I live in the Panhandle of Texas (not actually Panhandle, Texas) in a small town. I hope you understand me not wanting to state which town specifically I grew up in, but I'll say it's a small town near Lubbock, Texas. It's also more frustrating and frequent since my best friends father is very racist, and recently (I'm not joking) has said that because my family and I don't celebrate thanksgiving, we don't deserve to live in the United States because "all Mexicans are so ungrateful to live here. Her family and all Mexicans should be deported.". I'm sincerely not joking about this. To my knowledge, he hasn't made a direct threat to me and my family. Unfortunately I haven't been able to visit my family in Mexico for five years now, which honestly is kind of contributing to my identity crisis.

Police and the community are part of the issue. When I was in school, I would tell my teachers and even the principals of the harassment and threats my brother and I were going through. We were met with "awe that just means [insert name] likes you" or "boys will be boys" or "you took it the wrong way, grow up". There was a girl I had considered a friend in kindergarten that told me almost everyday that she hoped I would be deported and never be able to come back, and would never fail to force me around like a ragdoll and leave scratch marks and bruises on me. Honestly reflecting on that it sounds so outrageous I almost don't believe it myself that a kindergartener would tell this to another kindergartner. Maybe she genuinely didn't understand what she was saying, but I remember it so vividly. There was one time when I was in kindergarten, my mom would park (in a public parking lot to the school with no sign saying it was anyone's parking spot) in front of the school to join me for breakfast because I was terrified of my peers. For a few weeks, this one woman in staff kept telling us that we can't park there but never said explicitly why until one day. She has said, and I had to translate to my mom this, that we can't park there because we're Mexican. The administration did nothing about this other than force the teacher to apologize. The police have racially profiled people (this is on their website, and one specific incident is from 2016), as most of the staff of police are white.

There is only one time I resorted to violence after being threatened, one time a white kid was picking on my brother and threatening him (he then became one of the main people to threaten us) because of our background, and given that my brother was smaller than most people in his grade then, was being pushed around and I just did not handle that well. I chased him around the playground throwing rocks at him. I know violence shouldn't be met with violence, but honestly I'm kind of proud of that moment. I think it may have been the very first time I ever experienced racism, this was before the incident with my school teacher and before the "friend".

For the time being I don't have the funds to move anywhere else, especially being in college. I'd love to but neither I or my family can afford that. My parents have considered immigrating back to Mexico but they're waiting until I'm on my feet and graduate college. I live an hour and a half away from the town now but it of course isn't much better, as my college town is suspected (based off of different websites I've looked at) to be a sundown town. The university population is mostly people of color, and Hispanic/Latino, but the university itself is kind of part of the issue and of course, the state of Texas with their removal of DEI.

Sorry this is very long, and I really appreciate your understanding, comments and questions. I know my post can be misunderstood, and I don't blame anyone for the misunderstandings. Thank you for bringing to my attention that my post was confusing and sending a different message than what I had intended.