Look at Me

April 29, 2014

Look at me and what do you see?

My mother was born in Mexico, baby immigrant naturalized at 18

But my father was a little American, split between a Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage

So what does that make me?

I believe the technical term is mutt, an impure disproportioned mix of cultures

But looking at me that’s not what they see

(Does she look like her ethnicity?)

This pale complexion says no just my stature says yes as I butcher the language of my people, past,

present and future

I think Selena’s Dad put it best…

You see it’s hard to be a Mexican American, we gottta be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more

American than the Americans all at the same time- it’s exhausting.

A split life is a vida loca this mujer won’t live

A third generation I fight hard to keep my culture I refuse to lose or reject it the way so many do and hell

I’ve never been a fan of coconuts anyways

Now let me break that down for you here, a coconut is a brown on the outside white on the inside living

in denial type child

A hot pepper cooling itself down for the sake of the sweet ones,

But Fluent is the flame under my tortillas telling me how I can’t be anything less than Latina.

I look white some say but is there a white when every Irish, Polish, German, Ukrainian has roots across

an ocean while my mother country sits right next door

I’m a Latina but don’t call me chica like you know me cuz I’m the proud card carrying member of a spicy

personality and

I will not stand for what you say I am, whether it’s brown or white or any color in-between

Even after the day I die and a padre nuestro is said, I know I still will be a mexirican in the end

Look at me and what do you see?

My mother was born in Mexico, baby immigrant naturalized at 18

But my father was a little American, split between a Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage

So what does that make me?

I am exactly what you see.

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