What it's like being Latina in Sparta? - Maia Albuquerque

 

Since I was a little girl, I remember looking different from everyone else. It never bothered me, because in truth I didn’t think that I was very different. I was just like everyone else. Until the differences were pointed out. We spoke Spanish in my home. We had different traditions. We ate traditional food from Colombia. I remember attending Reverend brown elementary school and one of my classmates said you look like Dora, are you from Mexico? Kids are curious, so I told him. I said I’m American but my mother is Colombian. And since that day he never asked again, he would ask about the food and traditions from my countries and I was happy that someone was interested in my culture.  But at school lunches, I would bring my traditional latin food lunches and people would make fun of it and say it smelt bad. I remember vividly that day when I told my mom that I needed to start bringing mac and cheese to school so I would fit in. 

Slowly but surely, I started to lose my latindad. I stopped speaking espanol and there was even a time I would refuse to say that I was Latina. Time went on and I switched schools. In 8th grade, I went to SMS. And that's when I started noticing this disparity. People in my Spanish class assumed I spoke Spanish without me even talking to them, based off of what I looked like. There was a kid in my Spanish class that year that was dark skinned like me and his so called friends, would tell him to go back to Mexico or to build the wall. Since that day, I saw the separation. My best friend from ever is black, her parents are from Sierra Leone, and we were friends regardless of race, to this day, she is like a sister to me. My parents never told me to separate based on anything, and I follow that to this day.  I look like a "typical" Latinex person, the usual, the medium tan skin, with dark hair, dark eyes, and those facial features. So I stand out. In school, I’ve been accused of stealing things or initiating a fight at the lunch room, when I wasn’t even involved, or people thinking assuming my family is of low economic status because of my ethnicity. 

Being a person of color in Sparta is being that 2%, it is seeing women at Stop and Shop clutch their purses when you walk near them. Being afraid to speak in naive tongue because of what others would think. It's the assumption that you are illegal in this country. Or perhaps the assumption you speak Spanish with one look at you. Or going to CVS and not being able to find foundation that matches your skin tone, or band aids that blend into our skin tone. There has been dsicirmantion against myself, peers and my own family.  I love Sparta, don't get me wrong, the teachers have been amazing and not treated me as other, except for a few here and there. Sparta is my home, where I have lived my entire life. It is also the place that in a sense masks my culture. 

In Sparta, I don't speak Spanish, there are no grocery stores that contain food from my country, all I get is an ethnic food aisle at a Shop Rite. Or that feeling of meeting one of the few Latinex people in Sparta and having that cultural connection and sharing those same experiences. Or that feeling when you enter Dover NJ and you see people like you, where they speak the same language as you, the flag of your people, your food. That feeling is something I can’t explain, but I wouldn't’ trade that feeling over my home. Sparta is where I grew up. It's where I go to school, where I met my friends, where I became the person I am today. The traditions that have been part of my life since I was just a little girl. From the carnival in the Pope John parking lot to the annual German Christmas market , this is my town and I am proud to be from here.

Being a person of color isn’t bad, it doesn't define me. I am more than the color of my skin. People make assumptions by just looking at me. Sometimes I wish I could go back to being a young elementary school student, not recognizing or seeing the division. But it doesn’t work like that. But I've learned, I don't have to chose. I both American and Colombian, I speak English and Spanish, and I value my culture. If only people, would ask where I am from or about my culture rather than throwing labels on me, the world would be a better place.  A simple question, with genuine curiosity, that’s all it takes. I am proud of my culture and open to answering any questions about it. All you need to do is ask.