You Can’t Sit With Us

Back when I worked at Versailles for a few years, customers would ask me where I was from, and when I answered, I would always get a very confusing reaction. "Que mezcla" ("What a mix") which was baffling to me as a 17-year-old. Eventually, I learned it was because of the political notoriety Cubans and Chileans hold respectfully. But I think the reaction goes a little deeper, to be honest.  
In 2019, it was reported by Chileans in the U.S. that there are a little over 17,000 Chileans living in Miami, the 2nd highest population in the country (#1 being NYC).  But my mother moved to Miami in 1979 which means the number of Chileans living in Miami at that time probably fit in one Sabores Chilenos with room to spare.  
My family in Chile was a crucial part of my childhood and who I am to this day. My grandparents raised 6 children on middle-class salaries in Chile, they survived countless economic recessions and political hurdles like the Pinochet regime.  My grandfather lost his job at Coca-Cola for simply being accused of opposing the Pinochet regime and as a result, my family spent countless sleepless nights where they fully expected him to be arrested and never be seen again, a population that came to be known as Los Desaparecidos. I only had my grandfather in my life for the first 5 years of my life before he was taken from me by a car accident but I think about him every single day & dream with him more often than not.  
 
I lived with my grandparents a few times and would visit often visit Chile during summer and Christmas breaks when I was a kid. I'm told that I used to go into the neighbor's garden and pick tomatoes and eat them raw and then get busted with a full tomato face. And when I would get busted being mischievous, I apparently invented an apology in another language that would get me out of it real fast. I would often sit on my grandfather's lap while he listened to talk radio. He shared his headphones with me but I always chose to put my ear over his heart and listen to that instead of what the grown-ups were yelling about on the radio. My grandmother took me to the playground down the block of their house every day (we survived an earthquake just us two in that park but that story is for another day). My aunts and uncles loved me relentlessly and my grandparent’s house was my very own princess castle. I was loved a lot and well by my Chilean family. 
The last time I was there for an extended period of time was in September of 2001. I had just graduated high school that June and wasn't starting college until the Spring semester so I gifted myself an extended trip. That visit is hands down the best one I've ever had. I was old enough to be so cool and drink smoke cigarettes, and hang out until late into the night with my aunt Paula & uncle Leo (who are the equivalent of my own personal versions of Aunt Becky and Uncle Jesse) because they were so cool and that made me so cool. There were family trips to the beaches (Maitencillo and Viña del Mar) and to the breathtaking Chilean seaport known as Valparaiso. My cousins and I would escape on endless adventures together. Chile holds a place in my soul that has been vacant for 14 long years. That's how long it's been since I've visited and I could go from zero to tears if I let myself think about it for too long.  But funny enough, my Chilean family finds me too Cuban-American to really be Chilean.  
 
My father is Cuban. He came to this country on The Mariel. He has a few sisters and a brother. But I don't know anything about my Cuban family's story. Nothing. I don't know what life was like for them on the island or how the rest of my Cuban bloodline came to this country. I don't know their struggles or victories or familial stories/traditions. Half of my genetic and 1/3 of my cultural DNA is a complete mystery to me. Not by design but because that's how it has worked out. Nevertheless, I have questions that I would love answered.  What are my Cuban roots? Did my family own a business? Were they ever political prisoners? What were my paternal grandparents like? How many paternal cousins do I have? I hold on to pieces of my Cuban identity thru documentaries and podcasts and hearing stories from other Cuban elders. And while I don't know my Cuban elders' stories,  I still feel fully Cuban in my own right even if the Cuban community rejects me for being a half-breed.  
 
Being born in this country, I hold the cultural traditions that make me American beyond the geographic technicality that blesses me as an American citizen. Pop culture and gluttony and hyperbolic existence with no working knowledge of the concepts of intangible pleasures or sitting still. My favorite meal is a burger & fries, cheesecake is life and my fave rock band is Aerosmith. I can karaoke the shit out of most classic rock songs & the second I get over my stage fright, I will. I am proud to say that I am a full-fledged "Disney Adult" and ABC's TGIF lineup was everything when I was a kid (as was Full House and anything else on UPN). When I'm older, I would love to be a Golden Girl...any of them I don't care they're all iconic. 
I'm proud as hell to be American. We are not a perfect country but no perfect country exists. And I don't reject American exceptionalism because I hate us. The idea that we should look at our country's history with accountability, honestly, fully in all the gore, horrors, victories and beauty, and say "We can do better" is in fact what makes us great. We have to stop debating whether each other's experiences and pain are true and instead empathetically listen and move forward with the resolve to do better by each other. But by my country's standards, I am part of a population that is staining the American flag. I am part of "the problem". But see you can't tell me to go back to where I come from because this is literally where I'm from even if you hate me for simply existing. 
 
So where can I sit?  
 
If I'm too Cuban-American for my Chilean side, not Cuban enough for my Cuban bloodline, and rejected by my home country...where exactly can I sit? 
And I suppose the issue of where I belong goes a little deeper for me because doesn't it always lol.  Because of the complexities of abuse is the "cat & mouse" paradigm of rejection & acceptance. And part of healing your identity of an abusee is that you have to stop playing all of the paradigms of it on someone else's field. 

I can stop being my parents' kid and stand in my full adult present self. Now we're playing on my field. 

I can speak up for myself when boundaries are repeatedly crossed or disrespected. And you have every right to get mad about it but now we're playing on my field.

Quite the enjoyable muscle to flex once you start using it I must tell you.  
So my remaining options regarding where I can sit in my cultural identity is to either ask to sit at your table or build my own. And the thing is the people I admire the most are people who are firmly rooted fully in who they are. They live centered from the truest essence of their soul and they build literally everything from that place outwardly. 

Beyonce, Glennon Doyle, Oprah, Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert, Brene Brown, The Rock, Dwayne Wade, Justina Machado, Gloria Calderon-Kellet, Gloria Estefan, Pedro Pascual, Celia Cruz, Pablo Neruda, Laverne Cox, Alexander Hamilton & the rest of the founding fathers...
Nobody ever asked them to sit with them. They built their dam own table. And that's what I intend to do at every possible chance. 

So pull up a chair and sit with me. 

Everyone is welcome.