Hi everyone!

My name is Alexis Romano and I’m from Long Beach, one of the only two cities on Long Island. I come from an extremely diverse background. The background I speak of is not only the city I grew up in, but also my family’s heritage. My mother is half Trinidadian and half Irish. My father is half Italian, a quarter Irish, and a quarter German.

Throughout my life, people have always asked me where I come from and my answer is always the same. I reply with, “I’m mixed.” The reason for this response is because all of my ethnicities are equally important to me.

Perhaps the beauty of being mixed is the pride I feel for my family who married outside their ethnicity. And for my grandparents, marrying outside their ethnicity meant marrying for love and not for what society said was right.

This is a photo of me and my nephew Adrian.