As a member of the Latinx community, I had so many different thoughts on the various points Dr. Alexander highlighted in her publication. There is no way I can expand on every single one of them but I will discuss those I can relate to since my positionality is different than the individuals in the service industry.

In her article, Dr. Alexander discussed how the government does not provide a racial category that corresponds to us. Personally, I always have the most difficult time when asked about my race when filling out forms and other documents. Usually, the options are White, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian, and sometimes Other. When the option is available, I choose Other, when it’s not, I choose not to respond.

It’s really frustrating when you are forced to respond because there is no racial category you identify with. People usually tell me to just check of “White” but I have never felt like I belong to that racial category. However, I do know many people who would check off “White” as their racial category when filling out forms in order to increase their chances of getting interviews or because their afraid depending on the position they are in.

Also, some quotes that stood out to me where those by Shirong and Brendan where they highlight this idea of being one thing or the other. Shirong said “If you’re not American, then you’re Mexican. The managers, they don’t have all those boxes to check.” When I first read this my first thought was “yeah, I’ve definitely heard that a lot”. It’s not uncommon for people to assume this in the U.S. I’ve encountered many people who have this very narrow idea of what constitutes an American, a migrant, ethnic minority, etc. in the U.S. Brendan summarized this very clearly by saying “They see race simple. American and not.”

Perhaps these last few words deviate from to the publication a little bit, but I think it’s important to highlight how the quote “If you’re not American, then you’re Mexican” has an interesting impact on youth who are born in the U.S but their families are Mexican. I’m one of those kids who grew up not really being able to come to terms with being American but also Mexican. To this day I still have no idea how merge my two identities. There’s a very famous quote from the Selena movie every Mexican-American has probably watched that goes, “Being Mexican-American is hard. We gotta prove to the Mexican how Mexican we are. And we gotta prove to the Americans show American we are. We gotta be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American that the Americans, all at the same time. It’s exhausting!”