.The “Hyphen-Nation” videos about Roy, Armando, Wendy and Ayman feel like they all share something in common. They were not allowed to be “American” or in other words, they were not allowed to be what race they wanted to be. Roy talks about his dreams when he was younger, he wanted to be the American picture of “success”, to be tall and working in wall street, making lots of money. Roy talks about when his friends talked to him about where he was from he always told them he was American, but since his parents are Mexican his friends told him he was Mexican. Roy then felt like he was denied his identity as an American even though he was born in America, afterwards he tried to embrace his Mexican heritage, his identity as a Mexican. Roy then flew to Mexico but in his head he always told himself he never wanted to be a tourist, because that's what his family told him, that he was just going to be another tourist. When Roy got to Mexico his family would always ask him if he could eat this, or can you carry leña (firewood) because to them he wasn't Mexican he was American, but in America he wasn't American he was Mexican. It was like his mom said “ni de aqui, ni de alla” not from here and not from there. Armando also talks about how he is being othered because he is MexicanAmerican, he talks about how the hyphen was forced on Mexican-American because of modern geo-politcal borders. Armando’s fathers family is indigenous to the American south west, so his blood is from the original Americans, so he is American. Just because he had Mexican blood he was beaten by the police when he and his white friends were doing donuts in a parking lot, but the problem is that Armando’s friends were never touched by the police, meanwhile Amando was beaten by the cops because he had Mexican blood. From the information that was just given you can see that even though Armando had American indigenous blood, that did not matter, he wasn't white or skin and he had Mexican blood, so apparently now its okay to beat people who do not fit in the “American” stereotype. This is not okay, the so-called “Americans'' are actually foreigners, they came from England and what we do to the actual Americans. We took their lands, killed their people, and “relocated” them to other areas. Let's also acknowledge that America is made up of immigrants, there is a reason why America is called “The Melting Pot'' but now we are trying to discriminate against the same people that made this country special. The written interview, “Students from Central High School” from the book “Tell Me Who You Are” shares that Central High is not segregated but it's also not integrated. It also talks about how in AP classes, (advanced placement classes) there are only 4 black kids and the rest are white kids in a 30 student class, even though the school is made up of 55 percent black students. It may not seem like much but this makes it seem like teachers don't have high expectations for Black students. Morgan who is a Black student in an AP class says, “There's a stigma that Black people are not going to do well,and you can kind of feel it when you walk into a room. I feel like I have to prove myself, like I have to work harder to be better than the White people in my class just to be considered on par with them.” This makes me think that teachers don't have high expectations for black students, they maybe see them as inferior to white students. This would demoralize black students and it might make them give up on school, when you have no support in school it makes everything extremely hard, it takes a lot of mental fortitude to power through low expectations and keep going even when no one believes in you. An anti-racist to me is a person who fights againts racism and actively seeks out to end racism. There are also two other types of people, segregationist and assimilationist, the segregationist wants to keep racism alive, they believe in the divide of races, meanwhile assimilationists want to close the divide of racism and they want to end racism. The race that I identify with is Brown, I also think about my race more often than before, mostly because I have Mexican blood but I was born in America now this may seem like an easy answer but for me it’s not that simple. I think this unit definitely made me think about race way more often than before mostly because now I have to be careful about what I say, I feel like living in Mexico it was kind of behind on the time and they don't really care that much about racial justice or feelings. So I kind of came here with that mindset and I really only until a few years ago I realised that I needed to be careful about what I say. This would definitely be something that should be teached next year because it has most definitely helped me, it has helped me be more careful and it has allowed me to have a new perspective on life, and I feel like it will help other students that will go onto this class next year and it will also give them a new outlook on life.
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