Whenever I have time to kill and my phone in my hand I almost always end up on BuzzFeed. It’s such a time waster and I try to only tap that little red icon when I have nothing else productive to do. When I’m early at an appointment or in a waiting area for the DMV for example.
The other day I found myself scrolling through the Feed and I came across a quiz that peeked my interest. It was entitled “How Latino/a Are You.” I feel as though I have been asking this question of myself for 20+ years. And for most of those years I feel like that’s the question (or statement) on people’s minds when they meet me.
So I couldn’t help myself. I clicked the link.
There was one question: “Can your roots be traced back to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, D.R. or any other South or Central American county?”
So I clicked yes and the results simply said “You are very Latino/a: and you’re awesome.”
I’m not sure I can really explain the sense of relief that I felt. It might sound ridiculous that I was placing any stock in an online quiz on a social media website. But on some level I think I thought it would reveal what I’ve always feared or what some people have told me all along – You don’t fit in our box of what Latina looks like. (or on the flip side – you don’t fit in our box of what Caucasian looks like.)
For many biracial or multiracial people, this is a struggle that is very real and very misunderstood.
I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries to do some writing on topics such as this one. And topics that have nothing to do with this one. I have been encouraged to take these opportunities and to try and embrace all the pieces of me that seem to not fit together. But the mere fact that they are all pieces of me means that they do fit together.
So here’s to vulnerability and to allowing myself to be myself in attempts to become a diamond rising out from the dust. Albeit an imperfect diamond, but a diamond nonetheless.
adventures in living an abundant life