Never Choose!

Multiculturalism refers to cultural diversity within a community and the practice or promotion of cultural diversity. Someone who is multicultural is a person who is of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. There are times in my life where I strongly feel like being multicultural and multiculturalism are ideas that exist only in America.

It is horrific to me that day after day people travel here for a better life and better treatment yet when they arrive here they give Americans and other ethnic groups the same or worse treatment then what they were running from.

It's horrific when you share a common background with someone and you are not "pure". They go beyond the scope of trying to insult you by telling you that you are not one of them. Relatives who don't condone of the multicultural union are extremely well with these types of reminders to the off spring who is now multicultural and often times deals with rejection from both counter parts.

I am mixed with a Black American and a Hispanic and I define myself as a Black American Hispanic because I speak spanish and the food that I cook for the most part reflects that of the hispanic heritage.

What is insulting is that other hispanics, especially the Blanquitos (white hispanics) who don't know me or my biological parents look at me and judge me because they only choose to see a black person...

What is hilarious to me is that most of the islands where they are from Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and even Panama have people who are blacker than me... So when we're defining black what are we really defining? (I think the Census is on to something and I'll be blogging about them in the future.)

Then I turn around and Black Americans are revoking my black card because my last name is that of a hispanic decent and I speak spanish. I've had my own Black American cousins and other Black American counterparts tell me that I'm not black. Some of them go so far as to say that I can't relate to them and out right tell me that I am from where my father is from mind you, to my knowledge my father was born on an island and I was born in this country??! So how am I from a place I wasn't born at.

 

Either way I won't ever choose one over the other because I am a Black woman who is of hispanic decent. I will continue to listen to mi salsa, merengue y reggaeton and I will continue to listen to hip hop and RnB despite of who thinks I'm pretending or who it's confusing because at the end of the day I know both of my earthly creators and I love both of them equally and there heritages too. I idolize Jennifer Lopez and Hale Berry because I can and I am a reflection of them both. I listen to Marc Anthony and turn around and bump R.Kelly because I CAN....

I happily embrace both sides of me and I WILL NEVER CHOOSE ONE OVER THE OTHER. If I were to choose one then I am DENYING a piece of myself and heritage and this I won't ever do and neither should you!