Don't Ask Me Where I'm From (A LatinX Coming-of-Age)

by Jennifer De Leon

Mrs. Palmer, who ran her class like a corporation. Every kid knew what to do and when and how, and it was peaceful and smelled like a cinnamon apple air freshener.

I spent the rest of the period listening to her explain more about the program, about the opportunities I would have access to, about the honors classes and the cultural capital, and other terms I didn’t totally get, like “stereotype threat.”

So I took out my notebook. Something that always made me feel better: writing. I have always capital L Loved writing. Even more than sleep. I’d stay up late and I’d wake up early to write, even on the weekends. Like, I had to.

The pamphlet included information about the history of the program, contacts, and biographies of alumni, along with stuff about the W towns—Wellesley, Wayland, Weston, Westburg. White towns. Towns where the schools were real good, where there were enough computers for everyone in a grade to be using one at the same time.

Sometimes I wished I could just… just… unzip myself from my own life and start over,

“Don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you don’t belong in the world. ¿Entiendes?”

was this really the school my parents wanted for me? Dad had always talked about how we should be proud to be Latinos and all that, so why had he and Mom signed me up for this school full of white kids? Where the teachers practically held my hand.

But explaining my perspective on immigration to a bunch of white kids in a richie-rich school? That wasn’t hard. Nah. That was just annoying.

“Like, go back and forth? You, like, cruise around, acting like yourself, but also, at the same time, kinda white—and then what? You go home and eat arroz con gandules and plátanos fritos and call it a day?”

“What I’m saying, Liliana, is that you have to stick it out. It’s not perfect, and yeah, some kids and sometimes even some of the teachers say racist shit, but just take it all in stride or whatever. Get yours. Do you.

There are only like three other Black kids in the whole school who aren’t in METCO. And everyone thinks they are anyway. So, look. Work it. Raise your hand in class. Speak up. Do your assignments. Don’t give them an excuse to say that you’re just another lazy blah, blah, blah.

She stood so close that I could smell her old-country smell, like what every relative from Guatemala’s suitcase smelled like: burning firewood and sweet corn and dirt after the rain. And a hint of Head & Shoulders shampoo.

Normal? What was normal? I bet it didn’t involve worrying about whether Border Patrol was going to catch your dad.

And I was just trying to be what every other teenager in America was: normal. But I couldn’t be.

I knew what I’d sounded like. Like I was better than her, like I’d crossed an invisible line of knowing something she didn’t, and rubbing her face in it.

She has depression, but it will pass. The sun falls before it rises once more. Así es.”

“There are no jobs and not enough food. Schools are for the rich. So it’s a cycle. You see?”

I’d never even told Jade about Dustin. I liked having my worlds separated, like food at salad bars. Corn stays in the corn area, lettuce in the lettuce area.

There I was walking free in this suburban neighborhood, but where was my dad walking—where was he walking to, or away from? It was like the latitude and longitude of your birthplace can ultimately determine your life’s borders.

One, in black-and-white, was of a civil rights activist named Audre Lorde raising her hands in the air. The quote above her read: “Without community, there is no liberation.”

Where are you from-from? Truth, when I think about where I’m from, I feel proud, like yeah, I’m from Boston. But then, well, I’m Latina, and my parents were born in Central America, and I’m from “JP” or “the city.” What people like Steve were really doing was not asking a question but making a statement: You must not be from here. So for my six-word autobiography, I wrote: Don’t ask me where I’m from.

“I’m just saying that yeah, you may feel annoyed having to press one for English or whatever. But imagine how annoyed you’d be if someone came and kicked you off your own land and told you that your language, food, culture, everything, was wrong. And you had to change it. Or die. That’s messed up, right? That’s annoying, right?”

Boston Strong and Mas Poesía, Menos Policía. Cool play on words, that last one. More poetry, less police. I liked it.

Hire more teachers of color.

I could tell that teachers added stuff too, because I doubted teenagers would come up with Seek out professional development opportunities to raise cultural competency.