The Life of a Naturalized U.S. Citizen My name is Carlos Gomez, and I moved to the United States when I was 6 from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to Allen, Texas. Because I am a citizen through naturalization, I had to go through a “process by which U.S. citizenship is granted to a foreign citizen” by meeting the necessary requirements enforced by congress. (Citizenship Through Naturalization 2013) These requirements consist of living within the national borders for five years, completing an interview with a U.S. official, taking an oath of allegiance to the country, and fully comprehending the rights and responsibilities of a U.S. citizen. (10 Steps to Naturalization 2013) I am a junior in high school and have a tough time making friends because I go to a majority white school. Being from a different country, I still share similar beliefs and morals as most of my colleagues. My physical attributes are almost identical seeing that I play on the soccer team and I seem to have good health for a young adult. I often wonder how I can stick out so easily in a school of 5,000 when American immigrants make up “about one-fifth of the total U.S. national population,” and yet I happened to be a needle in a haystack when it comes to diversity at Allen High. (Alba, Massey and Rumbaut 1999) With that being said, being a naturalized citizen of the U.S. has made me the person I am today and as I continue to overcome the many obstacles that society throws at me I realize that I only have to more years in this hell whole and then I’ll be out in the real world where I will live among a proper mix of diverse people. On a normal day, I do what every 17-year-old male does to start his day: wake up, shower, eat, and head to school. From there I go to all my classes and just try to make it through the day. Nobody really talks to me unless I’m assigned a partner in class because it seems like everybody assumes their superiority to me just because I don’t look like everybody else walking around the halls. At lunch I sit with a few kids that I had PE with in previous years, but we’re only friends for the 30 minutes that it lasts everyday. After school I go to soccer where I was a huge letdown coming into my freshman year here because the coach stereotyped me as a Mexican soccer prodigy because that’s the only sport that is well known in Mexico. Ever since he realized I was only average at the sport, I was labeled as the practice dummy for the next four years. After practice, I normally go to work and then go home to spend time with my family and my best friend who is also my brother, Felipe. I work part time as a host at a local Tex-Mex restaurant. My niche is to make sure the customers are seated as quickly as possible and clean tables when business is slow. I can’t even count the number of times that a cook doing a to-go order will ask me a question in Spanish and expect me to answer in the same fashion. I always just put my hands up and try to look confused because the only Spanish I know is the name of all the basic colors that I learned in kindergarten back in Mexico. Even though the cooks speak my native language, it is still another example of stereotyping and prejudicing, because they just assumed that I knew how to speak a language based on the color of my skin. Because I don’t take things to heart, it takes something pretty severe to affect my feelings. However, I’m still faced with difficulties that I have to overcome everyday. These things include: racist remarks, stereotyping, and a lack of friendships because I am different from everybody else. The most commonly used racist remarks I hear are being called a “wetback” or a “sleepy Mexican” anytime I yawn. Also, anything that has to do with a