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Ranting #1: Growing Up and Other Tough Stuff

Dr. H has many different ways of making people feel many different kinds of uncomfortable. None of them are usually ever offensive, and if they are, it's usually unintentional. I think. I hope. 

We recently finished the section of our course based on how to conduct sessions with clients of different cultures. Being of Hispanic decent, (my skin color and last name being just about as Hispanic as I get) this was of course an extremely long two hours. Every time Dr. H would say Hispanic, she would stare at me as if asking if it was okay to use this group of people as an example. Being an introvert I already avoid extensive attention in class, and this put me in a new level of uncomfortable. 

Of course I wish I were "a better Hispanic" person. I wish I was bilingual. But, I also wish that my dad wouldn't get stared at when my family goes to restaurants in other small towns. This was something I never realized happened until about high school. I'm from a small town in what I like to call south-central Illinois. My wonderful Daddy is from a tiny tiny town in Texas near Corpus Christi. He has 10 siblings, grew up in a house that was way too small for 12 people, (it's still used as the meeting place for all family get togethers, which I think is a little impractical, but hey it's tradition) and for a period of time his bedroom was the garage (it was Texas, he was fine). He was also one of the two siblings that went to college. My Daddy went to the one and only, greatest on earth, Texas A&M University (gig'em). He worked his butt off and earned a civil engineering degree, then worked two to three part time jobs at a time to start paying off all his college loans. He was then offered a job in Illinois from IDOT. Shortly after moving from God's country to (muffled gagging sound) Illinois he would meet my beautiful mom at First Baptist Church, were they still attend every Sunday. Their love story is absolutely adorable, but one for another time. 

Growing up in a small town in Illinois was a blessing, and I loved it. I assume that people got used to seeing my dad around with my mom (a very white lady) and her daughter, my ninja turtle awesome big sister. My mom worked miscellaneous jobs in the school system which meant to my luck and slight embarrassment,  followed me from school building to school building  from the third grade to the eighth. She would visit me during my lunch time and my classmates would ask me why that lady was hugging me. They didn't understand that mommies could have babies that didn't look a darn thing like them... so that was fun. 

When I hit high school Mexican jokes became popular. My lovely peers didn't realize that my untameable curly dark brown hair, invariably tan skin, and impossibly long hyphenated last name suggested that I was not Caucasian. Bringing my ethnicity to their attention immediately after the punchline became one of my favorite pastimes . My go-to line was "You do realize that I'm Hispanic. Don't you?" I then got to watch as a look of mortification took over their face. Then came the apologies. I would then explain that I wasn't mad, and I only said something so I could watch them freak them out, but "please try to be a little more sensitive next time." I was talking with my mom after school one day and she pointed out that it was a good thing they didn't see me differently than anyone else at the school. They saw me, the kid they've gone to school with since pre-k, not my skin color. I guess I miss that a little, now that I think about it. College is much different.      

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On New Year's Eve 2007, a clot blocked one half of my brain from the other. My reality would never be the same again.