My Hidden Self
Do you have a moment where you felt different? In a bad way? I’ve learned to love what makes me different, but it took me a long time to get there. Chances are if you’re an immigrant millennial like me and you didn’t fit into the cookie-cutter American child persona, you experienced feeling like the odd one out.
The first memories I have of this are being the only dark-haired, olive-skinned, Spanish-speaking child from a single-parent home in 5th grade. I went to a small, elite Catholic private grade school, and it was clear that I didn’t belong. Aside from me, there was only one other kid with darker skin who spoke a second language, but our similarities ended there. Maybe it was because I was in 5th grade, but sticking out like a sore thumb felt like the end of the world. I knew I couldn’t change my hair, my skin, or my family, but I sure as hell could suppress how Mexican I was.
I don’t think this started right away. I remember sharing things about my life that were “ethnic”—the music I listened to: Reik, Camila, Belinda, La Banda Arrolladora y muchos más that my friends had never heard of. The chiles rellenos or tostadas I took for lunch were received with an “eww what is that?!” Vacation recaps were stark contrasts: mine included a day trip to the lake 30 minutes away to eat sandwiches and fresh fruit, while my friends' trips included Europe, Canada, and other places that seemed light-years away. It wasn’t long before I stopped listening to the artists I had loved and swapped them for more acceptable counterparts. I stopped taking lunch and begged my mom to let me get lunch at school (thank God it was free otherwise it would’ve never been allowed). I started opting out of conversations about vacations or anything that would bring attention to the fact that I wasn’t the same as them. If you’ve also felt different in any way, chances are that, like me, you made yourself smaller, more invisible, and eventually more similar.
I repeated this pattern throughout my life. In high school, I assimilated according to the people I was around. I learned to hide parts of myself, and in the process, lost pieces of who I was. It became normal to switch up with every group I encountered. When I attended a predominantly white college, I was comfortable in that environment; it was nothing new, and I knew how to navigate different friend groups. I never intended to be fake; it was for my comfort and the comfort of those around me.
The biggest piece of my identity I learned to repress was my immigration status. I didn’t know or understand it in grade school, and it didn’t affect me too much then. When I learned more in high school and felt the “side effects,” I wouldn’t bring it up at all out of fear of judgment or even retaliation. I still hear my mom’s words of warning: “De eso no se habla, uno nunca sabe cómo van a usar esa información.”
In college, I finally found people like me. It was only because I was drained from switching it up that I started sharing pieces of myself and my Mexicanness. Because of this, I found people I could truly relate to—other Dreamers like me. I felt like I was meeting mythical creatures, believing they existed but never seeing one, so they seemed unreal. I was sure I must have been the only one.
I wish I had been stronger and more confident in myself, owning my differences proudly. I think a lot of us immigrants have learned to hide pieces of ourselves out of a primal survival instinct. And if you can’t relate to this need to hide, I equally admire and envy you, because that freedom must be incredibly precious.
I don’t know if I’m braver now, or if the world we live in makes it easier for us to stand out. But I have learned to embrace who I am: a Mexican immigrant woman, a Dreamer. I confess I am still working through identity issues, but it’s easier to claim my culture loud and proud. I hid it for so long that now there’s so much that wants to pour out of me all at once. It’s an uphill battle, but worth it.