First, let me say I am sorry. I am sorry for being ashamed of you, for being ashamed of me. I am sorry that I stopped speaking Spanish when I went to school. I am sorry that I asked you to stop packing me tortillas y frijoles for lunch. I am sorry for refusing to go outside, knowing how easily my skin browns in the sun. I am sorry for putting in my headphones while you listened to Vicente Fernandez during dinner. I am sorry for refusing to visit Mexico in an effort to disassociate myself from my culture. I am sorry for being ashamed of something that you can’t control, that I can’t control, and that you love so dearly.
But despite spending the first half of myself hating everything about my culture and skin, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for coming to the United States in an effort to give me a better life. I want to thank you, Dad, for putting your education on hold at 8 years old to start working for your family, I want to thank you for immigrating at 17 for back-breaking work in construction, I want to thank you for loving every inch of myself that I could not bring myself to do, even before you knew I would exist. I want to thank you, Mom, for making me 3 meals a day that engorged my taste buds with the flavors of hard work and kindness. I want to thank you for brushing out my tangles every night. I want to thank you for rubbing Vicks Vapor Rub on my chest during flu season, for giving me Sprite to cure a cold, for making caldo de pollo to soothe my throat. I want to thank you for caring for my body in a way that I could not bring myself to do.
I want to promise you that I will never hide myself again. I am a product of two amazing people who have worked so hard to give me a better life than what they had, I will not be ashamed of the traits and culture they have passed down to me. I will embrace it, let it live on in my life, and pass it down through my own family. For loving myself and what I’m made of represents every opportunity that has been given to me by you and it has led me to where I am today. I am proud of my immigrant parents. I will not cringe when my Dad’s thick accent fills the air, I will not reply to my mother in English in public when she chooses to speak her native tongue, I will not drown out the language of love and labor with my headphones.
Lastly, I want to say that I am proud of you. I am proud of what you have accomplished in life, of what you have given me. I am proud of the family you have created and the home you upkeep. I am proud of you. I am sorry that it took me so long to say this, but most of all, I am proud to be your daughter.