My first assignment as a college student was to answer the question “Have you encountered any form of racism, if so explain”. I was confused with this question because I thought that when he said racism he meant the whole Black vs. White issue, so it was hard to answer it since I never experienced my definition of racism. As a Latina woman I never had any issues concerned with race in all my years living in New York. After my first year as a college student at MEC I could write pages answering that question. I learned that racism can be between same races. My first experience was in a Sociology class when a student made a comment about Hispanics using up all of peoples hard earned tax money to raise all their kids. They were making the assumption that Hispanics are lazy. I argued the point and I was told that everyone is entitled to his and her own belief. That was understandable but for the professor to let another student speak like that about another race wasn’t.

          I was the only Hispanic person in all of my classes for my first year in college. I felt as if I didn’t belong. I had no one to relate to. My second year in college I became friends with two Latina’s from Dominican Republic. For the first time in my college experience I felt like I could express my concerns about attending an all Black College. We all had the same concerns and there wasn’t a person that we could voice our concerns to. By the end of that year both of my friends had transferred to different schools.  I felt confused to why the rate of Hispanic students was so low but I later found out that it was because there was no support from the school.

          It wasn’t until my third year in college that I became a part of a club that embraced my heritage. I met people that spoke the same language as I did and I was able to talk freely about being a Latina in an all Black College. I heard stories about how students were taunted because of their skin complexion and the texture of their hair. I am a dark skinned Hispanic with curly hair and I am proud to be so. I remember when planning one of the events for the club we decided to have a raffle and the prize was a massage at a spa. All of the members were selling tickets around campus. At the end of one of my classes I gave a quick over view of our mission statement and asked if they could help our club by purchasing raffle tickets. One student said “I will not support a group that has more money than we do”. I was shocked at her comment. I argued the statement and told her that I come from a low income family. She responded “So why all those Spanish people own all those corner stores”.  I told her you can’t assume that all Spanish people own stores and that Spanish people are those that come from Spain.

          I am in my senior year and this is something that continues to happen on campus. It’s hard to come across a Latina or Latino on campus. If you do see then they don’t last more than a year in the school. I hope that as time goes by we can get the support to make the number of Latino students on campus rise.