I've always struggled with that term. Identity. It seems dirty rolling off in my non native tongue.
When I was brought here, legend has it that I was kicking and screaming. I mistook the border patrol agent for my pediatrician.
"Not the bald man!" I wailed. "El Pelón no!"
I was afraid El Pelón would stick me with a needle, or press an ice cold stethoscope to my toddler chest.
Legend has it, the agent turned beet red, handed the papers over to my worried mother and welcomed us into the States.
Legend has it, and here I stay.
I remember vague snippets of my first years here. A friend who tried to teach me English and who introduced me to Sour Warheads.
Every English word I've uttered since tasted like that Warhead in my 5yr old mouth.
I remember being praised for being quiet, and later being praised for being outspoken, a bright kid, we can't even tell you're not from here!
New Mexico. Montana. Wyoming. No, Colorado, just a different town. You've never heard of it.
I tried desperately to hide my true birth place, taught it was dirty like the dirt floors of my grandma's house.
When the kids asked, I got good at lying. Shortening my name to avoid the nasal mispronnpunciations and adding of letters.
I learned to spell my name outloud
Because it always sounds foreign
When speaking to a medical professional.
They act like their parents, grandparents, didn't have to change their name at a port of entry, because they too feared, the gross, nasal, mispronnounciation.
Later, I'm disappointed to admit that the desire to belong to this new culture I was unwillingly throw into, took over, and I checked my Brown-ness at the door.
My mestizo ass self wanted to be goth.
I romanticized that porcelain skin vampires liked to soil, the flowing tresses of Lenore, I wanted hair red like Eleanor of Avalon and piercing, blue eyes.
But God gave me skin in the shade of Rimmel Stay Matte 201-203, depending on the time of year, bone straight black hair, and shit brown eyes.
Well, I tried to make do.
The hair, I could live with.
Everyone abused their hair with straighteners and box dye, but I woke up with perfectly pointed black locks, straight as an arrow.
The eyes? I tried purple contacts once. Blue would look too unnatural, as much as I yearned for it.
The skin. Oh the skin. I would take my mom's Avon body powder. And use it. As loose powder. For my face.
13yr old me, heading off to school in my platform boots, Goodwill black skirt, clearance rack Hot Topic tee, and a weird, cakey, powdered face.
I thought this would give me that porcelain look I craved.
As I got older...no lol. I got caught. My mom stopped me once at breakfast and confronted me. She said that powder wasn't meant to be used on the face and if I wanted makeup, I'd have to wait until my Quinceñera.
So, I turned to a girl in my gym class who would steal foundation for me.
I always told her a shade lighter than what I actually was.
Covergirl, fair to medium, I'd say.
She knew that was closer to her shade, but she never complained.
She'd walk into that drugstore and shoplift makeup for me and 2 other girls in that class.
The 4 of us would then fake our periods to get out of class.
Looking back, the other two girls were mixed.
They never seemed to have a problem telling her what shade of foundation they wanted.
She's a born again Christian now,
After that, came my Quince. I was allowed to wear makeup. I stuck to my Covergirl fair because it was the only shade I knew. I smeared eyeliner beneath my eyes and pretended I was Amy Lee, fresh from a breakup with a vampire in the snow.
Slowly, I left my Covergirl fair when it made me break out.
A genetic condition, I still have it, it still flares up, fuck does it hurt.
Herpes, syphilis, que andabas haciendo? Dad accused me.
It wasn't. It came from his genes. The cystic sores between my legs, made worse by stress and bleeding.
It came from his genes. But we wouldn't find that out until my 20s.
So until then, I hid even more.
I shrunk, I retreated behind flowing skirts and a military cap. Stressed as the truth was beginning to unravel.
I can't go to college because...I'm not from here?
Then there's really no point in me graduating huh.
Get married? With oozing cystic acne between my legs? Who the fuck would want to marry /that/?
Have my husband pay for my education?
Mother, she never admitted but I'm sure she suspected,
I've had more girlfriends by now...husband is...a Warhead word.
The only thing I was ever good at was music. Maybe writing but, I couldn't even speak English properly according to the school system that tried desperately to stick me in ESL for 12 years.
Music, I guess, would get me to college.
I lost 1st chair in Citywide that year, to a bitch from the Art's School...who's daddy donated to their Art's Cause.
Plus, I never learned to sight read, I'd been faking it for a good 8 years by then.
I, an undocumented little asshole, learned to ration my meds.
Between the asthma and the "skin condition" I'd cost my parents hundreds a month in out of pocket costs.
I learned to take my daily inhaler ONLY for emergencies to make it last longer, to use pea sized amounts of topical steroids on cysts spanning my entire thigh, to hide all my symptoms from everyone around me until it got so bad, that we had no choice but to seek help.
Then, senior year, I sent a binder containing my whole life story to the U.S Department of Homeland Security and prayed for clemency.
I was dragged here, faced the bald man, ate the Warhead, donned talcum powder on my face, lost my accent, shortened my name, left Healthcare for deserving citizens...please...give me the right to work.
Somewhere in all of that, I tried to join the school's Latino Student Alliance.
They shamed me out for being too white.
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