I have a lot of pride in my identity. As a woman, life is wild, it’s powerful and it’s beautiful. As a Latina, my life is built around a fierce sense of family, a strong work ethic and a sense of inherited resilience. Knowing the experiences of mi sangre, my blood, boils my own blood and gives me the determination to take my family name as far as it will take me. As a Badger, I take pride in the color red and relate to summers on the terrace, football games at Camp Randall and late nights with my peers at Helen C. White Library.
A lasting part of my identity here at UW is that of a Powers-Knapp Scholar. When I accepted the Powers-Knapp Scholarship four years ago, it meant an opportunity to attend an out-of-state university I otherwise could not afford. And when I arrived to this campus and met my fellow Powers-Knapp scholars, it meant a lot more than personal opportunity. It meant a community where I would make some of my tightest friends, a community that constantly pushes each other to think better and do better.
Now, May 2016 will be the end of my undergraduate years here. Looking in the rearview, I see the ways my identities have interacted with each other. I’ve known so much love at this university, but these past weeks have me recognizing the hate.
As a woman at this university, my life is more dangerous. I can’t walk home alone at night without hearing offensive, threatening and demeaning comments. Arm-in-arm with my mother and little sister leaving Camp Randall, shirtless male faces yelled down for us to “show our tits” and “smile.”
As a Latina at this university, things get a little more interesting. After refusing to sleep with someone, the response I heard was “I thought Mexican girls always wanted to have sex.” I have been exotified, objectified and harassed too many times to count on these campus streets. “Are you Mexican? It suits you.” “Let me guess your ethnicity — give me five tries.” “So what do you cook? Mexican food is on point, I love me a home-cooked meal.” These comments came from people who did not know the first thing about me, but felt they had some kind of entitlement to my identity as a Latina.
As it turns out, Badgers come in all shades of brown, too, and swimming against the current is making us stronger. We’re few, but we’re present … and we’re not leaving without the degrees we’ve earned.
The microaggressions are not all sexual, and they don’t all come from strangers. A classmate and friend did a little better than me on a Spanish literature exam, she thought that justified a snub at my ability to use my native tongue. I have a few Spanish words for her you wouldn’t find on our exam. A professor tried to tell me that there weren’t many Hispanics in this country in 1945, disregarding the Latino contributions to WWII as soldiers after the war as students under G.I. Bill. I could educate her, but isn’t that her job? Someone asked me if I can roll my R’s. To her, it was a cool party trick. To me, it was my language and my last name. Homegirl, put that tongue back in your mouth and shut it before another microaggression drools out.
My identities as a Badger and as a Powers-Knapp scholar have me conflicted. I know that each and every one of my fellow scholars is as grateful as I am to be here, and have worked ceaselessly to earn the title of PK Scholar. And yet, these faces of my fellow scholars are some of the only ones on campus that look like mine. We are part of the underrepresented segment of racial diversity at this university, some of the rare and refreshingly melanin-toned individuals that bless this campus at an embarrassingly low level.
Secondly, because our faces reflect a fiery and insatiable drive for success; we share the glow of pride and loyalty for each other. Yet, simultaneously, we share a look of exhaustion and irritation. At this university, we’ve heard over and over again the reasons why we shouldn’t be here. We have defended ourselves to the arguments about how we swooped in on the spots of students with higher ACT scores, or higher grade point averages, or more extracurriculars. We have been told to “#checkYOURprivelege” while we swim against the current of privileges we don’t have.
A younger version of myself moved from a mostly Latino and black school in Chicago to an almost exclusively white school outside of the city. That version of myself wanted so desperately to feel included that I would imagine what life would be like if I was German or Polish or whatever the cooler kids happened to be. If my hair wasn’t so curly and thick, if my mother stopped using Spanish in public instead of English, if my skin didn’t darken as much in the summer time. I’m the lightest-skinned child in my family, and I remember feeling pain when my mom said my younger sister mentioned wanting my skin. A classmate’s comment “she’ll probably be a hotel maid” still rings in my head eight years later, along with the snickers and uncomfortable glances that came my way.
Here I am today, once again getting educated among mostly white peers. This time, I take no desire in any identity other than my own. My hair, my skin, my mother’s language and everything that comes with my culture is beautiful. My past four years at UW and my past 21 years of life, I’ve mostly drowned out the implicit and explicit racism. It was quite literally white noise. But while I’m in my last semester here, my brother has years ahead as a brown Badger and so do a legacy of scholars that will fill the programs that paint this white canvas of a school. As it turns out, Badgers come in all shades of brown, too, and swimming against the current is making us stronger. We’re few, but we’re present … and we’re not leaving without the degrees we’ve earned.
