Where are you from ?

English is not my native language, plus I clearly do not look as your “typical american” whatever that might be, so it is not uncommon to be faced with this question.

We could go with the basics, I was born in Chile but lived there for 2 years, grew up in Venezuela, and I’ve been in California for the past 17 years.

That does not even start to describe how I feel, I probably think in english half the time, y en español el resto, y no es raro que alguna vez tenga conflictos internos entre decir coño, or fuck…

Trabajando como ingeniero, I really do not know how to talk in Spanish about Computer Science, y peor aún trying to describe a car problem to a mechanic is an endless combination of the “thing that does the thinghie”, instead of creo que el mínimo esta muy bajo o la mariposa atascada en el carburador.

The “from” includes so much more than just spoken language though, my feet and body will unconsciously start moving at the right beat of a song, more often than not, I probably move my hands far more than others while talking, and living in California, I am constantly asking myself, was that politically correct ?, thinking about something that I just said or did.

So, many times when I am asked “where are you from?” you’ll notice a brief pause, before I can actually answer, as I’ll be running all that story in my head to try to figure out once and again where am I from.