David Conti,
Grand Rapids, MI.
What makes being half Mexican and half white so much more difficult is that I look 100℅ white. Half my family thinks of me as the white boy on the wrong side of the border and the other half sees me as the half breed, a blemish on their otherwise perfect European lineage. While they’d never say it, and will fight this statement to the grave, me not being completely European means I’m treated differently. The worst is the subtle racism my sister receives, outside the household, as the only Mexican looking child. I’ll never understand her struggle or the struggle of my own mother because of my, I guess “luck of the draw”? I don’t belong to the Mexican world and will never perfectly assimilate in the white world. I’m a man without a people. Half a man.
