Carolina Camacho

How It Feels to be Colored ME

When I walk the streets of East Los Angeles I feel at home. When I walk the streets of Chino with my aunt I feel like an outsider. Being colored was never the issue , being the outsider and not belonging was. Not knowing that being colored was the route of the problem, was the issue at hand.

As I walk with my family store to store in Atlantic Square I feel like nothing. There’s nothing much to it, just another day walking around looking at what to buy. Another regular day in my life, what next right? It days like that, which people take for granted. We think of days like that as just another regular boring day with the family and we never think of what were really doing. We take our city for granted and every day situation for granted. I never feel out of place or uncomfortable when I’m there. I feel just right like I’m at home kind of.

On the other hand when I walk the streets with my aunts and my cousin in Chino I kind of feel out of place. I definitely know that I don’t belong. I look from the people that live around. They know right away that I don’t belong. They can tell by the way I dress, the way I talk and of course by the color of my skin. As I walk down the streets all I see is white people pass me left and right. I feel them stair my down ass they pass me by. I don’t say anything because I know that part of life. But at that moment is when I realize that I’m no longer in East Los Angeles. I’m in there side of town know, where there rules go and I have know say. I’m just passing by like the circus passes by once a year. I may feel uncomfortable but I’m there to show them that I’m no different from them.

I never felt any different from other colored and even white people. But I felt more like the outsider and insecure because I thought they weren’t going to like me for the color of my skin. But once you start talking to them you start noticing that, that’s not the problem. There as shy about it as you are and they have the same thoughts about being colored as you do all because of old saying and because of TV, radio and other for of communication that have a negative out look for the youth.

For my I always thought negative because that’s what I saw and learned from TV. My family was also know help they also were negative and races because they learned that from there parents. And unfortunately that’s how most people learn and get there insecurities from. I know that’s how I felt for a long time and how some of my friend told me they felt.

So if we don’t get out of East Los Angeles and spread our wings and fly away from our comfortable little nest were never going to better ourselves as well as others in our community. We have to deal with the issue at hand and not ignore it or run for it because we can’t always run for everything, especially something of this magnitude. The colored issue is always going to be on every ones mind no matter what, but we can change that little by little if people at least try. I know I want that to happen and if other people do to then we can all make difference, at least I think so.