Racism is the term used for treating people differently based on their racial or ethnic group. People can experience racism at any time, any place, and any age. Racism is often introduced at the age of 2 years old (Pozzi, 1). Kids can be misjudged or treated differently due to their physical appearance like hair texture, skin color, the language they speak, or their clothes. They can have accents or speak different languages depending on where they’re from or how they’re raised at home. Accents or speaking multiple languages can cause racism in society as racist, monolingual people don’t see it as their view of “normal”. People experiencing racism often experience this issue in public like in school, outside, or healthcare. Kids who experience discrimination for long periods of time may change their appearance just to fit in. An example of this would be speaking English instead of their native language in public to avoid mistreatment. So, what’s the problem? The problem is that kids don’t have anyone to stand up for them. Their parents probably won’t protect them if they keep normalizing racism by making their kids change their appearance, thinking it protects them from any harm. The sad part is they probably don’t know the harm that’s happening mentally.

The article “Can My Child Handle Two Languages?” written and published by Tessa International School in 2025, asserts kids pick up languages as young as 20 months old (p.3). Once kids hear multiple languages at home, they can pick it up much easier than older kids like 11 year olds. They’re also able to pick grammar structures to help them speak a language like a native speaker and/or understand the language. This exposure helps them communicate with other multilingual kids and get to know/get used to other kids with different cultures as they get older. 

Adding on to this study is the article “The Number of Bilingual Kids Continues to Rise” written and published by The Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2018. More than 12 million kids in the U.S. speak a different language at home (p.1). Among those kids, 2.4 million of them have trouble speaking English. Being multilingual isn’t a new thing in society, it’s something that’s been around for years. Society has been able to adapt to different languages and cultures. However, there are some people who are against it. 

In the article “Experiences of Racism in School and Associations with Mental Health” published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2024, McKinnon, a social epidemiologist who researches racial inequality in healthcare wrote about the negative impacts racism has on mental health. High schoolers who have experienced racism have a higher chance of misusing drugs like marijuana and opioid than those who haven’t (p. 10-11). They also have a 3-4 times higher chance of attempting suicide in the span of 1 year. 

Adding on to this data is the article “Cultural Influences on Child Development” written and published by Maryville University in 2021, quotes the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Kids being exposed to social biases like favoring one race or social class can affect self- image or the way people see themselves in kids from minority groups and causing them to feel like outsiders (p. 8-9). Kids will start disliking their skin color, clothes, language, and the food they eat because of social biases. How do people expect kids to be their true selves if we have a society like this? 

Mental health and self-image aren’t the only things kids struggle with. In the journal “How the García Cousins Lost Their Accents” published by the California Law Review in 1997, Cameron, A Mexican American professor at Southwestern Law School wrote about the Garcia cousins’ experience with racism and how it affected them. One of the cousins’ names is Yolanda García de la Torre who emigrated from the Dominican Republic to New York when she was a kid. She and her sisters Carla, Sandra, and Sofía were speaking Spanish at home and were being loud when their downstairs neighbor told them to go back to where they came from (p.264). Now, she’s a fictional poet but has been feeling unsure about her identity ever since that incident. 

Adding to Yolanda’s experience is the documentary “Struggles for Identity” released by Photosynthesis Productions in 2007, Hoard, known for her documentaries about social justice and education, shared the experience of adults being raised in a transracial household. One of the adult’s names is Alison who was adopted from Saigon ( also known as Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam when she was a kid (7:15-7:50). She said that she lost her native language due to American society’s belief that you have to speak English to survive. She couldn’t speak to other Vietnamese kids because she can’t speak Vietnamese anymore. As a kid, she hated America because of the belief and wanted to get back Vietnam. 

People might wonder “why don’t kids who have experienced racism talk about it or fight for a change?” That’s because kids don’t have a say in these matters. They’re treated as if their voices and experiences aren’t important because “adults have it harder.” In the book “The Abandoned Generation: Democracy Beyond the Culture of Fear” published in an English publishing house Palgrave Macmillan in 2003, Giroux, an American scholar and known for his works on cultural studies and education, writes about how younger generations don’t get the same advantages as compared to older generations (p.14). Kids also don’t have a say in any political decisions. This will cause kids to feel left out and will struggle as the laws and policies don’t benefit them. 

Adding on to Giroux’s claim is the article “The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health” published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2019, Trent, a pediatrician at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health wrote about the observations she’s seen in kids who have experienced racism. She noticed that kids who have faced racism in many forms like in politics, society, and the economy (p.2). Kids from a certain racial group like African Americans and Latinos won’t get the same amount of resources as White kids. These resources can be public education and affordable healthcare. These kids won’t learn basic things like addition and learning how to read in school because good education is gifted to those in certain racial groups or come from a wealthy family. They also won’t get any treatment for any diseases or injury as their medical bills are too expensive.

In today’s society, people should help kids feel more comfortable with their accents/languages and embrace their culture instead of hiding it. In the article “Teaching Kids to Confront Racism” published by the Woodland Hills Private School in 2020, Pozzi, the Head of the private school wrote about different ways parents can talk to their kids about racism. One of the ways he said was to stay calm when discussing any experiences with racism (p.3). Perhaps if parents show any emotions, it’ll reflect on to kids and show how they should feel about the situation. Another way to address racism is to answer questions honestly and parents try not to discuss their own trauma. This is a child experiencing racism, parents shouldn’t bring their own trauma into the conversation for their kid to go through the same situation. 

