Thought process - Alex's feelings about being Latvian

So i was just thinking about this time in middle school when this kid kept making fun of me cause i used to wear this "where in the world is Latvia?" shirt all the time. I was a big geek, but I thought being part of a specific ethnic group was pretty cool; it made me feel unique, special, even though i didn't know much about it. Especially Latvian, because it was occupied and fighting for independence, and it was a culture as well as a nationality. So it got me thinking, "how does Alex, the teenager, feel about her ethnicity?" Does she embrace it? Does she abhor it?

And since I have not yet nailed down a specific time frame for Alex's part of the story, that makes it even harder, it is during occupation? After independence? Would it matter to her either way?