No One Was Miss Puerto Rico, But No One Had To Be

Growing up, I always wondered if high school in the United States was truly as depicted in the movies. When I got to FSU and became more and more exposed to North-Americans, they began confirming what the movies had made me doubt. The mean girls, the cheerleaders, the hot jocks, the nerds, the loners, the average, and the plain weird: these factions were something very distant to me. Back in my hometown, San Juan, Puerto Rico, high school was extremely different from Roxane Gay’s account in “I Was Once Miss America”. Of course, there were some people more attractive than others, but that will happen anywhere and everywhere in life. However, everyone got along. There were no “cliques”, but only friend groups. The latter were not based on what hobbies or after school activities you spent your time doing, nor on how pretty or ugly you were, but on the mere fact of who you got along best with. The color of your skin meant nothing, and coming from a foreign place only made you more interesting. Athletes were superior to no one. People looked up to the smarter or more dedicated people. If you were mean, you were the one who would get screwed over, while the victim would take the “win”. If someone ever did feel “excluded” it was simply because they were the type of person that would rather be alone. Knowing that the stereotypical depiction of a high school in the United States is mostly true, though clearly exaggerated in the media, I am extremely content to have had my high school experience in Puerto Rico. At home, I found general acceptance towards everyone. Students would go to school with puffy bed hair, exposed pimples, no make-up, hairy legs, and glasses with no shame. I cannot have imagined it anyway else. No one was Miss Puerto Rico, and no one had to be.