Growing up, I had an interesting upbringing in the sense that I was not raised to see color.

I never looked at anyone different based on their race, including myself. Looking at my parents, I knew that my mother and father both had skin that was a different color, but it was never this huge epiphany that kept me up at night.

It wasn’t until the end of elementary school when I had to complete an immigration project that I finally learned my roots. It sounds crazy and you might be wondering how utterly oblivious I actually am, but up until that moment, I had never thought of where I came from or why my parents didn’t look the same.

That year I consciously learned that I was not just a Caucasian female. My mother’s family was from Puerto Rico, therefore, making me a female of mixed descent. I was completely mind blown and excited to learn where my mother’s family came from. However, that is not where this mind-altering change ended. A few years later, a close friend of mine and I were discussing how incredibly large the mixed population in the world is becoming. I was talking about it like I was a being apart from it; having no connection at all.

Then, my friend attached something to my identity; an adjective that I cling to now with complete pride. Mixed.

I am a mixed woman.

It was this new wonderful thought that went racing through my mind and I was completely amazed because never in my life had I considered myself to be a part of that category. I felt colorful and wonderful and open.

Adding this adjective to myself, however, added a little resentment and bitterness along the line. My parents never meant to hide my ethnicity from me. They just never looked at it as something that needed to be discussed because I was who I was. They never thought it was something that needed to be pointed out and highlighted.

I asked them so many questions because not only were my brother and I mixed children, but we were the only ones in our immediate familial surroundings. I felt like a puzzle coming together and I felt happy and complete.

This changed when I began to meet other people who were mixed, as well. Their features were more ethnic than mine and they knew more of their culture. I began to feel like I didn’t belong and couldn’t relate. I even had someone say to me that I wasn’t truly Puerto Rican because I didn’t speak Spanish and look as if I came from Latin decent. And I believed them.

I would look in the mirror and see what they saw. A girl who honestly just appeared white. She had a little color to her, but nothing special. Then, I would look to my brother who was and still is a spitting image of my beautiful mother. He looked as if he came from our family and what struck me was, I didn’t. Or at least that’s what I thought.

I was starting to feel apart from my own family. I started to feel bitter and sad that I couldn’t relate to my own roots. I held resentment inside of me because I felt like an oddity. Now, it was something that kept me up at night.

It took a while for me to start accepting that I was in fact part of this beautiful group of people and that I am mixed no matter how I look, speak, or act. I began to delve into my culture on both sides of my family and I began to feel those pieces come back to me.

Today, I feel whole. I actively practice Spanish to better connect with my mother and her family and I constantly ask questions of our culture, where we come from, and who we are. It’s exciting and I couldn’t be prouder to be who I am and to proudly state that now, I am a mixed woman who smiles brightly at her colors.