I always cringe when I get asked the question, "where are you from?" You would think it is a pretty easy question...at least I think it is for most, but for me it brings up a crisis of identity.
So where am I from? If you want to get technical about it the answer, I was born in Washington, D.C. and was raised in Arlington, VA. Oh...if only it were that easy. The reality is that I am much more than just the locations of my birth and upbringing. I am the child of two immigrant parents that met for the first time on a DC Metrobus. I grew up in a home where my father shared many beautiful and painful stories of his childhood in Guatemala. I also grew up in a home where my mother hid her painful childhood in Honduras from not only my brother and I, but also herself. I am a child that grew up seeing her paternal grandmother every weekend and remembers staring out the window at the moon as we drove through Washington, D.C. on Sunday nights to drop Ita back off at her job as a live in housekeeper.
I am also a big sister to a "little" brother and I have always taken my duty as a big sister pretty seriously. My job is to protect, provide, and support. I protected him from another big sister in the school playground, I would buy him a small gift every time I went out with friends, and have done my best to be a source of support. It also turns out that I am also a little sister....I have an older sister and brother from my father. My identity has been wrapped around my role as big sister....that only until now can I even admit that I am a little sister as well, but really I am big sister ;)
Other key facts that play into where I am from are my gender and education. I am a Latina....woman of Latino descent...spanish speaking....faithful to the Virgen de Guadalupe....dancing.....and complex. I was raised to be traditional but also given the freedom to break tradition. I was taught that education was the key to everything and that it was the one thing that could never be taken away. My father graduated from high school in Guatemala. My mother did not...she had to quit school to learn a trade to support her family. My Ita (paternal grandmother) had only been able to go to school for two years because she had to help provide for the family. I loved school and I was really good at it. I was not good at a lot of other things, especially sports, but school....I was great at it! So i flourished. So much so that I am the first in my family to have gone off to college and graduated. I also went on to earn my Masters degree and my Ph.D. So yes...you can call me Doctora!!
I know I have just scratched the surface, but I hope that you can see that asking me where I am from is actually quite complex. I am from a lot of physical spaces, dreams, pain, sacrifice, joy, determination, and resilience. So if I look at you with hesitation in my eyes when you ask me where I am from....be patient...i am trying to package it all up nicely for you.
