Growing up in City Heights exposed me to
a myriad of different cultures and ethnicities. I was lucky enough to be raised
in the most diverse community in California. My mother brought me here from
Mexico eleven months after my birth. Immigration was how most of the people in
City Heights arrived. Almost all of the students in my schools from
kindergarten to my senior year were immigrants, refugees, or first generation
born Americans. Everyone looked different than me, had different sounding
names, and spoke different languages, but I believe we are all the same.
I believe there truly is no such thing
as race. The color of our skin is caused by the amount of sunlight our
ancestors were exposed to on different parts of the planet. The idea of races
was created by us to categorize each other and even establish a hierarchy. We
are psychologically hardwired to look for patterns in nature. In this case,
that pattern would be the color of our skin. Differences in the way we speak,
act, and look don’t make any of us less human than someone else.
Our generations are becoming more
tolerant and aware of the different ethnicities around them. Children aren’t
born racist, but they aren’t born with knowledge of the world around them
either. It is our job to educate them on the different cultures around them. We
can’t make them colorblind due to the unconscious need to look for patterns
such as skin color. We can help children understand that although someone
looks completely different from them, that person is still equally human.
We can break so many walls if we
continue educating our future generations on the ultimate similarity between
humans and that is the plain fact that we are all biologically the same. The
only real differences are caused by the environment we were raised in. Imagine
a world where racism was a thing of the past, where it only existed in the
history books. That’s the kind of world I believe we should create for our
future. It all starts with a good education and exposure to the real world.
