¨Go back to Mexico! You don't belong here! Go back to where you came from! We don't need or want you here!¨ a pedestrian shouted at us while we were protesting. We were walking around downtown Las Vegas carrying signs and crying out “Vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos!”  for the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students in Mexico who were kidnapped. But when I heard those words of hate coming from that middle-aged pedestrian´s mouth, I wanted to just blow up in his face right there at that moment. I looked around at my fellow protesters¨,¨¨however¨¨and decided that it wasn't the best decision for me to speak up against the agitator. If I were to do something about it, then I would have also continued and contributed to the cycle of hate that the man had already caused. So I didn't pay much attention to the man. Instead, I ignored him but I was trying to process and understand those words of hate that still lingered in the air. I thought to myself ¨this was the first time that I have ever been a target of hate.¨ That's when I truly noticed my identity of being a Latino in the U.S. and the real world around me. I lost my innocence of the world that dreadful day and my eyes and ears opened for the first time and were exposed of their innocence as well. Keep in mind, this incident happened to me only two years ago. It´s still fresh in my mind and I remember it as if it happened yesterday. So even though I´m a U.S. citizen, I can still be subjected to racial discrimination because of my race.

Surprisingly, there's still more to my life´s story than I could ever imagine and it's just full of troubling and chaotic memories that I have never even looked back on until now. And to be honest with you, I´ve taken a lot of things for granted in my life and I was forced to remember them for this memoir. I´ve been through a lot of tough obstacles and tests but I'm grateful for the opportunity I received from them when I decided to challenge them head on. Without them, I probably wouldn´t be the same person that I am today. You see, my family and I used to be really poor before. We didn't have our own car or apartment. Both of my parents were ¨undocumented¨ immigrants and they still are. They came here to this country ¨illegally.¨ Opportunity wasn't just handed to them on a silver platter so that is why we were really poor before but that is still no good excuse to try and explain why we were at the bottom of the working class. Since we didn't have our very own car or apartment, we were forced to share an apartment with someone else so nice enough that they would take us in and allow us to live with them but only if we paid them rent. We had no other choice at the time. But don't get confused though; we weren't homeless or out on the streets begging for money or anything like that. Our family just had a hard time earning money because my dad didn´t paid enough for his job and sometimes he didn't even have a job so he relied on fixing computers as his only job. And my dad, oh man how I remember the struggle he had to endure each and every day just by taking the bus. Can you believe that? If not, I can because I clearly recall the days he came home from work drenched in perspiration and the sweat trickling down his entire body. He was also breathless many times because his hands were full of grocery bags and he tried to hang on to them for dear life. They weighed a ton for him and he was all alone, with no help from anybody at all. So imagine him working all day, then after work waiting for the bus at the bus stop for hours, and then going to the grocery store to buy groceries almost each and every day. And to get home, my dad had to wait for the bus at the bus stop for more hours, and then get off at different stops just to get home. He came home really late from work and I remember him feeling hopeless and desperate of our situation. His face was just full of agony, despair, and suffering and I overheard him one day saying, ¨When is this all going to change and go away? Why is our life like this? Why are we suffering? We can't continue living this way.¨

Obviously, life was really hard for us back then. I remember back when I was just a little kid, I used to sleep and fool around in church because I didn't know any better. The benches were as hard as rocks and the air conditioning wasn't turned on. Inside the church, it felt like an overbaked oven and that we were the ones being heated, cooked, and deep fried in the oven. Mass just wasn't that interesting to me and I barely paid any attention. I wanted to just find anything I could to keep myself busy but I remember my mom and dad always getting mad at me and my brother every time we did that. ¨Pay attention!¨ my parents exclaimed in a loud but unforgiving whisper. But I was so bored at church that I literally felt like peeling my eyes and ears off.  I also remember back then, we used to walk to church almost every Sunday. I used to complain all the time to my parents on the way there by saying, ¨Mom! Dad! My feet are killing me! Why do we have to walk to church?¨ But my parents just replied with a resounding,¨Stop complaining and just walk! We have to do this as a sacrifice to God because today is his day and we have to go and see him to give him thanks for what he has given us.¨ That is true but that was still another reason why I didn't like going to church because we always had to walk in order to get there. But that all changed as I grew older and more mature, and suddenly before we knew it, our lives started to change and my family didn't notice at first but we did later on. As a little kid, I hated going to church and everything that had to do with church. Now, as a young adolescent teenager, I love going to church. The benches to me are now like plush and comfy, white pillows. The air conditioning whether it´s turned on or off doesn't bother me anymore because inside the church, it feels magical. I can sense God's presence whenever I walk through the huge church doors and it doesn't feel like an overbaked oven anymore.

The mass every Sunday is now very interesting to me and I pay very close attention to the mass. I don´t try to find anything to keep myself busy anymore because I'm not so bored at church. I don't feel like peeling my eyes and ears off and we also don't have to walk to church almost every Sunday anymore because we now have our very own car and also our very own apartment! I don´t complain to my parents at all because I like going to church now that we don´t walk to get there. I used to be unconverted back when I was a little kid but now I have converted to Catholicism thanks to God and Jesus Christ for performing a miracle for me and my family. All of our blessings from them have transformed our lives for the better and not for the worse so I couldn't be more thankful and grateful to them for what they have done for us. Like completely getting rid of my dad's diabetes and the potential risk of me getting glaucoma. I couldn't believe it when God performed these miracles for us even when I prayed and prayed at church and at home. It just felt too good to be true and I was just overtaken by joy and excitement. Our lives weren't going to change so we could go back to living normal lives again. We're also not as poor anymore as before. We now have our very own car and apartment and enough money to sustain ourselves better now. That is why God is good all the time and all the time, God is good. So I´ve let God and Jesus Christ into my life and I couldn't be happier with my decision. It's the best decision that I've made in my entire life so far, and I have no regrets about it at all. They have had an important presence in my life and they're of great significance to me. They have answered all of my family's prayers and that relationship, over time, has helped shape who I am, what I´m like, and what I care about today.

So the identity that I think about most often is Catholicism because my family and I are Catholics and that identity has had the strongest effect on how I see myself as a person. I have thought about all the adversities I've faced in my life, and I´ve asked myself: what should I be worried about? What challenge will ever bring me down if I have God on my side? Nothing will so the next time I find myself in a tough dilemma, I will leave it all to God and have more faith in him. I am confident that he will keep on helping our family each and every day so that we can live the best lives possible here on this Earth until we gain the gift of eternal life.