A Latina Traveling Through Latin America

(Who was born and raised in the USA)

Americans think I’m Costa Rican. Costa Ricans think I’m Indian. Indians think I’m Punjab.

Everyone is surprised that I can speak English. It’s a miracle to everyone that I can talk.

When Americans walk up to me talking in broken Spanish, I just let them for a few minutes.

When someone asks me how I learned English, my standard answer is “Biggie and Tupac.”

People keep asking me if I feel more “at home” here, as though all non-white Americans feel a soul-aching yearning to return to some mother country.

The USA is my mother country. I want Taco Bell. I want chemicals just like every true American. I want Starbucks. I’m a basic bitch.

And proud.

Should I be proud of that? Probably not, but I also can’t claim this country just because my grandmother and great-grandmother were born here.

I wasn’t the one living in a mine town in the mountains. I wasn’t the one who had their first lick of ice cream as a teenager. I didn’t have to take a train for days to see the ocean.

I grew up with high-speed Internet, school shootings, and obesity and opioid epidemics.