This story was created as part of Ideastream Public Media's “Sound of Us” audio storytelling workshop, in collaboration with the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center. We are featuring stories about identity. Each of our community storytellers explores aspects of their identity they find important. Tell your own story!
Who am I, you ask?
Just a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister… but first, I was and am a daughter. In fact, I’m in the kitchen with my mom now, and she’s cooking a traditional Salvadorian dish called pupusas.
My family comes from El Salvador, a small country in Central America. But because I was born in Los Angeles, I am an American too. Now, I live in the West Boulevard neighborhood in Cleveland. I am Salvadorian-American, a Hispanic-American. I am Salvadorian by DNA and American by birth.
I've only visited El Salvador once, when I was 11 years old. I was excited to see where my parents came from, but it felt so different compared to the United States. What really stood out to me was the living conditions. My sister, Lindsay, remembers that trip, too.
“It was in a time that the country was having a lot of violence and crime, and I wasn’t able to enjoy anything,” Lindsay said. “It was foreign to me. Very foreign.”
My cousin, Cindy, had a similar experience. She was born in Venezuela, but her parents are from Peru. She said she had a chance to visit Peru as a child, but for her, it didn’t feel like home.
“I felt out of place,” Cindy said. “Even though it was the country where my parents were born and raised, I didn’t grow up [there]. I grew up in the United States of America. So to me, this was my home.”
Benefits of being bilingual
The U.S. is my home, always has been. And as you’ve heard so far, I don’t have an accent when speaking English. It’s actually the language I’m most comfortable speaking. In fact, my sister and I speak English to our parents.
“I speak to them in English,” Lindsay said. “My sister speaks to them in English, they speak to us in Spanish. I think that helped us both on each side, because this was a win-win for both of us.”
Cindy speaks English and Spanish, too.
“My primary language at home was Spanish,” Cindy said. “Then, obviously, when I started going to school, then English. Spanish at home, English at school. I've always had to be very fluent in both.”
Sometimes, non-Hispanics will take one look at me and assume I’m not American, even though I was raised the same way they were and speak just like them. That never made sense to me — or Lindsay.
“They obviously see our last name,” Lindsay said. “They see our physical appearance. They see that we have some culture, a different culture from them, so they just don’t consider us Americans.”
Embracing diversity
Personally, being a diverse person has been amazing. One day, I get to eat my mom’s pupusas. Another day, I’ll have a typical American meal, like a burger and fries. The same goes with music. Sometimes I listen to salsa, merengue and bachata. Other times I listen to R&B and hip-hop. The list goes on.
Cindy also lives her life with much diversity in her world.
“I grew up in California,” Cindy said. “I love Mexican food. I can cook it. I love the people. Then again, I like Italian food. I like Italian people. I'm an international woman. Soy una mujer internacional.”
Being part of two worlds my whole life has taught me that it is OK to be different. It is OK to feel like you belong in more than one box or category. Who I’m supposed to be in other people’s eyes is not important. What is important is that I stay true to who I am. I am Hispanic-Americana!