As a child we are often raised to be able to assimilate to a certain culture, whether it is that of your own or of the one that is dominant in the area you are being raised. But then there are certain cases where a child is merely left to be exposed to what is occurring around them: this is my case. As a child I wasn’t raised speaking Spanish as a first language, or any language at that, although all of the adults in my family speak fluent English and Spanish. I asked my mother why she didn’t raise me to speak the language of my culture and she replies, “I don’t know, I made a mistake. It was just instinct to speak English first.” And then I wondered exactly why it would be instinct for a woman who was raised speaking Spanish first by a mother who only speaks Spanish, to speak English and only English to her child. It’s because we live in the United States. Here there is not a mix of cultures from all over the world but rather a new “culture” that requires assimilation to what society thinks is proper and “American”. In the video Maya Del Valle says that at the end of the day the color of her skin still marks her as an alien in the country of her birth: America. How is it that someone with culture can’t be accepted into a country that claims to be the land of the free and the home of the brave? And then I question myself. Why is it that I’ve allowed this? I know that at one point in my life I’d resented being Puerto Rican because I personally could never connect to either culture. I’m Puerto Rican but I can’t speak Spanish the way my people do, I’m American and I can try to assimilate as much as possible, but to this American society I am a Puerto Rican and no matter what I do to look or act like a white person I will never have their privileges. So where do I go from here? In High School I met a lot of individuals who embraced their cultures righteously and I came to terms with the fact that I am Puerto Rican. Why not embrace my culture? My people have gone through so much and still do in the country that I call my home and I had the audacity to try and act like the individuals who were in reality causing oppression to my people, and me. I may not speak the physical language of my people but I feel the burden that’s been placed on them, we share emotional language. I know that as a Puerto Rican I will have to fight for the rights of my people and not just the rights written on paper and passed as laws, but the respect and the dignity. I will embrace my own people that as Maya Del Valle says do not deny the darker shades of skin in me. And not because I am capable of wonderful things and just so happen to be Puerto Rican, but because I am Puerto Rican therefore I am capable of wonderful things. - Lourdes
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