I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere. There were a few years in Puerto Rico where I felt like that’s where I was from – I ate guayaba and drank coquito for Christmas, I climbed quenepa and mango trees, and I pronounced all my r’s like l’s. I was as Boricua as the coqui’s that kept me up late into the night, singing along to my neighbor’s salsa.

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Although I visited my family in the mountains at least once or twice a year, I couldn’t escape my friends’ accusations that I was more American than Puerto Rican.

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            “Where were you born?” one of them asked.

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            “California.”

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            “California? You’re from Hollywood?”

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            “I was born in Bellflower.”

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            “What’s Bellflower?”

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            “Los Angeles.”

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            “So, you are a Hollywood American! You’re not Boricua.”

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I had never been embarrassed to be American, and I suddenly was. I didn’t even understand that most of my friends thought it was cool that I was born in California. Too bad I didn’t remember it. My family moved away to Juarez before I had even turned one. So, when people asked, I said I was from El Paso, the last place I’d lived before Puerto Rico.

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That became my rule for the rest of the places I lived. My family moved to Florida, and I was proud to tell people I was Puerto Rican. I was more Boricua than most Nuyoricans and Miami Ricans I met in Florida. Most of them had never been there and had no idea what real pan sobao tasted like. Then, we moved back to El Paso a few years later. The city my parents were from. The city that made me feel even less like I belonged anywhere.

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The first time I went back to El Paso to visit with my family, my grandma cried. She said we had Puerto Rican accents when we spoke Spanish. It never occurred to me to be embarrassed of an accent before. I used to be proud of my heritage in El Paso. After that, I no longer identified with that side of myself. I was half Puerto Rican and half Mexican, but only half.

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By the time I lived in El Paso again, I was sixteen years old. That year was the first time I ate tamales for Christmas. It was the first year I tried takis, the first time I could go to Chico’s every now and then, instead of just once a year. I started learning some Mexican slang. Even though I used to be embarrassed to speak Spanish, I was more scared of losing it than getting laughed at by the El Pasoans.

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The first time I ever told people I was from El Paso was when I moved to Cuba. El Paso was the last place I lived, so it was where I was from. Most Cubans knew little about El Paso other than that it bordered Mexico and that Trump wanted to build a wall. I don’t know how many times I told them there was already a wall, and there had been one for years, every time they asked how I felt about that.

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Most of my life in Cuba was pedestrian. Which is to say, we walked everywhere –the grocery store, the fruit stands, the two blocks to the beach. And, of course, the bus stops. During those walks, we stood out. Cubans had a particular style, and we clearly were not following their fashion ideals. The ones on the street who saw us walking guessed where we were from.

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“Mexicana?”

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“Colombiana?”

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“De Perú?”

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“De Ecuador?”

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Not once did they guess that I was American. It bothered me so much that once, when I was particularly hungry, sweaty, and just tired, I spoke my mind.

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“Why don’t you ever guess American? Because I’m brown? Because I don’t have blue eyes?”

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I lived in Cuba for a little over a year before I was able to come home and visit. We flew in through Mexico and landed in Juarez. We planned to cross the bridge and get picked up on the American side. We began to line up in front of the agents. My mom went first with my younger sisters. They asked her a bunch of questions but let her through fairly quickly.

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Then, it was my turn. I expected the same routine, but then the border patrol agent started talking to me in Spanish.

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“De donde eres?” he said with a smile.

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“El Paso,” I said in the whitest, most American accent I could muster. I didn’t smile.

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I was relieved when he finally let me meet the rest of my family. I had never been so happy to walk through a glass door and see an American flag waving in the breeze. I closed my eyes and breathed in the rocky smell of the El Paso desert. I never felt like I belonged anywhere my entire life, no matter how much I loved wherever it was I was living. I loved Cuba, but I wasn’t Cuban. I loved Florida, but I wasn’t Floridian. I turned around and saw the Mexican and American flags flying next to each other over the bridge. In that moment, I was that bridge, suspended between two places, the places I lived flapping in the wind and announcing to the world that yes, I am from here, even if I may not stay here.