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I AM America’s Subculture & You Can’t Kick Me Out

Growing Up Outside of the Majority in the USA

By Natalie MendezPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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I was born in the Bronx, New York to a 20-year-old, single mother who had just came to America for the first time, two years prior. My father had been another Dominican man who had come to America along with my mother, making me 100 percent Dominican of first generation Americans ("Dominica-Americana"). Dominican genetic makeup takes up percentages of Sub-Saharan African, Spain, and Indigenous American. Dominicans alone take up 3.3 percent of the Hispanic population, which is only 17.6 percent total. I feel to be able to really speak about your culture, you should be able to know how you appropriately classify. I also identify as a lesbian; LGBT community claiming to be 3.8 percent of all Americans. I, along with 18.2 percent of Americans, suffer from mental illnesses. I prefer to practice holistic forms of medication, compared to traditional. In many ways, I am shaped around Americas subcultures. Compared to the larger American society, I am a minority of great lengths. My highest following is belonging to "female," which still to this day comes second in a two-man race.

Very early on, I was taught to know my differences, but beat all my odds: to be smart and self- sufficient, and use this country for its benefits that it can provide, ignoring those against it. Membership in these subcultures and groups make me feel smaller, weaker, and appearing questionable to members of the larger American society. Membership to certain groups means taking on the consequences of assumptions that have become popularly known amongst the larger groups. Those who do not belong to said groups, cannot understand how belonging to certain criticized subgroups ends up playing a larger role in your life. Being a 20-something- year old Hispanic, gay female, with foreign family in the US, and with disabilities, constantly makes me feel at a disadvantage, as if I must try 10 times harder to appear as equal. If I happen to be a successful working Hispanic-American woman with a master’s degree, married to my current African-American girlfriend, with children, with a beautiful home and car, I will be seen as a “pleasant surprise,” or “goals.” If I took out a few words of that sentence, it would be, “If I happen to be a successful working American man with a master’s degree, married to my current American girlfriend, with children, with a beautiful home and car…” That sentence doesn’t sound so shocking.

My mother growing up had always told me that books will provide endless knowledge. She wanted me to be smarter than most around me because she felt I would be less judged if I showed I had intelligence. I read more books then I could ever count growing up into my adolescence. Though Spanish was my first language and even growing up in the Bronx, I never acquired any accent, which I saw as an advantage. With English, I always had to strive to have the most perfect communication and be grammatically correct, or you face questions. But on the other foot, to my fellow Latinos here in America, I need to have an accent when I speak and have great Spanish, or I’m too “gringa” (American). I’ve also come to notice when engaging in conversations, I feel because of our straight-forward nature and animated ways we hold them, we might seem overly passionate or aggressive to a sensitive culture, like many other countries tend to see Americans.

I feel it’s been more and more difficult to relate to the majority and “struggles,” as a whole they face, because to most of America, we won’t be given a second look towards our issues. I’ve realized that Americans have a sense of entitlement where they feel their issues are the most important issues, and they want to be accepted, but can’t do either for others. It might be the feeling of unity Latinos get raised with when it comes to your neighbor, but we feel Americans seem like they feel that if an issue doesn’t directly affect them, they shouldn’t get involved. So, I feel I can’t be understood because issues I’d want to speak on wouldn’t be understood because it’s not their America they live in.

Things my mother said to warn me didn’t seem odd for many ethnic people, and when I had come out to her, I was further warned of there being three strikes against me with many people. I am a woman, I am proudly Hispanic in the US, and I am a lesbian. When I was younger, I hadn’t believed it was necessary to feel defensive. I treated everyone equally, so there should never be problems. I was in fourth grade on line waiting to get my photo taken for school picture day. “I thought your hair was curly. Did you use a relaxer, or is it weave?” I turned to a few curious looking white girls, one having curly hair as well. I asked her how she would make her hair straight and she said a straightener, and so did I. They played with my hair but I felt I was being analyzed. “I bet it took a long time. It looks pretty for your hair.” It had taken a long time, but I wouldn’t admit it.

“So, you’re black, right?” I corrected them, unsure as to why my personal biography was so important. “That’s like by Puerto Rico, right? Does your family speak Mexican, too?” another girl chimed in, “You seem pretty-lighted skin, too, for a Dominican. I thought they were darker like Haitians.” So, now these young girls knew about my culture, but were entirely wrong this whole conversation. I was continued to be asked, “how many siblings do you have,” as oppose to asking me ‘if I have,’ (which I don’t, but that’s another statistic) and if my mother knows English, or is married. What infuriated me the most was not that when I told my mother, she wasn’t shocked and said they were just naïve young girls, but the fact that they are only so naïve because someone had taught them these ridiculous ideas and never corrected them. And naïve young girls grow up to be ignorant teenagers, then stubborn adults who are molded in their ways. Not many people really change since these questions and ignorant statements get asked to me on a regular basis.

Since then I’ve tended to stay low and keep myself from curious eyes. On that picture day, I started to question many people around me, who the girls informed me "all have been wondering." I’ve realized that there are plenty of Caucasian-Americans (predominantly) who see other cultures and question them, but will have four different nationalities that they’ll claim, and yet know nothing about them because they are "American first." Being from the country who was inhabited by Native Americans, and where Christopher Columbus established the first American colony (La Isabela), I don’t believe it’s right to show such nationalization to a country you don’t fairly belong too, but then claim your ethnicities to show how mixed you are, with no other thought about where they came from. It doesn’t make someone cultured to know what country their elders are from or that they have an "ethnic friend/neighbor/boyfriend/girlfriend." However, really facing your cultures isn’t entirely necessary for someone who is not critiqued over it. I’m just aware that America was meant to be the land of the equal, but the fact that people care for what subcultures you belong to, shows we aren’t.

I only feel that way because on a regular, I have to tell someone that I understand and know their culture enough to tell them about their America since their history began to rise where mine began to be threatened. Therefore, I can tell you before and after. I know the American larger society because it is the most important culture to comply with and studied in our school systems, even in Dominican Republic, yet there are textbooks distributing information that slavery was really people coming to America for agricultural work voluntarily, and my people gave the "founder" our gold as gifts. It’s harder for people to know their history and how they truly relate to others, when there are constant lies and assumptions still passed around to mask and justify why some belong and some don’t. They connect to a version of what they see as America, but it’s different when you are taught how to speak to people who see you as different. Those who don’t discriminate seem to often downplay issues of mixed cultures and sexuality as an issue that has come a long way, and therefore not as bad. I classify as Dominican before I am American in my opinion because I know America for what it is, but residing in my subcultures, it is harder to feel like a part of something larger when you’re defined as different.

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