Christmas is my favorite holiday, ever. We’re talking as soon as that clock hits 12:00 a.m. on November 1, it’s time to put up the festive lights and start watching classics.
Regardless of the holidays, I’ve always been insecure about my heritage. With my mom moving here from Honduras and my dad from the Dominican Republic as teenagers, I am a first-generation student who is very Americanized. Growing up, my parents always spoke to my sisters and me in Spanish, but we developed a thing where we’d respond back in English. Fortunately, I learned Spanish and grew up with it being my second language. The bad thing? By responding in English, I didn’t get the practice I needed to actually speak it, so I always sounded like a “gringa,” to this day.
It used to be something that I was incredibly embarrassed about. How am I supposed to say that I am Latina if I can’t use the proper tense on something correctly? But, as I got older, there’s one thing I realized: my inability to sound fluent in Spanish isn’t the defining feature of my culture. I still grew up knowing the music, the food, the stories, the TV. Every Christmas, I look forward to my mom making her famous pasteles en ojas and watching her make coquito. I love sticking around to watch La Rosa de Guadelupe after dinner. Now that I’m older, I find myself at work talking about things from my culture that my coworkers don’t know about, feeling a little giddy inside.
Working at a place that’s a hotspot for tourists, I embraced the fact that sometimes, if I don’t know what something is, it’s probably due to a cultural difference, not my lack of heritage. Being Dominican and Honduran, I know the ins and outs of my parent’s homelands, but there are so many other places in Latin America that I am still learning about today. I actually had a Colombian friend explain to me just this past weekend what she likes to pair her buñuelos and bom boms with. The exciting thing is honestly just learning more and tasting all the new good food, of course.
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I’m “Hispanic” enough. As an adult, I speak Spanish just about every single day. I hear and feel myself becoming better and more seamless about it, and who knows if one day that little insecurity will disappear. But, I don’t think I necessarily need to wait for that in order to feel like I can proudly say I am a Latina. I love my culture and am proud to show it. At home over the years, I went from exclusively speaking English to speaking a heavy dose of Spanglish, and I find myself being able to really connect with people who only speak Spanish.
I worry a lot of the time that if I feel this Americanized, how will I be able to pass on my culture to my future children? And honestly, I think the answer to that is to just have the holidays be the same way it was for me growing up. My favorite traditions now can be some of my future children’s traditions. I will also have the help of my parents, who I may or may not bribe to actually teach my kids to be fluent in Spanish. My goal is to be completely fluent one day, but for now, I am happy knowing I am a semi-Gringa Latina loving my culture and the holidays.
