Growing up, I knew about racial struggles but not once did I felt the need of wondering what my 'social label is'. However, that changed when I moved here to the United States. I got so overwhelmed with labels that made my sexuality discovery a walk in the park.
"Black," "yellow," "brown," and what color are Hispanics/Latinos people? What about mixed people? Are they called mutts? There are so many derogative words that are aimed towards a group of people that are humans. Why do we feel the need of color labeling ourselves? All of those questions have plagued my mind for months, and it was not until my third semester in the U.S., where I took a class on Baldwin. I felt that I walked around with a huge question mark, I would hang out with my friends and see the color palette and ethnic background and see how confident they were to know about their ancestry while I am just... there. I've reached out to my parents and found out that finding out exactly what is my ethnicity for me will be too hard. On my father's side, I have two races and from my mother's side, it is still unknown. This enigma brought a realization of as a Latina, I am mixed from the very beginning, and the vast majority of the earth population is mixed.
At first, I did not realize that the vast majority of the earth population is mixed; however, as I watched a FLAMA video and I heard a very diverse Venezuelan, it clicked. I do not fit into one label of color; I do not fit into one ethnicity. The more straightforward way of defining my origins to anyone would be to say what country I was born rather than giving my family heritage. I slowly realize that as long as I am proud of my family tradition, I can start the process of not fitting inside a box and take time to look for my ancestry.
