“You can’t have a quinceañera. You’re not really Mexican! You don’t even speak Spanish!” That’s what I was told by kids at my school when I was fourteen. I was telling my friends how I wanted a quinceañera when a few of the more popular kids walking by overheard my conversation and said, “You can’t have a quinceañera. You don’t even look Mexican!” Despite my dark hair, brown eyes, and tan skin, I have more of an ethnically ambiguous look. I attribute the ambiguity to my red-haired, fair-skinned mother. “Do you even speak Spanish?!?” I don’t. My father can, but I’ve never learned. As a single dad, he spent most of his time working to support me and my two siblings. He sacrificed a lot to give us a better life. A casualty of that better life meant not having enough time with us, enough time to teach us Spanish, or enough time to expose us to our culture. “You can’t have quinceañera! You’re not Mexican enough!” It’s hard to connect to my heritage when I’m made to feel that I’m not Mexican enough. There was apparently something about me that didn’t meet their threshold for Mexican-ness. No matter what I said or did, I knew that I could never change the minds of those popular kids. Sometimes I feel like that partially filled mason jar of coins sitting on a dusty shelf. Sure, we intuitively know there’s legal tender in there, but it’s not real money. There’s nothing of real value in the jar. It took me a couple of years to learn, but the reason that jar was perpetually half empty was because I was asking other people to fill it instead of making contributions myself. So, I found ways to drop coins into the mason jar. We love food in our family. We eat our way through any places we visit, and we cook meals at home nearly every night. I started connecting to my Mexican heritage first through food. My dad makes the best homemade salsa. We have competitions to see who can take the most heat. He still has an edge on me, but I’m holding my own. He’s taught me his salsa recipe, but I haven’t quite perfected it yet. CLINK. About twice a month my dad and I make tostadas together at home. It’s my all-time favorite meal and we always have it on my birthday. I look forward to passing on that tradition and recipe to my kids someday. CLINK. My grandma on my dad’s side lives in Texas and visits us every couple of months. I love hearing about her life. She is a proud Mexican woman, who always makes time for her grandchildren. She’s got sass too! Even at 73, my grandma will threaten to throw a chancla at my dad if she thinks he’s acting up. CLINK. I befriended people at school who were also made to feel like they weren’t Mexican enough. We commiserated and learned to laugh at how personally we took how other people judged us. CLINK. CLINK. I found many ways to make myself feel complete instead of relying on how others to see me the way I see myself, as Mexican. I may not be Mexican enough for them, but I am for me! CLINK.

It's likely that the first time I heard the word, “enough,” I couldn't even pronounce it. When I was three years old, I was diagnosed with mild apraxia, which is a motor-planning disorder that makes it difficult to mimic sounds. Because of this, I spoke my own language for a considerable part of my young life. For example, when someone would try to get me to say the word “Movie,” I would scrunch up my tiny face and say, “broohah.” I thought I was being clear, but it was clear I wasn’t. Unless you were my close friends or part of my family, I wasn't talking enough, understood enough, or heard enough. Enough, enough, and enough. Because of this speaking disorder, the county determined I was eligible for Child Find and later enrolled into kindergarten with an IEP (individualized education program). And this would change everything. When I was in elementary school I was routinely pulled out of my classroom into “special classes.” And I actually felt special: I hung out with kind and patient teachers, and I had a lot of fun in the process. My elementary classmates never commented on it, and it was enough for me. And then middle school happened. I found myself in a new house, in a new county, at a new school, and a whole new label, SPED (special education). When I first heard that word, I was told that it was only a program that provided me with resources I need to learn; however, in the eyes of the middle school student population, SPED was like being an exotic species in the circus. Suddenly and without warning, I wasn't normal enough. I definitely wasn't smart enough. And apparently, I wasn't functioning well enough. Enough, enough, and enough. Nothing else about me had changed, but suddenly I felt stupid, and worse, I felt embarrassed. SPED no longer was a program, but an insult children would hurl at someone when they were being referred to as slow or stupid. When I used to walk to my classes with my friends, I’d lie to hide the humiliation and embarrassment of being SPED. I was never able to think of myself