Being a Latino student in the Heart of Dixie

By Vvictor Cuicahua, The Crimson White

When I was 6 years old, I came to Alabama, a state that has struggled to ac-cept its identity and the setting in which I would struggle with my own identity for years.

As a child, I grew up valuing what Alabama offered me, whether it was the faded yellow bus that drove up and down my neighborhood to take children to school or the grocery stores filled with vibrant, colorful produce that people jostled to buy. In a sense, I was happy. My parents would often tell me they had brought me to America for a future unimaginable for me in Mexico, and I was beginning to believe them. I was beginning to see Alabama as my home, but I would gradually notice how different I was in the eyes of others.

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