Although I cannot ever fully understand what it’s like to be in your shoes, your post really hit home. Coming from a mixed background, I do sometimes struggle with my identity. I father is Italian and my mother is Ecuadorian and Spanish. Despite this fact, I grew up pretty ‘”ethnically neutral”. I grew up only speaking English even though with my grandparents begging me to learn the languages and growing up in a predominantly mixed area (Queens, New York). My family has a running joke that the only thing Italian about me is my first name and the only Spanish thing about me is my last night. After living almost two decades, my biggest regret and my biggest struggle were never embracing where I come from. Like you, I do embrace who I am through God. Although I don’t know much about what it means to be Spanish or Italian, I know what it means to believe in God (this is something that I feel I learned through my culture.) Catholicism has always and will always play a pinnacle role in life, and I always turn to it when I feel lost. Sometimes I feel like the only thing I know about myself is that I am Catholic. I also learn through cooking. Food is huge in both cultures (at least in my family). My father has recipe books from his grandmother and aunts from Naples, and my mom learned everything she knows about cooking from her mother. Through this, I was able to build a bond, not like those my fluent speaking cousins could with my grandparents. I was also indirectly able to connect to my roots through cooking whether it be from making sauce and mozzarella, or to cooking pernil. These two things have been my passion and my doorway to who the stories of my past. Through these things, I know that I can find comfort and rest easy knowing who I am. Very well said, David.
