Soy Cubano. GET OVER IT

Mestizo. Mezclado. Half breed. Mulatto. Latino. Taíno.

All these words can describe my ethnicity. None describe my personality but hey words are words and none of it really affects me. I am not so fragile as to be negatively affected by the inappropriate behavior and ignorant rants others may go on.

Skin color has nothing to do with ethnicity. The first photo is of me in the summer. At the time I was working indoors but spent my mornings outside working and fishing. The second is mid-March when I had been inside for nearly 8 months and snow was still on the ground. My skin color is the same in both photos, yet one appears darker than the other. One apparently is good enough for some people and the other for others. Neither is accurate. My actual tone is in between the two. I’m almost a light golden color. Soy Cubano, no un color.

Soy adoptado. No crecí con otros Cubanos. No salgo con ninguno hoy. Podría ser el único Cubano en este extremo norte.

I’ve got an abuela (a mi niños) who has moved from being armario racista to an epic tonta fuerte who tells my daughters

”good, get all the Cuban out of you”

when they use the bathroom and cannot understand why they cry when around her. She’s harassed and shamed my youngest daughter into abandoning what she really wanted to do for Festival of Nations (a school project on heritage) and chose herself- Cuba. She now has agreed to do Poland and will likely showcase heavily butchered recipes and mispronounced and misspelled “Polish” lingo, many of which were actually horrid slang and insults directed at a little girl who turned into a bitter and very deeply troubled elderly woman. I guess I’m not white enough for someone.

I’ve got familia adoptiva who openly state in a baby book they wanted a South American baby and who stopped writing in it after a year or so while all the books of mi hermanos, who are also adopted, were lovingly filled with writing, pictures and birthday cards. I filled mine with birthday cards myself. I remember this distinctly. Today, people adopt Asian babies and buy Asian wives to show off their wealth. In the early and mid 1980s, Spanish babies and women were all the rage. My skin is neither brown nor white and therefore unworthy of showcasing. Guess I’m not brown enough for someone.

Mexicans don’t seem to like me. They misuse the word gringo at large and don’t seem to understand that when in another country, gringo applies to the foreigner. But, wait, they are referring to my skin tone because it is mistaken by the ignorant as ethnicity.

Factually speaking, Mexicans and Cubans are both of the race Mestizo, a mix of Spanish and Native American DNA, with any other multitude of ethnicities mixed in. Technically speaking, they are not the same as me. My native blood is Taíno and theirs is any one of the many Aztec empire tribes. But then again, we are all (partly) indigenous to these continents that make up the Americas. So what’s the issue?

Trump supporters and conservatives often tell me to go back to Cuba. They don’t want me here because apparently anyone who speaks Spanish is Mexican and they gotta #buildthewall To be proud of my heritage and to have la bandera de Cuba es malo y debo dejar Yuma while every town is littered with Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Mexican, British, German and Finnish flags is a big no no here. Some are clearly more equal than others. Odio a los comunistas. Hay demasiados hipócritas. Los Republicanos son pendejos.

Liberals and socialists pretend that I am beloved, valued and welcome among them until I show that I am an individual with independent thoughts and unable to be shaped into a drone at which point I must go the way of Elián Gonzales. They attempt to speak over me, as I am a minority, and need their voices to counter the white privileged and become enraged and try to silence me by force when I do not allow them to play that racist angle. I guess I’m not useful or stupid enough for someone.

¿Taíno gentes? Algo de la peor ignorancia que he visto! I was told today because I am not short or brown enough for one person, nunca puedo ser Taíno. Someone who claimed to be pure blood Taino (imposible) demanded all negros y blancas leave her lands, refused to speak coherent English or Spanish and called Cortez a monster, while her Facebook profile proudly displayed her half English half Spanish name. She is Boriqueña, a people who have siblings born with a multitude of different skin tones. One child will look white, one black and another Mestizo and none look related even though they all are. Her beef with me? Soy Cubano. Soy descendiente de los colonizadores españoles. Soy “un gringo.” A gringo is a word used to describe someone who is not Spanish. I am clearly Spanish. I look Spanish, I am from a Spanish country. All my blood relatives (except a few) are Spanish people with Spanish names and they speak Spanish.
Ella es estúpida o confundida.

The worst part? Cuanto más racistas son, más racista me vuelvo. It’s a natural defense.

Soy Cubano. Such a joy.

Supéralo.

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