Wetback Essay

Western Australia author Tim Winton wrote a novel called Blueback. In the novel Abel is passionate about the sea, Abel fights for what he believes in which is protecting the sea and the environment. The novel invites the reader to see the environment as precious and something to be protected. Through the use of characters, setting, conflict and resolution to give the message to the reader that we should protect the environment and not take the ocean for granted. Otherwise things would run out for future generations to come.

It felt as if everyone was against me, even the cheerleaders on the team weren’t my friends. In the middle of high school, I only had a few friends left who didn’t judge me for being a cheerleader. But because majority of the girls would involve themselves in a bad situation outside of school everyone assumed I was involved too. I would never put myself in a situation where people were doing something I don’t. A lot of the cheerleader’s would underage drink on the weekends and tried peer pressuring me into doing it to. Because I wouldn’t do it they shut me out and wouldn’t talk to me. It felt like I didn’t exist. Each time cheerleaders were involved in something they shouldn’t be doing the whole school would find out and judge me along with them because I’m on the

I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To

Throughout my years in my white neighborhood I grew up as an equal among my classmates. My peers had never teased me; in fact, the incident with those older boys was the only act of prejudice I have ever experienced. Classmates were very tolerant, and so was I. Forced by circumstance, I accepted living among all white people and they with me. They became familiar with the only Asian girl in the school, and the racial issue disappeared. I had friends and my ethnic background was not a problem. They saw my personality and saw me. I was an American.

There is going to be a lot of things that will happen to you in your lifetime where you are going to ask yourself “why me?” “Why do they treat me different because of my culture?” “Why is it wrong to speak Spanish the country I was born in?” My dear child, what I want you to know about this wonderful country that we are blessed to live in is that, there has been discrimination throughout history of the United States of America. Some people might tell you that the minorities have overcome this but unfortunately, our beautiful nation has not. During the civil rights era of the 1960’s you hear of the ways African American got treated in order to gain equality. Although, our battles of being a Mexican Americans are not spoken about as much as other, there has been a lot of discrimination towards us in this country. Even more now than there was a few years ago. A lot of the way African American got discriminated against during that era like the name calling and getting physically attacked are similar to way we got mistreated in the past. And the sad part about that mija, is the fact is still happening today.

I am disconnected, lacking contact with reality. It happened in an instant and gradually intensified over time. October of 2015, I had just turned 14 and everything was average, mediocre. I was subdued at this time for reasons I cannot recall and hadn’t been talking much in class. The issue commenced in chemistry class in what lasted a second but felt like a lifetime. The class had been divided into groups, and we were assigned to create a poster. After half an hour of doing the entirety of the work myself, the poster was completed, and I was satisfied with it. Each group was to choose a person to represent their group and explain the poster. Fortunately, I was not chosen. After each poster was presented, they were each taped to the whiteboard

The worst year of my life was in the seventh grade. It was a time of unforgettable and painful moments which took place throughout the school year. This taught me a significant lesson. The summer before seventh grade, my parents informed me that it would be beneficial to join a sport. When I did not find one that interested me, the color guard was counseled to me; which to be honest, I resented. My mother had a strict policy that once an activity is started it must be continued throughout the entire season; for this reason, I did. My color guard instructor was one of the most bounteous woman I knew. Moreover, she was an admirable and gracious woman who cared deeply about her students. When school started, I was a self-effacing, lonesome girl,

Growing up, I lived in a close-knit community where the majority of families around me were Hmong, like myself. Therefore, I didn’t know or understand what racism, discrimination, and stereotypes was until I was in school and was exposed to other cultural groups, which resulted in my experience of childhood bullying. Students from my elementary school made comments that my family

Throughout my life I have known many Hispanics who have been told racist or discriminatory comments. To me, those people are strong because they must be able to keep their composure and ignore those horrible people. I had my own experience in which someone made a rude comment towards my mom. I was about eleven or twelve years-old. I was in the store with my mom ready to pay our stuff. The cashier started asking my mom if she wanted to apply for a credit card, but my mom didn’t speak english. I started translating for her, but I was struggling a bit. I realized that we were taking a long time and holding up the line. Suddenly there was this lady behind us was getting frustrated. The lady made the typical comment, “this is America, learn how to speak english”. That was probably the first time I have heard anyone say something like that. Naturally I got angry, and I told my mom. My mom seemed to not be bothered by the comment. I was shocked and confused because my mom never lets things of that kind go. Once we got to the car, I asked her why she didn’t say anything. She replied with, “ I have heard so many people say that before, but we must keep living our lives because what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. After that day I learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life. I learned that you shouldn’t be bothered by rude comments from others. All that matters is how you perceive yourself because at the end of the day you only have yourself. You must stay strong and keep fighting for your purpose and not allow other from distracting

