This summer I went to The Netherlands for LGBTQ+ rights, human rights, and dutch culture. Although most of the trip was exciting, it was during the most challenging parts that I found out what my strengths and weaknesses are. I already knew that I wasn’t a perfect person coming into this trip, but coming out, I knew how I wanted to improve as a person, although the goal is now not to be perfect. Interculturally, coming into Amsterdam, I thought I was going to be disrespected because of my race, but I learned how to immerse myself into their culture. I needed them to know about my culture and it’s difficulties concerning my race before I learned how dutch people act. Yes, Amsterdam did inspire me to become more active, politically, in my community, but it also changed things about me that I thought were going to be permanent.
When I went to Amsterdam, I knew that the only strength about me was hiding my emotions from other people so that they felt safe. I immediately showed this strength on the plane ride over there. During the flight, there was an extreme amount of turbulence. My partner on my flight was nervous, as was I, but asked to hold my hand during the “scary parts.” Reluctantly, I gave her my hand so that she could feel better, even if it made me feel worse. I wanted her to feel comfortable and relaxed as we went there so that she could start off the trip strong. I consider this a strength of mine because it gives other people the chance to see a warm face when they’re feeling down, like a sense of calmness. I always want the best for people and if a smile could make them feel more welcome to the new country, then I knew I was doing my best to keep them feeling like home. I know that this strength makes it seem like I didn’t pay attention to my own well being, but in the times that I couldn’t hide it, I looked for the first smile in the room to make me feel like I was okay. This is part of the reason I decided to develop this strength. With my own struggles, I personally knew how it felt to be alone from home, and seeing people be okay with it, made me feel like I could also be home without actually being there. I wanted to be that person for someone else. With this strength, I practiced leadership because I knew that people could look up to me and rely on me to tell me how their day was going. Part of being a leader is guiding them to a place where they felt safe. I always wanted to make sure that they comfortable in my bubble. I knew that I’d try my best to cheer them up as best as I could.
Although people could open up to me, I would never be so open with them in return. During the trip, we got asked to share our viewpoints on topics varying from race to sexual harassment. Because my life has been surrounded, heavily, by these subjects, it took a lot of out me. I didn’t want to share out because I thought letting people in would make me look weak and that all my life experiences would categorize me in a different way. However, as the weeks progressed, I was almost forced to come out of my shell. When I did, it felt relieving to tell someone my story. My story had consisted of sexual harassment, emotional manipulation, mentally abusive relationships, and racists encounters. To everyone who heard my story, they made me feel empowered because of the experiences that I went through and to overcome the current fears I have. Even when one of my fears was showing my shoulders again, they encouraged me to have pride in what my body means and to not see myself as a sexual object anymore. Thanks to them, I am currently working on my realistic self appraisal. I know that in the past I haven’t had much confidence and before school ended last year, I hit my lowest point. Amsterdam was a time where I was able to explore how confident I was with myself, with strangers, and then my family. I cannot overcome these intense battles within a couple months, but I know that with the strong support system I developed in Amsterdam, I can always have people cheering me on.
Before I left to the Netherlands, my dad told me one thing. “Be careful about your surroundings because you’re Mexican.” Until then, I had never cautiously been aware of the position I was in because I was brown. I’ve grown up in Houston, Texas, all my life, so diversity was always around me. When I arrived in the Netherlands, I had never felt so much like an outcast. I could never relate to the stories of those around me because they weren’t as stigmatized as I was. However, that’s not to say I never had a racist experience in the past. My defense was to guard up and protect myself regarding the possibility of someone trying to harm me. This caused me to become a very worrisome traveler. As time progressed, I learned to relax myself by talking to my host mom. Through our conversations, I saw how much we had the same political and social understandings. From topics of race to sexual harrasment to education, we were able to see how alike we were, rather than how different we were. In the end, I was able to come to the understanding that everyone is human. This sounds very obvious, but it has become a super complex issue in America. I have learned to see myself only as brown through our current political situation, and nothing else. I had forgotten my value as a human and that I was worth just as much as a white person. Soon after recognizing this, I comfortably went walking in Amsterdam. I stopped comparing myself to other people thinking that they were better than me because of the color of their skin.
Coming back to America after learning my lesson was disappointing. The way people treated others with disrespect showed the complete contrast between American culture and Dutch culture. Although the dutch have Zwarte Piet, they are generally concerned with the well being of others, and most importantly their acceptances. American people, on the other hand, focus more on the differences between people and tend to pay more attention to race than the person as a whole. The dutch experience made me realize the impact stereotypes had on my life and how prominent they were in the american culture. Since then, I have tried to decipher opinions between facts and prejudices to make sure I’m getting the most accurate information about another person/party.
