I feel I can somewhat relate to Mendoza's experience. I was born in the US, just like him, but I was born Chinese, as he had said he was born Mexican. However, I did grow up in China where my native culture is strongest. At that age, things like race, culture, ethnicity, labels in general, none of those really mattered to me. I wasn't particularly aware that I was Chinese. I simply lived the way I was taught to.
It was when I moved back here and started school that I began to notice certain things. My class (with the exception of kindergarten to about third grade) was made up of a majority of African Americans and Hispanics. I suppose I always knew I was different, but it became more apparent and obvious as teachers talked about ideas like diversity and tolerance, the like, and even the small things like the different ways people talked that I picked up too brought it to surface. Both Mendoza and I learned of our biological identities through schooling.
Unlike Mendoza though (since I'm much younger than him), I became 'aglocized' when I came to Whitney Young, so even before I was a teenager. My class was much more diverse than what I was accustomed to, and it took some time to adapt. But I did. An old friend of mine would always tell me every time she sees me, "You've changed a lot. I don't know you anymore." Of course, we still love each other, and she didn't mean anything bad by that, but I can see what she means even on my own. The crazy arguments I get into with my mother are solid evidence of this (what they are about I will leave out of this).
The line that stuck out to me the most in this piece was, "We need to decide once and for all who we are and stop trying to be what we are not." I believe in a balance that we must all find as well. This was very wise of him to say. I hope I find mine.
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