The truth is that I am most uncomfortable when questioned about my identity. The irony in this truth, is that I as many other millennials, grew up in a world in which every possible avenue for projecting one’s own idea of self (my definition of identity) exists; a world which is so saturated with mediums dedicated to the projection of (filtered) identity, that even those who have attempted to escape the tempting reach of these mediums have failed miserably—even if they don’t know it. It is unescapable (i.e. Have you ever seen a picture of someone who doesn’t have a Facebook on Facebook?).

Nonetheless, what generates most discomfort to me is that for all the talk engulfing the subject of identity in America at the moment; the context under which this conversation on identity is being had has been hijacked by political hacks on the right and left of the political spectrum. Armed with the weapons of political correctness and identity politics, these hanks continue unimpeded in their incessant ritual of surveillance probing the conversation on identity in America for the slightest incongruence that might upset their moral standards. I hope my story upsets them.

It is precisely because of this discomforting era of identity politics that I have chosen to speak up about my own identity as a brown face conservative in the party of Trump. It’s my attempt to break through a context which incentivizes defining my fellow man by the color of their skin, rather than by the content of their character.I grew up in the most diverse place in America: Houston, Texas. Diverse in every respect, unlike other cities, Houston does not have a social hierarchy, we tried having one, but we could not convince enough rich white people to move to Houston—turns out that Houston’s humidity is a really big deal breaker. Even Beyoncé left us. And Drake only comes to Houston because he has a side chick here, we all act like we don’t know, but we only let him stay in Houston from time to time because he always gives Houston shout-outs in like all of his songs and it reminds us how blessed we are to be from the city that doesn’t sink.I grew up in Southwest Houston for most of my life, (my family had a boujee lifestyle for like six years and moved out to Katy, TX—a.k.a the suburbs, only to wind back in Southwest Houston after my dad herniated two of his lower back disks) Southwest Houston singlehandedly played the most influential role in my life, my curiosities about life, my intellectual, religious and political persuasions, my ambition not to be broke the rest of my life can all be traced back to Rampart St. and Elm St., Southwest Houston, TX. It was there where it all started for me. Notice that I did not note the fact that I was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. Not because I am ‘ashamed of my roots’ but rather because my family’s own journey in America has been quite unique to say the least, and despite the ebb and flow of my family’s story in America, which spans back decades, I have loved Southwest Houston from the date that I had use of reason.I am the son of a truck driver turned ordained minister, and the nicest woman born in Torrance, California you will ever meet, along with my sister Arleth; we have always been a traditional tightknit churchgoing tribe. It’s always been just us four. Most of the paternal side of my family lives in Mexico, and we try to visit them at least one week every year, the rest of my family lives in places far from Texas like: Ohio, Kansas and California. Without any siblings nearby, my parents anchored their social life, and that of my sister and I around a vibrant Latin-American, predominantly central American, Pentecostal community in Southwest Houston. On the nights that my family would go to sleep to the sound of gunshots at the distance while attempting to sleep in our one bedroom apartment; or the days at a time in the early 2000’s in which the streets were cluttered with violence and gangs like MS-13 and SW Cholos sacked neighborhoods like mine; with the images collected through the television set of people jumping to their deaths to avoid the raging flames on 9/11 sharply in my memory at the age of six; what I learned from an early age in Southwest Houston, was that this world could never be an ideal place, that my life mission was not to waste the rest of my life attempting to find Atlantis, my mission became more and more an art dedicated at making a place for myself anywhere I went, being of value to my community and a rock to my loved ones.Perhaps, that’s the reason why philosophers like Conservative Edmund Burke and Niccolo Machiavelli resonated well with me; prudence in order to survive. I never had much intellectual patience for the gospels of abstractions of Karl Marx or Ayn Rand for that matter, gospels dedicated to abstractions, as in idealist theories regarding a humanity and a world I know does not exist. I am wholly absorbed by what Machiavelli described as the “effectual” truth, incapable of entertaining ideas of perfection when there is so much to fix, so much to survive. If I had any ambition this would be it: there is value in the legacy of freedoms we as a society have inherited to preserve, that in amending ever so slightly the tapestry of our communities we do so first with the profound attention for the liberties and rights of those in it, this is why I am a Conservative.However, I am not only solely a Republican because I am a Conservative. Being a Republican has been a far more intimate enterprise; one which started before Donald Trump got to the Republican Party and one which will endure long after Donald Trump is gone. I reserve the right to call out president Trump when I believe that he is undermining the future of our Republic; similarly to how candidate Trump criticized former president George W Bush. It’s a big tent and I love the people in it.People like the farmers out in Eureka, Kansas who welcomed me with a smile when I was just a boy cleaning pools, and all I had to show for myself was a GED. People who gave me the benefit of the doubt and dubbed me 'Al'. People like my Sunday school teacher, a Salvadorian immigrant and TPS recipient who first talked to me about a man named Ronald Reagan. People like Barbara Bush, whose last name looms over my hometown, but who nonetheless took the time to come read to my third grade class. She doesn't know the impact that act of kindness left in me.People with the values, jobs, and fears of the most vital duo in my life, my parents. I am the product of incessant American demand for cheap labor. The grandson of Ramon Uranga who labored the fields of Wisconsin and Texas for a better tomorrow. The grandson of Arturo Vazquez Arias who similarly, since the 1950’s and 60's, worked in factories across Michigan attempting to make America his home.The son of a truck driver who hid himself in train frights after crossing the Rio Grande because he wanted to reunite with his family in Southwest Houston. I will not get lectured on not being, Republican or Latino enough. My story is what it is—and I have found value in it; and as one fellow Republican put it to me at a Pachyderm meeting in Wichita once, “if people can’t get past the brown face—they can take a hike.