I pause and wonder the question very carefully. How do they event want me to answer? How do I even begin to answer? And what is the intent behind this question? What seems to be a fairly straight forward answer has become one that I sometimes find myself unable to speak of .
“Where are you from?” – has been the postmark question since first arriving in the states back in 1995.
Now at the age of 35, this question haunts me wherever I go in the world. Should I answer regarding my origins? Where I was born and raised? Should I make note of my immigration to America. But what if I don’t feel “American”. What does that even mean?
A friend once said that all people who hold a US passport are considered “gringos”. Whoa!!!! Gringos, the word I have come to associate to white drunk party girls and cargo wearing white guys in Cancun. Me… a gringo?!
Maybe the most challenging part of this questions is not that I can’t answer it, its that I am not able to come to terms with the fact that I do not below anywhere. Unable to bring myself to a label that I may not otherwise agree with. Cuba is where I was born and raised, the US is where I immigrated, but it is not where I feel at home. Home has become a feeling and not a geographical location. So how do you answer such question?
Sitting across a friend at a bar; he allows me go on and on about my endless questions, continual pondering, and self serving ability to question everything. He allows me to finish…puts down his drink and says…
”Girl…just say your from New York.”
Checkmate