Mexican Friends

“Not One of Us”: Growing Up Different Around Mexican Friends

One time I called a Mexican guy a “beaner.” It was a long time ago when I said it.

I cringe writing that. But it’s true. And if I’m going to talk about race, about not belonging, I have to tell the truth about the ugly parts too. I said it out of ignorance. Out of hurt. Out of trying to make myself feel bigger in a room where I already felt small.

That word was wrong. I know that now. I knew it not long after I said it. But it came from a place I need to name.

There was always tension for me with Mexican friendships. I am not Mexican. That was plain clear. I may have had brown skin, but I was different. I was “the Black girl.”

I remember Grace. Let’s call her that. She was a childhood friend. My mother thought she was an attention-loving girl. One day Grace came to my house as a kid, excited, and said, “Guess what I want to be when I grow up!” And my mother said, sarcastically, “A Mexican.”

Grace was Mexican. My mother’s words were sharp. A joke meant to cut. I didn’t understand it all as a child, but I felt the air change. I felt Grace shrink. I felt the line get drawn.

That was the pattern. I never really belonged with the Mexican race. I was invited to the cookouts, the quinceañeras, the family gatherings. But I always felt out of place in Mexican families. I hated the way the families treated me because I was different.

I wasn’t fluent. I didn’t know the inside jokes. I didn’t have an abuela who claimed me. I was the friend, not family. The one they were nice to, but not their kind of nice. The one who got the plate, but not the seconds without asking. The one who got stared at when I didn’t know the prayer before the meal.

And I handled that badly sometimes. I got defensive. I othered them before they could other me. Hence, that word I said years ago. I used a slur to push away people I already felt pushed away by. Hurt people hurt people. That doesn’t excuse it. It explains it.

I grew up mixed — Black and White — and there’s no manual for that. There’s also no manual for being the “Black girl” in Mexican spaces. I was too dark for some, not Latina enough for others. Too loud. Too quiet. Too “not us

I can’t go back and unsay that word to that guy. I can’t unsay what my mother said to Grace. But I can own it. I can do better.

Because I know what it feels like to be “the different one.” I know what it feels like when your hair, your skin, your father’s absence, your mother’s choices all make you a question mark in someone else’s home.

So now I try to make room. I try to ask instead of assume. I try to remember that “not belonging” isn’t just a mixed kid problem or a Black girl problem. It’s a human problem.

I’m not Mexican. I’ll never be Mexican. But I can be a neighbor. I can be kind. I can be the person who doesn’t make a little girl feel small for dreaming out loud.

I still don’t always belong. But I don’t have to build my belonging on someone else’s exile.

That’s what age, faith, and a lot of forgiving myself has taught me.