as smart when I passed through those classroom doors, not even average. It took many pleas to my parents and advisors to take me out of SPED and put me in with everyone else. When I was finally placed into a “normal” class, I couldn't even tell you what my grades were. I didn’t care. I was just glad I was no longer “special.” I could not wait to prove that my brain wasn't different. But the classes proved something else entirely, something that was not on the first IEP. My brain, freshly challenged with enough material, kept uncontrollably bouncing from one concept to the next, rarely able to focus. My grades fell, not because I did not understand the material or because I was not an enthusiastic participant in the classroom (ask any teacher), but because I struggled with written assignments, focus, and organization. It turns out, my brain was different. My sophomore year of high school, I was diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). And while this added yet another thing to my IEP, my ADHD diagnosis was, in a way, a relief. It meant I wasn't just "not trying hard enough"; my brain was wired differently. I finally had the resources (and the meds) to fully understand what I was capable of. For the rest of high school, I pushed myself. I took AP courses, advanced courses, and a dual-enrollment class. I had something to prove; I was more than enough. That doesn’t mean it came easy. If anything, I had to work harder than anyone, harder than I had ever known. My GPA still only shows a fraction of the Pruett that showed up in those classrooms. I found her in every lively debate, every idea pitched, every problem solved, every classmate helped. I no longer see my “different” brain as a disadvantage. Where some pass by a SPED classroom in school and point or laugh, I just see people in those rooms trying to learn and fit in. But I hope one day they'll discover what I found out: it isn't your brain or even how you learn that makes you “special,” it’s the experience of working through it. Because there’s too much “not enough.” We are all smart enough, good enough, strong enough. We are enough. Enough, enough, and enough.

The jarring, high-pitched shrill of my 5 a.m. phone alarm doesn’t wake me up with the promise of excitement. It wakes me up with a sense of duty. Today is Election Day. As a volunteer page in the Virginia Voters Page Program, my initial feeling walking into the local polling station is not one of grandeur, but of responsibility. I live among a large Hispanic community, and as a Latina I feel a sense of obligation to help my community participate in the democratic process. Surrounded by seasoned election officers, voting machines, and stacks of ballots, I realized that I was part of a something much larger than myself. It was here, in the quiet church turned polling station for the day, that I truly understood the profound sentiment behind Jennie Dean’s words: "You do your part, and I’ll do mine." At the polling station, I was responsible for helping to setup the voting machines, providing blank ballots to the voting officials, and helping the elderly and disabled navigate through the station. My "part" in the controlled chaos of Election Day was not glamorous, but it was essential. That day I was not making policy to affect the lives of my fellow citizens or casting a deciding vote on a key piece of legislation. Instead, I was a high school volunteer guiding voters, helping lines move efficiently, and ensuring everyone who wanted to exercise their democratic right to cast a ballot could. Conversely, the voters were doing "their" part: taking time out of their busy schedules, researching candidates, and fulfilling their civic duty to vote. The election officers were doing their part by overseeing the legality of the process, and the community was doing its part by showing up. When I helped an elderly citizen navigate the entrance or directed a first-time voter to the correct, non-partisan, queue, I was fulfilling a small, essential part of a massive, shared responsibility. Working as a page taught me that democracy is not merely a right, but a "part" we must all actively play. When I did my part by keeping the polls running smoothly, welcoming voters with patience, and maintaining integrity, I was making it easier for others to do theirs. Jennie Dean’s words are a timeless reminder that when every individual accepts their responsibility, we collectively uphold the foundations of a free society. It is a partnership, a promise that we are all building something bigger together. As the second larger voting group in the US, it is important that Hispanics make our voices heard. While the hours were long, I gained a sense of fulfillment spending the day helping my community participate in the democratic process. That day changed me. I intend to volunteer at polling stations every election from now on and in the future “my part” will be to fight for and secure voting rights for all people.