Under these circumstances, I have tried to run from the judgements of others to avoid harsh treatment. I tried to speak without my native accent. I don’t want my race or ourselves to be seen as a stereotype or be profiled as an action. To put it in another way, before I didn’t know a word of English, my elementary teacher would describe me as a rock that didn’t have the potential to do anything because of my knowledge in English. Experiencing stereotypes at a very young age, I was profiled as worthless for not understanding the same language as everyone else. Looking back it is hard to understand as a kid if the teacher was profiling me personally or if he was trying to motivate me. But this type of experience is what I’m afraid of experiencing because I don’t know if they are stereotyping or trying to

Cerritos High taught 4 grades as well, but there were 2200 students. The school was like a small town, a town where Blacks, Hispanics, Koreans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Egyptian and White teenagers were pushed together for 7 hours a day. I had never been around so many different cultures, ideals and ideas. I was not prepared, I was shell shocked and the other guys could smell it! I was beaten up 4 times my first year, the worst being an African American kid who decided extorting money from me every Monday was a good way to earn some extra cash. I was miserable, not sleeping; scared. I once told him no and tried to walk away but he just laughed, slammed me into the ground and he got the money. I was rightfully scared of that kid, but I was even more scared to tell my parents. I didn’t want to be the guy who hid behind his parents, I wanted to hurt that kid but I had no reasonable way to do it myself, and at this point I knew it couldn’t go on so I told my Dad. He handled it very calmly, told me not to worry, it would stop, and the kid would leave me alone. The following night my Dad told me that kid, the guy who hit me, extorted money from me, made my life horrible, that that kid’s father was the Vice President of a local bank. Guess whose father was extremely unhappy to learn his son was acting like a punk? Oh yes, Karma, it

It was the first time me, a black girl from the heart of north philly went to a school like that. It was culture shock for sure. I wasn't used to being around suburban white kids who weren’t exposed to the things I was exposed to. So quite naturally, there were times when the two environmental differences would clash. One day in fifth grade I was in history class and we were presenting projects. The projects were about our heritage and family's immigration to America. Thinking back to what I said earlier, I went to a predominantly white school so of course they'd know when and how their family's came to America. Me being an African-American I don't have the luxury of knowing since Africans were stolen from their land and enslaved. Us being 10 year-olds knew about slavery but didn't think of it that way. I was kind of upset not being able to go in depth about where my family was from and how they immigrated to the U.S. So as it was my turn to go, I told about how my grandmother moved from Georgia to Philadelphia. A boy yelled out that I didn't do the project right so I froze. I then got into an argument with him about it and my teacher pulled us out of

My father is Mexican, and my mother is White. I was born in California, however, when was 4 yrs. old we moved to Mexico. We did not returned to the United States till I turned 15 yrs. old. Although my first language was English, once I moved to Mexico, I became fluent in Spanish. Life coming back to America was hard, I did understand English perfectly since my mother always spoke to us in English, however, and I could no longer speak it. I was placed in ELL classes, and although I was very smart in many subjects, because I did not speak English, I was placed in easy classes, where we did nothing. They focus so much on learning the language that they fail to teach you. I survived; however, I knew the other classmates looked down at us. They would not speak to us, and they will make rude racial comments when referring to any of us.

While they talked about Latinos, I kept quiet; I didn't want them to think of me negatively. This experience lasted throughout the school year. When I returned to school after the summer break, half of my classmates were Latinos.

I have been a victim of microaggression in Middle school. Since the majority of the students are white and hispanic, they were very racist toward me. They would pick on me because of my ethnicity and would make fun of me. People would say “ Open your eyes, it is so chinky”. This makes me feel uncomfortable and self conscious to go to school.