You Sound Like a White Girl

You sound like a white girl. These were the words spoken to Julissa by a high school crush as she struggled to find her place in America. As a brown immigrant from Mexico, assimilation had been demanded of her since the moment she set foot in San Antonio, Texas, in 1994. Shed spent so much time getting rid of her accent so no one could tell English was her second language that in that moment she felt those wordsyou sound like a white girl?were a compliment. As a child, she didnt yet understand that assimilating to American culture really meant imitating white Americathat sounding like a white girl was a racist idea meant to tame her, change her, and make her small. She ran the race, completing each stage, but never quite fit in, until she stopped running altogether. In this dual polemic and manifesto, Julissa dives into and tears apart the lie that assimilation leads to belonging. She combs through history and her own story to break down this myth, arguing that assimilation is a moving finish line designed to keep Black and brown Americans and immigrants chasing racist American ideals. She talks about the Lie of Success, the Lie of Legality, the Lie of Whiteness, and the Lie of Englisheach promising that if you obtain these things, you will reach acceptance and wont be an outsider anymore. Julissa deftly argues that these demands leave her and those like her in a purgatoryneither able to secure the power and belonging within whiteness nor find it in the community and cultures whiteness demands immigrants and people of color leave behind.