Embracing My Hispanic Heritage
What does being Hispanic mean to me? Everything. It’s family, food, community, culture… it’s my origins. My roots. Knowing that my great-grandparents fought to build a better life for their lineage reminds me every day that failure is not an option. My ancestors worked too hard for me not to succeed.
Growing up, I was never taught how to speak Spanish. I would hear relatives of mine carry conversations in Spanish which made it easier for me to understand the language, but I never learned how to speak it myself. Once I was in junior high, I started to resent my elders for not teaching me because it made me feel less connected with my culture. Especially after my immediate family and I left the Chicago area and moved to McCordsville.
Between the cultural shift and the lack of Spanish knowledge, I felt like I was having an identity crisis. I wasn’t white enough for the white kids, and I wasn’t Hispanic enough for the minimal amount of Hispanic kids in my school. I felt isolated, and that made me feel angry. I knew about my culture, but now I felt like a fraud whenever I would embrace it.
As I got older, I started to educate myself more on my background and Mexican-American history as a whole. Through my research, I learned a lot about how Hispanics and Latinos would often put their race as “white” in order to open more opportunities for themselves in the U.S.
That’s when it clicked. My family not teaching me Spanish is a part of my culture in itself. My elders never wanted the younger generations to struggle the way that they did, so they did everything they could to make us “blend in”. They thought they were protecting us from prejudice, and I can’t be mad at them for that.
That being said, I still want to embrace ALL parts of being Mexican, and part of that is learning the language. Not just for me, but for my Hispanic and Latino brothers and sisters struggling with language barriers to provide for their families. I don’t want to be another person that they struggle to communicate with. I want to be the bilingual liaison that makes it easier for them to navigate through life in America without sacrificing their cultural identity.
So here is my vow: by this time next year, I will be a Spanish speaker. I love my culture, I love the history behind it, and I will embrace every part I can because estoy orgulloso de ser Mexicana y Puertorriqueña!
