'It has been a mental feat to counter all the messages I have received throughout my life, but I disown the shame I was taught to carry, and I demand people take me in all my glory,' writes Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez (priscadorcas).
, and people are never in disbelief when they hear me identify as Latina. In fact, I have been told I lookNicaraguan, specifically. Among my communities, I am the Latina who other bilingual Latinxs speak to in Spanish first. Among non-Latinx white people, I am, phenotypically, the Latina that Fox News uses in its fear-mongering reports on immigrants. I am the Latina people think of when they picture someone who is criminal because that is what they have been told about brownness.
, I was repeatedly profiled. No amount of nicely ironed clothing could keep these officers from calling me “señorita” as they approached my car door, accusing me of made-up traffic violations. Similarly, when my local Whole Foods cashier randomly asked me how many guns I owned, it was an assumption he made based on what he has been told about people like me.