You're Not Puerto Rican

"You're not Puerto Rican."

I've been told that. Over and over. "You're not Puerto Rican." Alright, so maybe they have a point. I'm kinda blonde. I have pale (albeit grayish-olive) skin. I don't listen to Marc Anthony. I've actually never been to Puerto Rico. And, although I definitely know how to eat pasteles, I wouldn't have the first clue when it comes to making them.

None of that really matters though. My mother is Puerto Rican, born of two Puerto Ricans. Her father, my grandfather, immigrated to Hell's Kitchen in the 60's. My family history is basically West Side Story. I am my mother's daughter. I am half Puerto Rican.

If you take a step back, family is very diverse. My mother is one of four. She married a German guy (my dad). Her three siblings married another Puerto Rican, a Cuban, and an African-American, respectively. All thirteen of the first cousins in my family have their own unique combinations of skin, hair, and features. But we do all share the same big brown eyes. If you look further we have even more going on, including a completely different branch of German via my Titi's husband, and Italian via their daughter-in-law. I have some redhead Puerto Rican cousins in Ohio. Naturally redhead. Full Hispanic.

Due to the diversity within my family, I've never thought of myself as particularly white or Hispanic. I'm part of a bigger whole. I don't look at myself in the mirror and say "I am Puerto Rican." But when someone tells me I'm not I get defensive. Because however you want to slice it, I still am.

***

So who am I? Despite the diversity that my family married themselves into, the core of my family is Puerto Rican. My dad has very little family, and even less that he is close to. It was Nana, Pop-pop, and my Titis and Uncles that defined my family life growing up. In the back of the car on a shopping trip, I'd listen to my grandparents chattering on in Spanish. If they started speaking Spanish, it was because I wasn't allowed to know what was going on. I remember standing in my Nana's kitchen, watching her fry platanos. I ate too many and threw up, and then stopped eating them for about ten years. Pernil and virgin pina coladas, arroz con pollo or arroz con gandules, and pasteles were all part of a normal diet. My mom always despaired that she couldn't cook what she so subtly called "white people food." The big family, the roudy parties, the bossy older Titis. Lots of kissing. "Ay que lindo!" I guess those are things that could be found in a Greek or Iranian family. It's a lifestyle that, even if just in little ways, clings to something of the life that was enjoyed back home. Where ever that it. It's immigrant life.

I'm not an immigrant. But I can trace both my Puerto Rican and German ancestors back to their old countries without hitting 1800s. Nana grew up in Hispanic Williamsburg. You know, before the hipsters moved in. Jacob and Katherine Diehl came over from Germany through Ellis Island. I like knowing where I came from. I think of myself as Puerto Rican because I see elements of the cultures in my life. I might not be the most Puerto Rican multiethnic person who ever lived, but I am also no stranger to my culture.

On the German side, I had almost no culture in my life. My mother would try to make sure we got a little exposure to that other side of us, so we created events to celebrate the Germanness. And she learned how to make an incredible sauerbraten. When I was in high school I started studying German as a foreign language. I fell in love with it and turned into a German Language major. I've found ways to identify with both sides of me.

***

I've never had some sort of massive ethnic identity crisis. I know what I am and where I came from. I'm proud of it, and mostly don't think on it. The problem lies in how other people see me. "You're not Puerto Rican.

Being mixed-race, but looking mostly white, I have a unique look perspective. I've had the... privilege to hear some pretty off-color things from white people about other ethnicities and races. I guess they assume I'm "one of them." I've had Hispanic people tell me I looked "too white" and therefore was "not Hispanic." I've seen how my hair color defines how someone thinks of me. Me and my cousins were all raised similarly. Educated, bright, Christian households, outer-borough New York, very American. Yet I know that to some people, I look smarter, or more upperclass. My little black-hispanic first cousin has hold me she hates her hair and wishes she looked more like me. Somehow, she already knows how it works. I don't know how to fight it.

I've had a unique perspective growing up. Everyone wants to tell you what you are. Strangers always want to tell me what I am. They'll ask me if I'm Swedish or Italian and then stare at me in disbelief when I tell them what I am. I've been told, "no, no, you're totally Jewish." I'm totally not. It's so odd that we live in a world where a stranger can just look at you and start assuming your culture and prescribe a lifestyle to you. Total strangers. Just last week a Dominican classmate told me, "you look smart, probably because you're white." I guess I'm white to her. Should I argue? At other times Puerto Ricans have asked me out of nowhere, "are you part Puerto Rican." If they see it in me, is it there?

***

It's easy to say ethnicity, race, culture, color.... that it all shouldn't matter. Everyone is the same inside! But ethnic identity does matter, on a personal level. Your food, your culture, your family, language. That's personal. What we should say instead is that it shouldn't matter to anyone else. I'm a little tired of justifying my ethnicity. Why is it so important to you? Will you have to think of me differently if I prove I am "actually Puerto Rican?"

I think it has been a great privilege, growing up mixed, whatever that means. I hope I can give my kids what I was given, in some way. I can't say I've faced challenges, being mixed, but I have observed challenges. I think in general the world would be a better, happier, smoother, more loving place if everyone came from two places.

But back to me. I like who I am and where I came from. I've never fought it. And I'm thankful for that.