Where do I Belong?

I am a 27 almost 28 year old mixed female from the Bronx. All my life I've struggled with where I belong or the ethnicity I most identify with. I'm Puerto Rican, Italian, and Black. Born in Wisconsin raised in the Bronx since the age of 2. I never felt like I've fit in with anybody from grade school to high school to college to making friends at work and outside. I was not Spanish enough for the Hispanics, too dark and too hood for the white people, and too light for the black people.

Throughout my years in school the groups of people I generally hung out of dated remained the same to an extent, but it never made me feel as if I was accepted or for all intensive purposes where I belong. I don't speak Spanish so I definitely did not feel as if I fit in with the Hispanic group, especially when they would purposely speak Spanish in front of you knowing that you don't speak it. I don't even eat beans, so you can imagine how my friends' families would look at me when I would turn down food or have no clue what was being said to me. I also lived in the projects and grew up in predominately minority neighborhoods so I was always surrounded by black and West Indian people. Even majority of my ex-boyfriends were Jamaican and African-American. The only reason why I felt like I didn't belong was because of my skin color, I am very light skinned, so they always considered me white instead of mixed. I've had a running joke that depending on my hair, is the ethnicity I can pass for. I knew I was not white enough based on my hair, skin color, mannerisms, and I was just a little too hood, I realized that in grade school. I didn't even try to fit in with the Italians, I took Italian for 4 years in high school and was literally alone the whole time, I was always the last person picked for group projects, like the last kid picked in gym class.

So how do you figure out where you belong when half of what you are looks down on you because of your ethnicity or how you were raised or the decisions you've made in my life. Because of these things I haven't had the greatest self-esteem. Always self-conscious, never comfortable, always confused, and almost always alone. I've been told I was a disgrace to the Hispanic race for not speaking Spanish. I'm disgusting and should be ashamed of ever being with an African-American/ West Indian man. I've been cheated on and dumped because I wasn't dark enough. I've been looked down on because of my hair and the way I wear it matched with my skin tone. My family has even looked down at me because of these things. The question still is where do I belong and who fully accepts me and all my parts beauty, flaws, backgrounds, upbringing, bad habits, goals, accomplishments, downfalls, and bad decisions. It's hard to be happy with yourself when these are the things you've been faced with. And now as a mother of a mixed child with the state of the world how can you live peacefully without paranoia and being scared and concerned that your child can possibly be heading down the same path as you.

Until there is a dramatic change and everyone in the world lives by PLUR, (peace, love, unity, & respect), the people living this way and feeling like this won't go away. As Bill Nye the Science Guy said at EDC 2019, "We are all one race, the human race." A person should not feel as if they don't belong, because of their looks and ethnicity. You shouldn't be shunned for your decisions, but the question still is how do you figure out where you belong when every part that is supposed to represent you has turned their back on you or does not acknowledge you for who/ what you really are. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't.