The Best Country in the World

America is the best country in the world. It is the land of the free and the brave. Everyone that lives
in America is safe from racial discrimination, violence, and prejudice. All social classes are treated equal, where
all of our politicians treat minorities with respect. From all the years that I have lived in California, I have
realized that all Latinos are treated as the greatest race of all, where we are all known for being rapists, thugs,
criminals, and so on. We live in a world where its okay for a politician to demean a certain minority group
based on a stereotypical image that is portrayed by certain individuals. I even experienced freedom of speech
from others when I used to work at a local burger Joint called The Habit. It was an experience that made me
realize how truly GREAT this country is. I realized that is the only place you can say literally anything you want
and there would no consequences what so ever; that is how I realized how extraordinary this country is, it was
the place where we can truly be called the best country in the world.
The Best Job in the World
I first started working at the age of seventeen. At that time, I thought that was the best job in the world.
All I had to do was greet the customers when they walked in and say, Welcome to The Habit, would you like to
try our Original char?, and basically take their orders as fast as we could with little or no mistakes. Thats
simple right? Well the longer I worked there, I found different ways that I can benefit from being polite, I began
to compliment everyone by the simplest things. For example, if a woman walked in with a nice necklace, I
would act as if it was the best necklace in the world by describing it as if were a diamond when in reality it was
more like plastic. By doing things like that I would always end up with at least twenty dollars in my tip jar, which
was the best way I got my extra cash when I needed it. Paydays were always my favorite days. I loved
receiving the piece of paper that stated the number of hours I had worked for weeks and the very bottom was
the exact money that equaled the amount of hours I worked. In my eyes it was one of the greatest jobs I could
have asked for but the only thing I could have lived without was the amount of people that would go eat this
place. There were days were you wouldnt be able to get to the front door because there was always an
endless of amount of people in line that eventually reached to the restaurant next to us. It was always busy
whether it was a week day or weekend but I hardly complained because time passed by quickly when I just
needed to take orders.
The Best Person in the World
When I first got the job I couldnt help but see the type of people that worked there. Most of the people
that would eat there had transparent like skin, golden brown hair, colored eyes, and twice the height I was. Half
of the time I was always looked like I was an alien from outer space that didnt belong in the planet earth, the
other half I was not even looked at because the customers simply couldnt see me cause I was just too
short(49 to be exact).I felt like a fish out of water which made me feel very uncomfortable being surrounded
with people that looked the complete opposite of myself, but sooner or later I knew that I had to grow accustom
to it so I always tried to make the best out of it. The funny thing was when I did see people that looked like me, I
would always get extra excited just to say Hola, como esta? Hay algo con que les pueda ayudar?, and I
would always be extra helpful with them because I was the only person they could communicate with. Most of
the time, it would be my first and last time I would see them there. Anyways as you can imagine taking orders
gets very boring just repeating the same words over and over and over again. One thing for sure is that we
were bound to make mistakes but some people never completely understood that I was still a human, maybe it
was because I looked so different it didnt allow me to make a mistake. So this leads to this one specific
incident where I was caught making a mistake. I clearly remember how this grumpy man approached me, who
didnt look at me directly in the eyes the entire time he was ordering his food. At first I didnt think much of it,
until he came back with his food in his hands, screaming that I had put pickles in his hamburger. I gave him a
smile and thats when he said, Do you even understand me or do I have to get someone to translate because
obviously you dont know any English? my manager had heard what he had said and quickly told me to keep
taking orders and he would take care of this situation.
The Best Time I Ever Had
After this incident, I began to notice that this wasnt the only time I received comments like these. I
received remarks that I had never heard before. I was always portrayed as either the dark skinned Mexican
who only spoke Spanish, a high school dropout, and my favorite; a teenage mom. Half of the time, I had people
throw their orders at me when they didnt receive what they expected, the other half I only had customers avoid
me by asking for another person who looked exactly like them to take their order. Customers would always
blame me for putting tomatoes in their hamburgers even if it clearly stated in their receipt that I had put NO
TOMATOES, I guess I should have just translated to Spanish and maybe they would have understood it better.
Sometimes they even blamed me for the bad quality of the food but I wasnt a cook, I was just a cashier. It
came to a point where I felt that I was just blamed for everything because in their eyes I didnt finish high
school. I think they thought that I started working there because I needed that job but in reality it was because
I wanted to make extra money especially during my senior year in high school. I guess I just had to be a teen

mom to work at a fast food industry. It came to a point where I didnt even want to take orders anymore, I
preferred being in the back with the people that could actually relate to how I was feeling. I preferred talking to
the cook that always made me feel better by saying, Ignora todo lo que te digan tu sigue adelante.
Racism is not wrong its just facts!
Its been a year since I quit my job. It didnt take too long to get me to quit. It wasnt much of
necessity to be there but I just couldnt handle the comments, it was more that they were bound to fire me
anyways. I always wondered how my life would have been if I never actually started working there, but at the
same time it me realize how racism is indeed seen every day. People and politicians always express their
feelings towards the subject but the funny thing is that no one says anything. Why? I wouldnt be able to
answer that question but what I do know is that racism has always existed in our lives. Whether we are white,
African American, Hispanic, Japanese, or even Indian, we are always profiled by bad decisions that others
make. In this case, Muslims are terrorist (6% of terrorist attacks are Muslim). Mexicans are rapist (52% of
rapists are white). African American are thugs (68.9% whites are criminals). Its just the simple truth.
Facts vs. Truth
The fact is that people dont understand the difference between facts and the truth. If you open the
dictionary and look under the word FACT it would be defined as something that either happened or something
proven to exist. If you flip a few pages to the right you would see the word TRUE it would defined as the way
people interpret those fact or in other words what people believe those facts mean.
Every time we turn on our television, we see news reports about racism, racial profiling, stereotypes,
and discrimination. Whether it deals with police officers or a politician stating that Mexico doesnt send their
best people, they only send rapists and drug dealers, all it does is brainwash people to believe that its the
truth. We are faced with multiply facts where a simple no one like Ann Coulter can state that Americans
should fear Mexicans more than ISIS, because apparently a terrorist group who is killing hundreds of innocent
people, is equally as dangerous as a group of people who migrate to the U.S. to seek a better life for
themselves and their families.
So what exactly is the truth? The fact is that every time that someone expresses their version of
facts it impacts society and makes them believe that it is the truth. Eventually these truths become a norm
in our society and we fail to acknowledge they are not real facts, they are simply our opinions. So what exactly
makes this the greatest country? Racism is what defines this country so GREAT because the FACT is that
racism never died in America, it simply adapted in the society we live in today.