Personal Narrative-The Cruelty Of Innocent Children At School

I was always different, with brown skin, buck teeth, and frizzy hair. Children at school used to tease me relentlessly for being “Mexican,” the catch-all “ethnicity” for us Latin Americans, to the point to where my mother said, “That’s enough. We have to move. Our daughter’s education is important.” However, moving from a small apartment in Deerfield Beach to Palm Beach County was difficult, being that parents were struggling lower middle class Hispanic immigrants with no college education and little money. My father was a cook, while my mother worked at the dry cleaners next door. Both worked ten to eleven hour shifts. However, working long, physically demanding hours in a steam room meant nothing it meant their daughter was getting a proper …show more content…
The schooling was indeed of a higher quality, however I soon discovered the cruelty of “innocent” children. “Nice clothes. Wal-mart?” and “Did you parents come here on a boat?” were some of the comments I would receive. I would find crumbled up notes in my backpack with racially insensitive remarks and crude drawings of me. This was particularly harmful since it’s a very sensitive time period for development. It affected me so greatly that I wanted to deny my heritage and my language. I would be afraid to introduce people to my mother, who worked the night shift at McDonald’s because I would afraid they would tease me. But it wasn’t just school-aged children whose taunts would echo in my head before falling asleep; it was adults too. At a grocery store, an elderly couple accosted my parents for casually conversing in Spanish. “This is America. We speak English here!” they said. I remember my mouth dropped, but no words would weasel their way out. I thought to myself, my parents were proud tax-paying citizens, and they have a right speak in the language they felt the most comfortable. That small, but significant moment still bothers me. It made me realize that society wasn’t ready for us. We weren’t wanted here. The sacrifices my parents made motivated me everyday to push harder in school, even at an early age. Missing school was not an option. Everything my parents did was for me. I could find solace in the fact that I was doing well in my classes. Beyond the bullying, studying became enjoyable. Helping my fellow classmates understand math or science welcomed a comfort that I’ve never had before. Soon I realized that my childhood dream of becoming a dentist was too small a conquest. Why not study the whole body? Soon I began high school with a modest but very helpful premedical