By Elisa Tavares Bell –

Like any teenager, my friends’ perception of me played a strong role in defining who I was:  friendly, smart, attractive, helpful, funny and talented.

Latina? Not so much.

But Papi and Mami still attempted to teach me about my cultural background through Papi’s series of what-it-means-to-be-a-Chicano lectures, their extreme Catholic ideas and a strong demand for me to speak Spanish at home.

“En Español, Elisa!” Mami  would demand each time I made small talk.

Mami was actually very loving, but I had declared a war with her and Papi years earlier when I developed the bad gringa habit of responding to their Spanish questions in English.

“A mexicana speaks Spanish, Elisa,” Papi would explain.

Before he tragically passed away, he would threaten to send me to Mexico for the summer where he believed I would pick up the habit of speaking the language frequently. But that only encouraged me to continue my gringa habit since I secretly wanted to travel to Mexico.

On October 15, 1994, however, I believe my father made one last attempt from above to open my eyes to my Latinaness. My lesson occurred at my predominantly all white high school in Palmdale, a small northern suburb of Los Angeles.

That day, I arrived at the leadership class to find my friend, Shad, a white 17-year old sports jock who generated a lot of attention from girls, standing outside the door yelling vulgar remarks to students that were boarding school buses.

“Go back to where you came from!” he shouted at the buses which were filled with students holding signs that read, “No to Proposition 187!”

Proposition 187. That rung a bell. I frantically searched my memory bank for the details, but could not recall them.

“You stupid spics!” Shad shouted one last time, then turned to me and looked at me from head to toe in disgust.

Shad had directed his comments to the immigrant Mexicans that had illegally flooded the Californian border for years. But he knew I was of Mexican descent and was now talking to me, too. I was an American citizen but at that moment, I felt so small and worthless.

I suddenly recalled the details that my Spanish teacher Señor Salazar had shared with us about Prop. 187. Apparently, some anti-immigrant organization was fighting to strip illegal immigrants of public services such as education and health care. The original initiative was aimed at making life more difficult for illegal immigrants so as to discourage others from entering the state. It would later be overturned in federal court, but not before setting off a stream of protests in southern California.

Señor Salazar said even students would partake in the protests, but I had not inquired about the walk-out that occurred at school that day because I didn’t want to ditch classes and get in trouble with Mami. So, I didn’t board the buses that day.

I spent the remainder of the day feeling alienated. I realized that regardless of how nicely I dressed, or how well I spoke English, or how good I did in school or how popular I was, it would not change the fact that I was Mexican. I was a Latina. It was engraved on my skin, in my history, in my parents and in my future.

But today, some 15 years later, as a Spanish teacher of native students, I use teaching as a means of compensating for not participating in the protests that day. I teach my students about the Los Angeles walk-outs during the civil rights movement, about the Chicano movement, about immigration reform, about the valuable role that immigrants play in the economy and about the importance of retaining our rich Latino heritage through our Spanish language. In my own way, I feel like I’m not only continuing the fight for immigration rights but also the right to just be Latina.

And I now regard Oct. 15, 1994 as the day I came into my own Latinaness. The day I did not board the buses,  but had Papi smiling down on me from above anyway saying, “Muy bien, mi’ja.“