Paraphrasing taken from an interview with ‘Marie’.
Pseudonym is used to respect the speaker’s privacy.
I’m from Bogota Colombia, born and raised until I was 12. There was a lot of urban violence; my sister got mugged about three times. My parents wanted me and my sisters to have a better education so we moved to the US. Adapting to public school was especially difficult because I was also going through puberty. That was kind of an awkward phase for me, adapting to the language and everything. I didn’t have a lot of friends in middle school. Coming to Tech, I definitely feel like I’ve immersed American culture. I kind of have a bi culture experience which makes me experience both things a lot and gives me a unique perspective. Both cultures play devil’s advocate for each other. I know there’s a strong Hispanic population at tech but I don’t really connect with it. I don’t feel stereotypically Hispanic. People always say, oh Hispanics listen to Shakira, but I don’t really connect with that. I don’t connect with that prepackaged thing that being Hispanic is. That’s what keeps me from connecting to a lot of Hispanic people. I still miss speaking Spanish. I feel like I’m more me when I’m speaking Spanish.
At first, I understood racism was a thing but I never took it to heart. When I see myself I don’t see myself as a Hispanic, I’m just a person. When I first came here I didn’t realize things were microaggressions. People would be like “ha ha Marie, you’re so funny, say a curse word.” I would say it, thinking this was me being funny, and people wanted to be friends with me. But that was actually me entertaining them. But I started to sense it more when I was 15 or 16. I would go out with my parents and people would be more condescending to my parents because they couldn’t pronounce certain words. That’s when I started to realize I’m a Hispanic person in America. It was always there but I realized it gradually. I remember I was running cross country in high school and one day a police car drove by with sirens. My friend said “Oh Marie, they’re coming for you”. I said, “I don’t get it” and they replied, “Oh, cause you’re Hispanic.” I kept repeating that I didn’t get it and I made her explain it until she realized why it was racist. I take a lot of pride in being Colombian but people use my identity. They want me as a friend so they can say they’re cultural because they have a Colombian friend.
People are still surprised when I say I go to Tech, maybe it’s because I’m a woman or the way I dress , but it’s all packaged into this idea people have of me. I feel that people just doubt me sometimes. I think me being Hispanic is definitely one of the reasons. They think I got in because of affirmative action. Sometimes, I wonder if they’re right, if I did get in because of affirmative action. But ultimately I don’t think so because I know I’ve worked hard and I deserve to be here. It’s frustrating to think people see me like that.
I’m an LMC major, which doesn’t surprise people, because I’m a girl and people think all girls are LMC. I think being Hispanic plays into that, engineers are reserved for white men who do math and physics. Being in a more liberal, creative major allows my bicultural experience to come into play more often as opposed to engineering, where numbers don’t care where I’m from. Yet there’s a barrier within my major because I don’t enjoy reading in English as much as Spanish. I haven’t read a lot of literature other people have read because I wasn’t exposed to it growing up. I like Spanish literature much more. I even like the way things sound in Spanish more.
It’s weird coming to a school where people are more affluent than I’m used to. There’s so much consumerism here. It’s jarring and gives me anxiety. My parents taught me to be humble, but I don’t see that translating here at school. Here, becoming a CEO is the main goal. That definition of success is so normalized. But that’s not how it is in my family or in Colombia. In Colombia you stay with your family until you get married. So even being away from my parents now is a huge difference. The more I stay here, the more immersed in American culture I feel, and that gives me a little anxiety. I really want help people. To me, if I can make 5 square feet piece of the world better, that’s success. Just leaving the world a little less shitty than it was before.
Despite all this, I don’t want these labels to define me. I want to be a documentary filmmaker, but I don’t want to be seen as a female or Hispanic filmmaker. To me, that’s not who I am. When I look at myself, I’m not a Hispanic woman. I’m just me.