In 15 minutes I had never felt more self-conscious, unsafe, and scared. For the first time in my life I was fearful of just being myself. I was speaking Spanish to my family in a small supermarket in North Carolina, ironically called “Inglés”, yet in a place where someone would expect to be accepted, to be normal, I was the opposite. I was singled out for speaking the language I was born into. I was singled out because of my race. I was singled out for being with my parents who happened to be immigrants.

Everytime I turned a corner into a new aisle someone new was there to judge me. These people heard me, turned to the nearest person, and made a face in disgust. They wondered what I was doing in that supermarket instead of “back in Mexico where you belong” as an older man had mumbled under his breath. In that moment I felt utterly powerless for the first time in my life. I was in a foreign place surrounded by ignorant people who were either unaware or simply did not care about the issues that were more prominent in the more diverse and liberal place I grew up, New Jersey. It was then that I understood the motive behind racism. It never had to do with the beliefs of a person, it was the feeling of power and superiority it gave to a singular person in conjunction to the sense of powerlessness and loss of humanity it gives to the marginalized. And it was then that I understood there was more to America - for better or worse - than where I was from.

Throughout my life I had never experienced blatant racism like that. Looking back and picking my life apart piece by piece, situation by situation, emerged a portrait of the ways it had affected me. Through that introspection I learned why I am who I am, the way I am as a person. After what happened in North Carolina, my parents told me that it was something that happens often and was “something that you should get used to.” But I asked myself, “Why should I get used to that?” “Why should I get used to being told and treated like I am less than other people?” It took me asking myself those questions to realize that I was worth more than what other people saw me as. Their opinions were not worth my time, that their opinions were none of my business. I made a promise to myself to be the truest, most unapologetic version of myself there is in the face of others not agreeing with it.

It was through this that I found a passion for fighting for what I believed in. It started as small as standing up for myself and someone else at school being called racial slurs. And eventually, this started to develop into something I wanted to do more of. I attended a smaller “March for Our Lives” protest at the county state house that I was ridiculed for by my friends. They said it was, “stupid” and, “not gonna make a difference.” Not long after that, I attended the Pride Parade in New York City. I went even with my parents saying no, but being proud of who I am, and fighting for my own rights as a person in a celebration like that is irreplaceable. The sense of empowerment and acceptance is something few things are able to give. Most kids don’t like being grounded, but the two weeks I wasn’t allowed to go out were worth it, especially when it’s fighting for something I believe in. I fight so that eventually no one regardless of who they are has to experience what I, and many others, go through.