Fortified

I wish I could tell you of the fortress remnants that circle around my land, or how my island isn't exactly circular—it's more rectangular—or how it isn't exactly my land at all to begin with.

I feel like a fraud when I dance along to the music of an island that birthed legends such as Ricky Martin and "Gasolina" when I cannot properly roll the R's in my last name.

And I can never catch up to the seventeen years of banter I have missed by asking my mom to translate and re-capitulate whenever relatives speak too fast, mumble so low, enunciate so little.

I could stand here and tell you how many times I have heard that I could make more money if I was bilingual, and tell you I really don't care about the job entitlements; I just wish I could talk to my family without stumbling over my accented syllables.

And the feeling grows stronger seeing how the culture I have unwillingly subscribed to is now dismissing my heritage. How Puerto Ricans aren't "real" Americans, how no, I'm not Mexican— the Caribbean and South America exist.

I even try to fortify my dying culture by dedicating an entire three-minute speech to it in Spanish class—

"Hoy yo voy a hablar sobre el tema del desempleo en Puerto Rico"

and I spit statistics hoping to quench the guilt of bubbling in an ethnicity on standardized tests I feel I have no right to identify with.

My mother is Puerto Rican; my dad is Bolivian. And where does that leave me?

I am protected by my English here at "home", but when I go back "home", I'm seen as a stranger. A tourist in my homeland, the battles fought for it and the blood shed is coursing through my bloodstream and somehow my internals are foreign to me.

And yet, the fortress still stands, and if my identity crisis has taught me anything, it's that it'll take a lot to destroy my ties to the land I hope to be worthy enough to guard as my own.