Proving these methods is the article written and published by Angus Reid Institute in 2021, “Diversity and Education.” 46% of kids who endured racism and 34% of kids who witnessed racism have spoken about the issue with their parents (p.23). Those kids are the same kids who like or don’t get bothered by other kids celebrating different holidays and speaking a different language than them.

Kids experience racism worse than adults since their brains aren’t fully developed and they’ve never experienced something like that compared to adults who have experienced racism. The worst part is that kids think it’s normal since their parents are normalizing this behavior. Parents think it’s protecting them from any danger or preparing them for the outside world while not realizing the harm it’s causing their kids in their heads. Black, Latino and Asian parents might’ve experienced racism in the States so, help kids confront it and educate them about it. If parents can try some ways for their kids to express how they felt when they experienced racism, kids will be able to know what to do if it happens again. They can also embrace their culture without fear of judgement and can educate other kids about racism and their own cultures. People should also allow kids to have a say in the political world. Allow them to make decisions that’ll benefit them so they can feel comfortable in this world. Kids can live their lives away from racism, get a good education, and be able to afford their medical treatments. 

Works Cited

Angus Reid Institute. “Diversity and Education.” Angus Reid Institute, 19 Oct. 2021

Cameron, Christopher. “How the García Cousins Lost Their Accents.” California Law Review,

Vol. 85, no. 5, 1997, pp. 1347-93

Giroux, Henry A. The Abandoned Generation: Democracy beyond the Culture of Democracy. 

New York; Houndmills, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Hoard, Deborah C. “Struggles for Identity.” Photosynthesis Productions, 2007

Maryville University. “Cultural Influences on Child Development.” Maryville University, 8 Apr. 

2021

Mckinnon, Izraelle I., et al. “Experiences of Racism and Association With Mental Health.” 

MMWR Supplements, vol. 73, no. 4, 10 Oct. 2024, pp. 31-38

Pozzi, Seth. “Teaching Kids to Confront Racism.” Woodland Hills Private School, June 2020

Tessa International School. “Can My Child Learn Two Languages?” Tessa International School,

17 June. 2025

The Annie E. Casey Foundation. “The Number of Bilingual Kids Continues to Rise.” The Annie 

E. Casey Foundation, 10 Jan. 2018

Trent, Maria. “The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health.”  Pediatrics, vol. 144, no. 

2, 29 July 2019. American Academy of Pediatrics

People always ask me if I can speak Spanish and I always say the same thing. “I used to be fluent in it,” which is true. When I was younger, I would speak Spanish with my mom, my aunt, and my grandma like it was nothing. I spoke Spanish until I was enrolled in headstart at the age of 3 years old. Trying to make friends and fitting in was a nightmare.I had to use my “simple English” to communicate with the teachers and my friends. As an introverted kid, it was brutal but through time and years of speech therapy, I survived elementary school. I spoke in English at school while at home, I spoke in Spanish. I kept on code switching until I got more comfortable speaking English. I spoke the language at home as well. I thought I would never forget Spanish, even joked and denied it until I did.

In 2021, an 11 year old me was watching YouTube on the TV in my mom’s bed since my room had no TV at 9 in the morning. The room was dark with the TV being the only source of light. I had a purple blanket with hearts on top of me, I was kind of warm due to the fact it couldn’t cover my entire body. My mom rarely buys new blankets unless it’s broken or 100,000 years old. My mom came through the door and told me she was going to the store to get some ingredients to make Mangu. It’s a Dominican dish consisting of mashed plantains, salami, eggs, cheese, and onions. It can taste savory or sweet and salty, depending on the plantain you used. The yellow ones are sweet while the green ones have a mild taste to them. I said okay and she left. 

Ten minutes later, my phone rang, it was my mom. I thought she was checking up on me since she always does that when I’m home alone. “Isis, apaga la estufa por mí,” she said. Apaga means turn off, por mi means for me. So, what does estufa mean? My brain was filled with question marks trying to understand what my mom was saying. I asked her to repeat it and she did. I still couldn’t understand. The light? The TV? The AC? I keep thinking those words meant estufa and I knew those weren’t correct. 

My mom happened to be with one of her male friends as this was going on and he understood what was happening. He got close to my mom’s phone and said “Isis, turn off the stove.” Estufa means stove in Spanish. When he said that, I instantly felt relieved about what my mom was telling me. I even laughed at myself for forgetting such a simple word. My mom says that word all the time, so I don’t even know how I forgot it. I eventually had to leave my room and go through the living room to enter the kitchen. At the end of it, next to the window, was the stove. On it was a pot with boiled plantains, ready to make Mangu. My mom arrived five minutes later with the rest of the ingredients to make the dish. I really enjoyed it as it’s one of my favorite dishes to make and eat.

I think about that moment a lot, wondering if I should’ve taken it as a sign that I’m forgetting my Spanish. Nowadays, I can understand the language but I’m not as fluent as I used to be 10 years ago. I’ve always wondered if that incident didn’t happen with the stove, would I forget my Spanish completely? I also thought that I’m not “latino enough” which I only found out about on social media. It was about people hating on actress Jenna Ortega for not knowing Spanish. They also said that she isn’t Latina because she doesn’t speak Spanish despite being of Mexican descent. There’s some people in this world who think that if you’re latino, you have to speak Spanish. I never understood this idea, and I don’t think I ever will. This moment gives me some motivation to try to improve my Spanish with classes and it’s helping a lot. I also ask my mom for any help for my Spanish homework and ask her what some words mean. My Spanish may not be as good as it was years ago and I have an accent now but as of now, I’m okay with that.

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