized she beat
her children if they spoke even a word
of Spanish or acted Mexican at all this
mindset has been passed down through my
family and it is the main reason for my
lack of knowledge on my heritage and the
reason that I do not speak Spanish when
I was younger I had a very small
perception of the world around me but
the one thing that stood out to me the
most was the color of my skin I grew up
in sunny Southern California sir
by people who were just as dark as
Iowa’s we shared brown hair and brown
eyes but there was something that I
lacked I didn’t speak the same language
since I was young I didn’t give it much
thought when I finally got into school I
realized that not all the kids looked
like I did some were pale with freckles
blond hair blue eyes others was skin
much deeper than my own there’s a very
clear divide between all of us that
divide being culture the white kids were
always more popular deemed prettier and
overall better than the rest the Mexican
kids spoke a language that I had only
ever heard and whispered conversations
between family members but louder and
always seen as troublemakers since I
didn’t speak the same language as the
other Brown children and I wasn’t
exceptionally popular or very involved
in school I began to have a pretty big
identity crisis for a child I drew
myself with the skintone crayon which
definitely wasn’t brown blond hair and
blue eyes
I took my kindergarten self-portrait
home to my grandmother who seemed
shocked and told me that’s not what you
look like at all to which I simply
replied it’s what I should look like as
I’ve gone as I got older I’ve been told
that this world is separated into two
specific categories black and white
you’re one thing but never the other
nothing in between no gray I started to
feel weird and my own skin always three
shades darker than my white friends who
weren’t even white mind you they just
didn’t speak Spanish everywhere I looked
people were so proud of being Makana
they were proud of their culture the
language that they spoke and the
traditions that they practiced and I
know none of it it was completely alien
to me and
I don’t know it just it made me feel
outcasted in a sense feeling like you
don’t belong in a place where people
assume you belong because the color of
your skin is a pretty rough position to
be in
other Chicanos looked at me and talked
to me with shame and oftentimes disgust
no foul and the friend day or fearing
that I hated the culture despising that
I could not converse with that in the
tongue that was most comfortable to them
but most foreign for me I felt like a
smudge in my gene pool an embarrassment
I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t
know where I belonged was a too
late to reassembly and some Mexican
culture or when I remained whitewashed
and ashamed I chose to embrace my
heritage and to be proud of my roots
instead of being embarrassed
I asked more questions now that I’m
older and I have a better perception of
the world around me I love my skin I’m
learning more about my culture and the
language every single day and I’ve
learned to find some sort of strength
within this extensively awkward but
exceptionally more colorful gray area it
took me most of my teen years to find
confidence within my cultural cocktail
but why don’t we teach this to our
children when they’re young so many
families come to this country and are
taught to be ashamed of where they came
from but why perhaps it’s because when
you flip through the mail daily you
don’t see many brown children how many
brown men and women do you see on the
front page we lack the representation
that our children need to realize that
they’re just as important as everyone
else we need to teach our children that
just because their skin
swimming in melanin does not mean that
they are less than we need to not let
their minds be filled with doubt because
they’re not represented within
mainstream media we need to let them
know that they have the strength to
choose who they want to be and what they
want to do and not to let other children
push them out of the spotlight with
shame the real revolution that I am
trying to start is one that encapsulates
the beauty and accepting our differences
and to not be should be ashamed of
living in this gray area thank you
[Applause]
you
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