Introduction
Growing up wasn’t always easy for me. Whether it would be my dad’s side of the family telling me I’m not Puerto Rican enough or the kids at school telling me they’re parents think I’m “ghetto” and that they can’t hang out with me. Experiencing these things has made me question myself and have a huge identity crisis all while in elementary school through middle school. I would question if I was good enough. If I was Puerto Rican, enough. Or if I was just some ghetto Puerto Rican girl. Feeling all those things at once I didn’t know how to find myself so I would hang out with people in my culture. Doing this still wasn’t good enough because besides those things I was facing I also had to face my grandmother who is consumed with self-hatred for where she comes from. My mom is half Puerto Rican and half Italian, but she doesn’t speak Spanish at all. Although her mom speaks Spanish fluently, she would always say that “they’re (my mom & her sisters) white they don’t need to know Spanish”. Hearing this shocked me and ultimately made me look at her differently. If she wasn’t so consumed with self-hatred, would she have taught us (her kids & grandkids) Spanish? Where did this self-hatred come from?
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How does self-hatred affect the generations after you? & where does it stem from? My grandmother moved from Puerto Rico to the U.S. when she was around 8 years old. She couldn’t speak English until her late 20s. My grandma moved to park slope as a girl and although park slope is a nice neighborhood now in the 60s-90s it was semi-normal too bad. By bad I mean a lot of crime and gang violence. All of my grandma’s brothers were in gangs associated with being Puerto Rican. Back then race gangs were also a huge issue. My grandma always was against her brothers being affiliated with that life and did the opposite. She went to school and had a real job all while having 4 kids. Because of her growing up seeing all the gangs she associated white with being “good” since there weren’t as many white race gangs (so she claims). She applied her bad experiences to her everyday life and subconsciously was being racist while doing so. Associating any race or ethnicity with good or bad is unethical and ignorant. Because of all of this she decided to not teach her children Spanish because she associated her culture as being “not proper”. This erased our culture for not only her kids but the generations after. This cycle continues till this day because none of my aunts know Spanish so none of their kids know Spanish. Although anyone can learn Spanish, it’s way easier to be raised around it.Â
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When I was younger, I was closer to my dad’s side of the family than I am now. They have always been super in touch with their culture unlike my mom’s side of the family. I have always been closest to my mom’s side of the family, meaning I was barely around my culture. Once my mom and dad broke up, we moved in with my grandma who still lives in the same house in park slope although back then in the 90s and before it was predominantly Hispanic, now and when I was younger it was predominantly white. It’s also now predominantly filled with people who come from money. Being in a predominately white school I had mostly white friends. Although they were for the most part genuine (at the time it seemed they were), they’re parents always made me feel different. My friends would tell me what their parents would say about me and my family. One time a girl told me her mom said we were ghetto low lives and another time a girl told me she wasn’t allowed at my house because it’s probably dirty and small. Hearing this I felt confused because to my dad’s side of the family, my mom’s side of the family was “too white”. Both sides confused me. On my dad’s side that made fun of the way I talk and dress but on the other hand according to some parents in my school I was “too ghetto” for their kids to hang out with. All of the different standards being put on me made me feel like I had to follow and led me and a lot of people in the world to have an identity crisis. This identity crisis made me latch onto any culture I was around, but I never felt comfortable with my own. It also led me into reckless behaviors because I never felt like I belonged with my people. I felt more rejected than accepted.
Conclusion
In conclusion, all of these experiences led me to be the person I am today whether they were good or bad. The reason my generation in America is very out of touch with their cultures most of the time it’s usually due to the systemically racist standards put on everyone, especially people of color. As I got older, I let any judgment or standards that were put on me go because in the end it only reflects on who I am as a person and how I view my culture. Till this day my grandma still feels the same way. We can’t change the generation before us, but we can change the generations that come after us. Everyone should embrace their culture because at the end of the day you can’t change where you’re from. Embracing other cultures is also very beautiful. people should be more open to discovering and learning about new/different cultures. Not only can you learn new things about other people, but you can also learn new things about yourself.
