Notes of a Native Son

“This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”

This hurt to get through but felt overwhelmingly like a text I should have read in high school. It hurt to be seen–for Baldwin's title essay Notes of Native Son reflected my inconsolable, depthless yet invisible rage at a young age. I honestly didn't know why or how, because I consider myself to have had a happy childhood (ignorant of the conformity happening outside the walls of my home). But as a second generation American, I acclimated as best as I could and was proud of a job well-done until the exact time I realized what exactly that pride meant. Spanish was my first language, at a certain point I was desperate to know everything about my mom's heritage. It's amazing and awful how completely alienation descends when you're confined to an identity that you shall never embody.