“The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.” — Sonia Sotomayor

The sun doesn’t scare me because I can never catch a sunburn; and the skin that covers my bones is not only thick, or white or black but a beautiful burnt brown which I’m proud and happily wear off.

The beauty of my language can make my tongue twist as many ‘R’s’ I want and at the speed I make her to.

I may live in America but don't call me just a “Spanish girl” because I am not. I am a proud Latina who carries a history with every step given and an accent every time she speaks English. I am one of the many Latinas who is not embarrassed of her “you’re too loud” voice and not afraid to show the world what “loud” means whenever I have to voice my own opinion.

I walk around the streets and when I do my hips yell ‘candela’ because Latinos learn how to dance before we can learn how to walk, so we get used to walk at the beat of our own bodies.

I am a Latina -- a Latina who loves pizza but one that proudly consumes her native land’s traditional food, pupusas and let me not get started on the “arroz con frijoles” or habichuelas for all you know.

I am the survivor of the so called, “chancleta treatment,” and the witness of how a family “small get together” can turn into a party with a DJ and colorful lighting, which create memories of a lifetime.

I am a coffee lover whose arteries transport caffeine all over her body. One that is guilty by default for watching all the soap operas I watched as a little girl instead of watching any other kid's show. Mostly guiltier for the infinite love I have for music-- for imitating Selena and mainly for blasting Celia Cruz’s “La Negra Tiene Tumbao” song more than one thousand times while in the shower.

This Latina carries the cooking legacy of her mother which was passed down from my grandmother. I carry the spice and the ability to create anything in the kitchen representing the love I have for food.

The Latina that lives in me was taught to laugh, to love and to live life to the fullest because I am a fighter, a carrier of stories, of struggles, of unwanted stereotypes and a carrier of mixed roots that make my own background exotic and my language beautiful.

I am a lover of the heritage and culture that created this proud Latina.