Mexican flag inside an American flag

Remembering my bully and the wounds to my ethnic pride

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Editor’s note: This blog is part of a series of first person essays about identity written by UTEP Liberal Arts Honors students during the spring 2013 semester. EL PASO – I still remember the name of my middle school bully and what he looked like. I might have been an insignificant part of his life but for me he was not. His behavior when I was a teenager produced fear, self-hate and an identity crisis that haunts me to this day. A native of Ciudad Juarez, I have always considered myself Mexican and I have been proud of my background.

Mike Martinez, my grandfather. (Courtesy of Rebecca Guerrero)

When Alzheimer’s strikes, a granddaughter’s memories keep his spirit alive

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Editor’s note: This blog is part of a series of first person essays about identity written by UTEP Liberal Arts Honors students during the spring 2013 semester. EL PASO – Life was beautiful until the year my grandpa started forgetting. The first time I noticed his memory loss I was 15 years old and he was 75. Grandpa walked through the front door, sweaty and breathing hard. “Mickey, ¿qué pasó?

Charles Ndeki, Bourama Seydi and Lamine Fati all stepped on land mines on their plantations in Senegal, West Africa. In his interview with Brinegar, Bourama said, "Journalists, they come and they ask us questions, take our picture and they write and then they leave and nothing happens." (©Felipe Jacome)

Seeing poverty and seeking to change the world, word by word

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Editor’s note: This blog is part of a series of first person essays about identity written by UTEP Liberal Arts Honors students during the spring 2013 semester. EL PASO – Last summer I was standing in front of the Martyr’s Monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  There was this being, an old man, lying on a thin mat. He looked like he was dying there as people walked around him, unchanged. One, two, three…I could count his ribs. His arms and legs were as thin as a broomstick, bones jutting out like knobs in wood.

I am not a “coconut” and proud of my Mexican American heritage

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Editor’s note: This blog is part of a series of first person essays about identity written by UTEP honors students during the spring 2013 semester. EL PASO – All my life I have had problems with identity. I identified as a Mexican-American, but was always wondering what makes me Mexican-American. Is it because I am dark-skinned, or because I eat Mexican food? What constitutes Mexican food anyway – Taco Bell or Chico’s Taco’s?

A Mexican-born, ethnic Arab/German with an American passport reflects on his cultural identity while in Berlin

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Editor’s note: this blog is part of a series of first person essays about identity written by UTEP honors students during the Spring 2013 semester. 

The cold air penetrated the visible skin between my gloves and my jacket as I hurried up a long flight of stairs to catch the train to work in direction Alexanderplatz. My breath, warm and visible, was seeping through my scarf and mixing with the melting delicate snowflakes that were coming down from the heavens. It was a cold winter morning, typical Berlin. Once inside the train, I found a seat and rapidly put on my headphones to have “my 15-minute concert” of the usual British Rock bands that make me wish I had a similar accent so I could use words like “daft” or “trousers” and the occasional “Oi!” without people looking at me weird for having an American accent. Two stations away from my destination, a young couple with a child sat next to me.