“Identity Is What You Make It”

You often hear the term mixed when individuals are speaking about being one ethnicity or another, or one race with another. As a Mexican American individual, a woman born from a Mexican dad and a white mom, I understand first hand the stereotypes and the judgments that take place, especially when you don't quite feel like you fit in to either a portion of your identity. It gets even more difficult when one parent refuses to accept that part of you. My father grew up in Muna Yucatan. He emigrated to the United states with my grandparents and his two younger sisters. My mother grew up in an upper middle class family in the suburbs of Agoura Hills CA. My parents met on the corner of Thousand Oaks high school and had a relationship for two years before I was born. They married shortly after my birth.

After their divorce, my father harbored some resentment over the fact that I wasn't full blooded Mexican. I didn't know anything about menudo or arroz con leche. I struggled to understand the Spanish language, and I refused to speak it most of the time. On the other hand, I was fascinated by holidays like Dia de Los Muertos and artists like Selena Quintanilla and Shakira. but when I brought this up to my mom's side of the family, there wasn't a lot that they could help me with. There was a lot of judgement from my dad's side of the family about how I would never be seen as truly Latina because of who my mother was and because of who part of my identity represented. Navigating this not only as a woman but as a disabled individual, was a hard road. But I persevered.

I learned that identity is what you make it. But you are never just one specific thing. You are made-up of every experience. You are every person that you meet. Every sunset and sunrise that you live to see.

Once I understood these things I felt more comfortable immersing myself in the Spanish language and in different aspects of my culture. I asked too many questions and I ended up graduating high school with top honors in a foreign language. Fluent in a language that was once so mysterious to me. Not only do I think of my ancestors but I also think Selena, Ana Gabriel, Mana, and various others for unknowingly guiding me along this path.

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