I’m hispanic and I live in a wealthy neighborhood. My mother is an international business woman, has her own cooperation in 5 different countries, and makes more than $500,000 per year. In middle school, we moved into this gated subdivision, and the houses in the area are mostly valued more than $700,000. When we moved into our new house, everyday I would go get the mail, and there would always be a $1 bill placed inside. I thought someone might have mistakenly put that in our mailbox. Everyday the dollar bill was placed there, and it clearly meant something. It was message saying it was uncommon for a hispanic family to be able to pay for living in the subdivision. That was the first incident of racism I experienced. The second was when my mother put me into a private catholic school in the town we moved into. The school was mostly caucasian, and I was probably the only hispanic in my grade. One day a boy was talking about how his room was always dirty, and then turned to me and said, “ Hey! Can your mom come clean my room, she’s, like really good at cleaning, right?” So I turned to the boy and said, “ She doesn’t even clean our house, its too big. But we have these 2 white ladies who come clean it every weekend. If your mom needs a job, she can come join them. They never finish on time.“
