To be woman.

To be brown.

To be asked, “what are you?”

as if you should respond with something other than human.

To identify as a color when nobody is truly the exact same color.

To wonder if you are more or less <LATIN> than someone who just arrived?

To ponder that your knowledge of a culture makes you more of that

To question the scenarios that made you lose the language

To look at others and judge based on what you are hearing or seeing

In a moment.

It’s a funny thing to be evaluated on where your ancestors came from when

they came from the Earth.

My blood is filled with

conflicts,

wars,

heritage,

triumphs,

My blood is filled by people

that lived on the land,

that spoke another language,

that were more brown, more white

that were different than me.

My blood is fluent in the language of conquerors

and of people conquered,

I am a tribal conquistador that ravaged

my own people.

And yet today I am a checked box.

I am Hispanic.