The older I get the more I realize how truly difficult it is to be a Latina living in the US. It’s like I’m constantly trying to find the perfect balance between assimilation into US American “culture” and my own Dominican culture. I’m either too Dominican for US Americans or too “white” for my Dominican family. I’m constantly thinking back to the scene in the movie Selena where her father Abraham tries to prepare her for exactly what she was getting herself into by being a Mexican-American artist crossing over into popular culture. It is exhausting.
I find myself cringing everytime I hear my Spanish accent roll off my tongue when I’m around white Anericans. I still don’t know why or how I’m so proud to be Dominican but so ashamed of my accent. I still refuse to accept the fact that I have an accent even though im always being told otherwise. I guess it’s a learned self-hatred and I’m still in the process of decolonizing myself inside and out.
I don’t think I’m alone in this struggle, and I hope that everyone out there who is trying their best to fit in with their family and the general US American population knows that they aren’t alone either. Maybe we’ll find a happy medium… Maybe we won’t. Who knows? I sure don’t.
Forever Thugnacious 