Growing up Mexican American has meant many things: being bilingual and spending time in Mexico alongside simultaneous exposure to the U.S. Double the holidays, double the food and double the interests. It felt relatively seamless to jump from one to the other without thinking twice about which holidays or hobbies were considered Mexican or American. But as I’ve grown up, I’ve felt an increasing pressure to only actively embrace my Mexican culture as if I can’t have a foot in both worlds. 

My routine back home in Calexico, California, a town 20 minutes away from the Mexican border, ranged from afternoons after school spent eating rice and beans with tortillas while watching iCarly to Friday pizza nights binging telenovelas. My pastimes are interchangeable between cultures but also inextricably intertwined with both my Mexican and American identities.

Yet people often comment or act surprised that I have interests outside of my Mexican culture as if I can only ever be “Andrea, the girl who’s Mexican,” rather than someone who is multifaceted and embraces two cultures as one. 

During my freshman year, I remember speaking with one of my classmates about our favorite Mexican food and I expressed my distaste for cilantro, a garnish in many Mexican dishes. I added that while I love spicy food like salsa roja on my tacos or birria, I can’t necessarily handle my spice. That being said, I’ll willingly drown my tacos in salsa and complain about the birria not being spicy enough while I chug a gallon of agua de jamaica, a traditional Mexican iced hibiscus tea.

This conversation was supposed to be a fun discussion. I was happily bonding with one of my classmates about Mexican food — something I don’t get to regularly talk about because of the small Hispanic population at GW — but when my classmate said it was  “uncharacteristic” for me to dislike cilantro or struggle to handle my spice, I suddenly felt very awkward. Part of me felt like I had somehow failed my Mexican identity.

When I’ve told people that my favorite artists are Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter, I’m often met with raised or furrowed eyebrows. I’ve also received similar reactions when I say I enjoy movies like “Clueless” or “Mean Girls.” They respond in disbelief, saying they didn’t expect someone of a Mexican background to have blonde white girls as their favorite artists or the subjects of their favorite movie. 

I find myself questioning if I’m betraying my Mexican heritage by rocking out to Swift’s “Lover,” or Carpenter’s “emails I can’t send,” even though I listen to and love plenty of Hispanic artists, like Natalia Lafourcade and Elefante.

More than once, people have pointed out that I dress “white.” To this day, I’m not completely sure what that means — and it always makes me rethink what I’m wearing. Maybe I shouldn’t be wearing floral dresses or frilly tops? Or should I wear a sombrero?

I remember I had a presentation last year, based on a research topic of my choosing. I’ve always been interested in feminism and the pattern of misogyny demonizing things that are more feminine, so I presented research on the media’s portrayal of “girly” characters as dumb or as the villains in popular movies and shows. At the end of my presentation, when it was time for questions, one of my classmates described the phenomenon as “white girl discrimination,” implying the topic was solely a “white” problem and subtly criticizing how I decided to focus on an issue that wasn’t serious. 

My presentation focused on misogyny in the media, something that affects people of any race or ethnicity, not just white people. Yet, in seconds, the comment reduced my research to what was seen as a white-focused issue, though what had also inspired me to pursue the research topic were my own personal experiences with misogyny and femininity. It made even my experiences feel white.

But it was more complicated than that. I felt as if I had possibly researched the wrong topic. I felt that my passion for combating misogyny or my interest in feminism or femininity was somehow the wrong thing to care about. That instead I should be covering something about my Mexican American ethnicity, or something more relevant to my identity, instead of something so white, as my classmate made it sound. 

All of these comments plant a little seed of doubt about whether I’m Mexican enough or if I’m too whitewashed. But the truth is, like everyone else, there are things I like and things I dislike, regardless of my culture. 

Sure, I dislike cilantro, but I equally hate apple pie. And I may love “Gilmore Girls” but I also love the telenovela “Teresa.” And I love being Mexican, but there’s no right or wrong way to be part of this culture or any culture, for that matter. 

Andrea Mendoza-Melchor, a junior majoring in journalism and mass communication, is the opinions editor.