Through out our past history, racism has existed and I believe it still exists. Not as severe as before but there still are racist acts committed everyday or acts that make people conscious of their race. I am a young Latino man, half Mexican and half Honduran. I do not face constant acts that makes me conscious of my race everyday but there are times where I do not feel confident of myself due to my race. I attended Evergreen Valley High School my senior year where I took a Calculus class. My math classes have always been diverse since middle school, however the higher my math classes were, the less peers I would see that were my same race. I was the only Latino in my Calculus class senior year. Everyone else in my class was either White or Asian. My teacher was even Asian so I was really the only Latino in class. I definitely stood out in class but not in the right way.
Everyone seemed to have some connection with each other except me, however I was not looking for making friends in that class, I was there to learn and pass the class. I had a lot of ambition and determination to pass my class no matter what obstacles I was going to face. An obstacle I had to overcome in that class was racial issues. I am a very active student that seeks for help when needed. Whenever I was struggling with something in class I would always ask for help, however my teacher would always tend to focus more on other students and take his time on helping them then me. I used to have to wait almost full class periods to get his attention to help me and when I did get his attention it would be rushed and not explained right. Even though I would go to his office hours or after school, there would still be other students there asking for his help and the same routine would play again. I was a struggle to get my teacher to understand I was serious about my grade in my class and that I was different. I believe the reason why he wouldn’t take me serious was primarily because of the stereotypes my race holds. My race is not known for the qualities that I was trying to portray in class.
Therefore the teacher probably assumed I was like everyone else in my race. I still do not understand why he didn’t see me different since I was always looking and asking for help. A lot had to do with my race. This obviously made me conscious of my race because I was seeing my race was the dominant impression of me and not for the qualities I had. I started to think that my grade in class was going to be based on assumptions about my race. That was the obstacle I faced in class, being conscious of my race. However I turned that into motivation to strive as hard as I can to pass the class. I looked and found help outside of class because I gave up on the teacher and passed the class with a B+ 86%. I hope I left an impression on the teacher and made him think differently of my race. Since the experienced I had in that class has made me stronger and proud of my race because I feel like I should be part of making a difference in my race.
First, I went to EVHS all 4 years of high school. The school is fifty percent Asian and Indian so it makes sense that you would be the only Latino in your class.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I understand what you mean by everyone feeling connected some how but you're not because that is exactly how I felt at that school. I never asked teachers for help though, however, I used to ask other students who were doing good in whatever class it was and I would get the same reaction as the teacher was giving you.
It always seemed to me that the person I would ask help from had already judged me without knowing a thing about me. Whenever I asked for help they would give me a bad explanation or worse say "I don't really know" when I can see the 100% on their assignment.
Basically I can relate to your experience and it's good that you've taken that experience and have turned it into something positive to motivate you to do better!
The way people stereotype certain races in order to belittle them is so unfair and ignorant! There is no way that a group of people as big as what we call a "race" can be alike in ways that we can group them together for it. The fact that you want to learn and you are trying to be a good student makes it even worse because the teacher is being so rude and should not even be a teacher at all! That teacher clearly doesn't care enough to get to know his students and just assumes things about them from the get-go which is a terrible quality for a teacher to have.
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