Lessons in Not Being Latina Enough

Playing with a new friend I met at Burger King over a shared enthusiasm for chicken nuggets, I suddenly get asked “who’s your mom?'“ “That lady over there with the short black hair,” I say. “But you have blonde hair. Are you adopted?” At 9, that was a weird question, and at 31, it still is.

I always looked different than my mom’s family - they were on the short side with black hair. There I was, a gangly blonde kid amongst them. I stuck out like a sore thumb. My mom’s side is Cuban and my dad’s, German. His side was full of blonde, blue-eyed people, but they weren’t around, so I was the only representative of that side growing up.

In Miami, the assumption can easily be made that everyone is Latino in some sense - a unique place in that most jobs require you speak Spanish as opposed to English. That doesn’t remove the stereotypes that have longed plagued society - which my Abuelo always knew. “It’s your superpower, you know, the fact that you speak Spanish and don’t look it.” I didn’t fully grasp that when he told me, but the older I get, the more right he’s become. In Miami, I stuck out - I wasn’t Latina enough.

Fast forward to when I moved to North Carolina - where Latinos were no longer a dime a dozen. I quickly realized that when someone overheard my parents and I speaking spanish at the Dollar Store and asked if we’re Mexican.

As if that sticker shock wasn’t enough, I got called a Spic and even had people talk badly about Latinos to me, as if they weren’t referring to me and my family. Even Latinos in North Carolina were caught off guard, even they couldn’t get it - you have no idea how many landscapers I’ve probably traumatized.

Looking around, I didn’t dress like these girls, I didn’t act like these girls - but I looked like them, right? These girls could sense the difference, even if they couldn’t place it until I opened my mouth or turned around (my ass always sold me out). I stuck out - I wasn’t white enough.

In all fairness, I didn’t truly appreciate my Latina background when I was younger, just felt like the norm, until it wasn’t. It wasn’t until I left Miami that I realized how rare a gift being Latina is, and how much it aligned with my morals and sense of self. That being said, it is disappointing that you often straddle a line between two worlds, none which you genuinely fit.

What happens when you benefit from white privilege, but you don’t necessarily associate with white culture? Am I suffering from Rachel Dolezal disease?

There is a very specific niche for those of us in the middle, though not blatantly accepted by either side. I’m self aware enough to know I’m not brown, but sometimes that’s the criteria you have to meet in order to be a representative for the group or air your grievances.

Until this changes, I’ll sit in the background and support those who need more exposure and their voices heard, but that doesn’t mean I’m not waiting my turn to speak, I just know my place, and its not at the front.