I finally realized a longstanding dream and went to Cuba. I was only there for three days, but it was a truly magical three days. We did SO many things in our short time there, and I really felt like I connected to the country and its people. It was just such a fascinating and interesting place, and I have decided that I must return someday.
Cuba made me reckon with my identity, which is exactly the kind of reckoning I’ve been avoiding all these years. Growing up adopted in a bi-racial home, with a black mother and a Puerto Rican father, in an affluent, mostly Jewish neighborhood with friends who ranged from Indian to Filipino-Egyptian to Chinese to Korean, meant that I was able to inhabit many spaces and encounter many different cultures. Fun fact: I was in the Asian Club in high school. However, I always avoided exploring my own culture – it just didn’t seem important to me at the time, given that I was living it. I also sometimes saw it as a liability. If you want to succeed in the white man’s world, I was taught that you have to give up a piece of yourself to do that. So, I did. I became a master at code switching – creating two selves in order to succeed in White America.
However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to resist that line of thinking and it feels beautiful. These past couple of years have truly shown the world the power of Black women, and I have embraced my blackness – no, my black womanness – in a way that I never did before. I love my culture. I love my people. I love my nappy hair, my smooth brown skin, my curvy body. I would never wish anything different for myself.
The one thing I haven’t quite reckoned with is my Latina heritage. Well, I guess it’s not heritage, per sé, but more my upbringing. I struggle with identifying as a Latina considering I don’t know my bloodline and I’m not out here tryin’ to Rachel Dolezal it. However, I do have a Latino last name (that I’m never changing, regardless of marriage) and I grew up with a Latino parent since I was three days old. So, for all intents and purposes, I was raised half-Latina. It wasn’t a strong thing – we didn’t speak Spanish in the home (probably a result of my mother not knowing it) and my father’s loose relationship with his family (mostly because of the interracial marriage) always made us sort of outsiders, but there were things that happened in my house that were distinctly Puerto Rican. Making pasteles, drinking coquito, and spending holiday time at my grandparents’ house with loud blasting salsa music. My dad never spoke Spanish to us, but whenever we were out, I would notice that he could always spot a Latino and would converse with them in his native tongue.
Being in Cuba flooded a lot of those memories back to me. I discovered that my high school Spanish came back far clearer than I ever thought it would. I loved dancing to the salsa music in the clubs and feeling at home with my body. I love the feel of the heat and humidity on my skin, and I felt so connected to the people we saw – from the women in the cigar factories to the men sitting out on the streets, laughing and selling small items. It was all so invigorating and inspiring. It made me want to really get down and explore my complex and complicated identity, to bring all the parts of how I was raised into my current world.
Tears. Sweat. Sea. 