My Identity Narrative

It was the summer before my ninth grade year when I began to question my true identity. Until that summer, I had never met the Hispanic side of my family. Until that summer, I had never realized how important language was in regards to ethnicity. Until that summer, I had never been ashamed of my heritage.
I had always identified myself as an African American. I was sure of my identity, but I chose to ignore the identity of my father. My father’s dad was black but his mother was Puerto Rican. My father, much like myself, could not speak Spanish. My grandmother could speak Spanish, but my grandfather only wanted English spoken in his household. I wasn't completely ignorant when it came to Spanish. I had spent the previous school year suffering …show more content…
Loud laughter could be heard under the fast beat of the salsa music. In the kitchen sat a large table of middle-aged to elderly Puerto Ricans. They were all talking in fast Spanish that sounded nothing like the taped versions played to me in class. " Te pareces a tu abuela, Mona. Soy la hermana de tu abuela, Linda." a lady came up to me and kissed my cheeks. The only words I could decipher from that sentence was abuela and my grandmother's name so I just smiled and nodded. When she looked away I wiped her sticky red lipstick off my cheeks. Statements like that continued throughout the day and when in doubt I just nodded and said sí or no. Someone could have said I smelled like fish and I would have just nodded and smiled. My dad had his cousin Junior by his side to translate but I had no one. I felt frustrated that they continued to talk to me in Spanish. So like many other teenagers in uncomfortable times, I pulled out my phone and shut the foreign world around me …show more content…
Could I even consider these people family? We all looked different and spoke different languages. When the confusing day was finally over, I and my dad were walking out of the now quiet house. Linda stopped me by the door and said in Spanglish " My inglés es no good, pero I love tú." So in my horrible Spanglish, I replied: "Te amo, too."
I now find myself excited about seeing my grandmother's side of the family. When I think back to that summer my self-identity did change. I'm not just African American I'm also Hispanic. Language is like water because it changes due to its environment. As both sides of my family would say, blood will always be thicker than