The first time I noticed my true identity was when I was 5 years old. That is when I learned I was Mexican and that it’s hard when you come here illegally without papers. I discovered it when my mom and my grandma told me that they had suffered so much coming to this country. So at that moment was when I discovered my true identity. At that moment, I knew that being Mexican in the U.S was hard because you were mainly targeted.
An incident that they had treated my family different was when we came from vacation me and my dad and then they pulled us over because we looked different from how everybody else looked. They treated us like we were there to do something bad and that just gets me mad because not all Mexicans do bad stuff. It is just frustrating that many people think that Mexicans just come to the U.S to do bad stuff, but that's not true.

Since that incident, I had to accept my identity how it was because I knew that there wasn't very much to do about it. I accepted it because I know that not all Mexicans come here just to do bad things. Some of them they are here to actually wanting to have a good future for them and for their kids. So not all Mexicans are bad coming into the U.S.

I am proud of my identity because I'm proud to be Mexican and I don't care what people say because I care about my identity. I don't care what other people think about my identity but all I know is that I don't care what other people say about me. I am proud to be Mexican because many people say that were just bad people but I think otherwise.

My identity affects my daily life because I know that I am proud of who I am. This affects me because I know many Mexicans get targeted and that they haven't done anything bad. They just get arrested because of how they look like and that's just kinda messed up and just feels bad towards other people. I just try and not let people get to my head and being all messed up and being rude to Mexicans just how they look like.