On being a Hispanic newbie

You learn something new every day. Opening up my 23andMe results for research, I found out my Mexican heritage can be linked to the Nahua, an indigenous group in Central Mexico most commonly associated with Aztecs. That is super cool.

I digress. In 2018, I found out I had roots in Mexico. Growing up, I knew I was Hispanic from my dad’s side of the family (and trust me, you can very obviously tell on their side,) but my mom’s side of my ancestry is very much British. 

Technically, it’s 49% British, localized to Northern Ireland and Scotland, 32% Spanish, 11% Indigenous American (the Nahua I mentioned earlier), and trace amounts of Scandinavian, Finnish, Greek, Ashkenazi Jewish, Egyptian and Korean.

So, given the numbers, that makes me 43% Hispanic.

Growing up, I felt a distant connection to Hispanic culture. Of course, my dad cooked many of his family recipes, many with connections to Mexican cuisine, since the family was from California and Colorado. I was also strangely into Mexican music. I blame my very much non-Hispanic cousin for this, but I consider Selena Quintanilla-Perez an absolute icon. 

When my grandmother passed away, teenage me desperately wanted to set up an Ofrenda so she could come and visit me on Día de los Muertos.

To quote the legendary Cheech and Chong, I “took Spanish and got a B.”

Their song “Mexican Americans” resonated with me for some reason, even though I was a Colorado girly through and through, especially this line: 

“Mexican Americans don’t like to get up early in the morning, but they have to, so they do it real slow.”

I want to be clear; I’m not just trying to touch on stereotypes. I am aware that eating Mexican food, listening to Selena, and finding joy in Cheech and Chong aren’t exclusive to being Hispanic. 

I didn’t fully explore my Hispanic heritage. It wasn’t a massive priority for me until my teenage years. My dad was proud of his Hispanic heritage, but this was also the same man who swore up and down that we had no Mexican in the family. My dad’s side of the family speaks Spanish, but my mom doesn’t, so we never heard it growing up, just little glimpses at grandma’s house.

Where I grew up, we had a pretty sizable Hispanic population, and I wanted to befriend them and learn more about their culture. However, despite my very apparently Hispanic maiden name, Romero, I didn’t fit in at school.

Since I never learned Spanish fluently, I was always nervous that I was being bullied. I knew the words “gordita” and “gringa,” which helped me detect if people talked badly about me. Luckily, I rarely heard these terms directed at me. However, most of my peers—and even a few of my teachers—thought I was Italian, so if I expressed interest in Hispanic culture at school, I was labeled a “poser.”

All of these aspects fought a war in my mind: Do I deny a vital part of my identity just to fit in with non-Hispanic kids? Do I embrace it, live my truth and be a “poser?” Or do I realize that maybe it’s not as dramatic as the teenage me is making it out to be?

I chose the third option. Looking back on it, my personal experience with bullying made me feel like there was a “divide.” 

Now, there very much was racism and discrimination. A viral video from Grand Junction, my hometown, showed a woman yelling at a Hispanic family, telling them to go back to their country, calling them a whole slew of slurs and criticizing them for speaking Spanish. That video broke my heart; nobody deserves to go through that.

In my experience, I had bullies from all creeds, not just Hispanic, and looking back on it, being bullied for being “Mexican vanilla” wasn’t nearly as prevalent as bullying for being chubby and socially awkward.

I recently discovered the term “Mestizo,” which means a person of European and Indigenous ancestry. If that doesn’t describe my background to a tee, I don’t know what does.

I have fully embraced this part of my identity into adulthood. Learning I had Mexican ancestry was the cherry on top. I find it beautiful that I don’t fit into a neat little box. 

I have a lot of catching up to do as far as learning about my ancestry, but I am proud of who I am, proud to be Mestizo, and proud to be setting up an Ofrenda this year for Abuelita.