The task of describing myself to someone new always gives me a little bit of anxiety. Whether it’s an interview, essay, or just plain small talk, having to discuss my entire being in a few sentences leaves me blindsided. I guess a good place to start would be that I was born and raised in Miami, Fl, a city with a 70% Hispanic population demographic. Because of my upbringing, I feel that my identity can be split into three parts: my Cuban maternal side, my Peruvian paternal side, and my American conjunction of the two. These nationalities are engraved in my DNA and I associate myself with being Latina because that’s the term that makes me feel most comfortable. I can relate to most of the idiosyncrasies that are tied with this identifier, and it makes me feel secure with myself. I could never neglect that Spanish was my first language or that I enjoy Cuban coffee after meal more than anything else in the world. At the same time, I still consider myself as American as apple pie. So, it’s not necessarily that I am confused by my identity, but more like it has several embellishments. I think how I would define my identity has become a sort of new definition for what it means to be a young American with Latino descent.
However, these three things made me confused about my identity when meeting new people at college. Just by my exterior, it’s difficult to instantly decipher what my ethnicity is. I am fair-skinned, have light eyes, and speak with a Latin twang that made those around me slightly puzzled. At some point in the conversation I would have to immediately dig into the deeper details about my parents and the city I was raised in. I immediately noticed that it was new for people to associate Latinos with being as infinitely diverse as the United States is. While at first it was a bit irritating because I wasn't used to introducing myself so many times back home, each moment in college became short little boosts of pride for me.