Book 1, Post 1 - American Like Me by America Ferrera

I've been diving into America Ferrera's book, "American Like Me," its collection of 32 essays about her perspective of the American living experience coming from a Honduran immigrant background. It talks about the difference in culture between a child of immigrants and an American citizen that has already assimilated to the American culture while distancing themselves from their roots. As a child of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants myself, I was very interested in reading about another child of immigrants perspective. 

One of the portions of the book that was interesting to read about was the experience that America had in school as a young girl and how she was discriminated against because of her ethnic background. She was never able to fit in to the crowd that she was in and was often made fun of due to her name being "America." After reading this story, I did some research on America Ferrera. America grew up in Woodland Hills, California a demographically 63% white neighborhood in Los Angeles where there is only a 14% Latino population. This is an experience that many children of immigrants face. I personally was very fortunate enough to grow up in Anaheim, California where there is a whopping 53% Latino population. I grew up with the majority of my peers looking like me and so I never experienced any form of lack of belonging. However, when I arrived to USC, I experienced a very similar experience to America. Where I have been able to make great connections and friends, but have difficulty making connections with people on a deeper level due to differences in upbringings, culture, socioeconomic status, and values. Even with communal activities that I practice like skateboarding, filmmaking, and snowboarding, many of the people that practice these things at USC are on a different frequency in the way that there is no worry about money or expenses. I cannot speak for everyone at USC, and I know that there are similar people like myself that are attending because they are best friends here, but we are definitely in the minority. Nonetheless, I am very grateful to be in the position that I am in and am glad that there are successful people like America Ferrera that can inspire younger children of immigrants to reach new heights of excellence. I hope to one day do that same for the next generation of first-gen Latinos.