A little note before we start
This Reflection is a little more personal than my first one, so before we get into it, I want to say something about that.
One of the things I want to be thoughtful about with Reflections is self-disclosure. If you're a current or future client reading these, I never want my sharing to leave you feeling like you need to take care of me, worry about me, or hold my experiences when you walk into the therapy room.
Anything I choose to share here is something I have enough space in my own system to hold.
I also deeply value my clients' privacy. I've learned so much from sitting with people and hearing their stories, but those stories aren't mine to tell here.
So when I started thinking about what I wanted Reflections to be, I decided that if I'm going to write about some of the human experiences we share, one of the safest and most honest places I can start is with my own.
Not because my experience is universal. It's definitely not.
But maybe something I've lived will put words to something you've felt. Maybe our experiences are completely different, but something here makes you curious about your own. Or maybe you'll simply have one of those oh shit, me too moments I talked about in my first Reflection.
That's the intention.
And I'm saying all of this because this month's Reflection is very close to my heart.
So...
Let's talk about belonging.
Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá
Can we pause for a moment and think about what that actually means?
Not from here.
Not from there.
If I'm not from here or from over there, then...
where the fuck am I from?!
Seriously, this is a question that has been on my mind for most of my life.
And it's only now that I'm starting to understand it from a completely different perspective.
Because I don't think I was ever really asking where I was from.
I knew where I was from.
I think what I was actually trying to figure out was:
Where do I belong?
But first things first.
Why does it even matter where we belong?
We can just move on if we don't fit with certain people, right?!
WRONG!
Jk. You definitely can. 😂
But we can also call that avoidance.
Because sometimes "moving on" means I'd rather push someone away than deal with whatever that relationship is activating in me. I'd rather not have you in my life than deal with whatever the fuck is going on inside of me.
And listen, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Plenty of people live their lives that way.
And sometimes avoiding someone is completely understandable.
Like that tía at the family gathering who needs to comment on how much weight you've gained since the last time she saw you.
Señora, can you not?!
😂
But all jokes aside, there's a difference between protecting our peace and pushing people away because we don't want to look at what they're activating in us.
And shit...
That's another Reflection. 💡
Anywho...
The point is, belonging matters.
We're social human beings. We want connection. We want to feel like we fit somewhere. We want to be around people where we don't have to think so damn hard about how we're supposed to be.
And when I think about my own story, I realize there actually was a time when I had that.
I just didn't know it yet.
Before I knew what belonging was
I was born in the Los Angeles area as a first-generation Mexican American.
The neighborhood I grew up in was predominantly Latino. I still remember my kindergarten class. It was taught in Spanish, and my teacher's name was Mrs. Gonzales.
Thinking back, I felt so comfortable.
I was around people who spoke like me and looked like me.
Then I would go home to a house filled with my family. My parents, my sister, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and numerous cousins.
Keep in mind, my parents were under 20 years old with two kids.
But five-year-old me didn't know anything about how complicated that probably was.
I was happy.
Looking back now, I don't remember wondering whether I belonged.
I just did.
And as I'm writing this, I'm realizing something else.
After we moved away, I spent years saying that once I was old enough, I was going to move back to LA.
I was obsessed with that idea.
I never really understood why.
Until now.
I think some part of me remembered what it felt like to be somewhere I didn't have to try so hard to belong.
Then everything changed
I was eight years old when my parents moved us to Reno, Nevada.
We moved to a predominantly white area in Stead, out in the valleys on the outskirts of Reno.
Because I had been raised speaking mostly Spanish, I needed English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. But the nearest class wasn't at my school. It was two valleys over.
So a little school bus would come pick us brown kids up and take us to another elementary school for ESL.
Looking back at that now is kind of wild.
But not going to lie, those bus rides were pretty fun. We joked around, and for brief moments, everything was all right in the world.
Now, I don't have many memories from my school years around that time.
But one thing I do remember is the parent-teacher conferences they would have every so often in grade school.
I must have been somewhere between eight and ten years old.
My teacher was talking to my mom about how I was doing in school.
And guess who had to translate?
ME.
The little kid who was literally in ESL. 😂
I remember my teacher saying that I rarely talked in class and that she didn't understand why.
I don't remember exactly what else was said during that conversation. But I remember what my little brain heard:
There's something wrong with me.
That's not what my teacher said.
But that's how I understood it.
So here I was trying to figure out how to fit in with white kids while also learning English, and apparently I was too quiet.
But can you imagine the culture shock?
This little brown girl had grown up surrounded by people who looked like her, spoke like her, and families that looked like hers.
And suddenly, for the first time in her life, she was surrounded by mostly white people while also trying to learn English.
No fucking wonder she stayed quiet.
At the time, though, I didn't understand it that way.
I wanted to hang out with the kids who looked like me because that's where I felt safer, but they weren't in my class.
Eventually, I learned English well enough that I graduated from ESL just in time for sixth grade.
And then I was transferred to yet another school, away from everyone I knew and the friends I had made.
And what do you know?
More white people. 😂
Not that there was anything wrong with that, but man, it was tough.
I was starting over again.
I actually remember a girl in sixth grade saying to me:
"Raquel, we like you because you're always quiet and never say anything."
And you know what?
For a little while, that worked.
I felt like I belonged.
So I stayed quiet.
Except I wasn't really being myself.
I had somehow built this reputation as the quiet girl, and now that I knew people liked me because of it, I felt like I had to keep it up.
I belonged, technically.
But I wasn't comfortable.
I couldn't relax and just be me.
Then my people came back
Seventh grade came around and, surprise surprise...
MY LATINO FRIENDS WERE BACK.
😂
Kids I had known from the other schools were suddenly at the same school as me again.
And I quickly dropped my white friends.
Sorry, y'all. 😂
But I could be more myself around my Latino friends. I didn't have to work so hard at being the quiet girl everyone had gotten used to.
I think part of me expected everything to go back to how it had been when we were younger.
Except it didn't.
We had only been apart for about a year, but a lot can happen in a year when you're that young.
I was different.
They were different.
They had made their own friends. They had deeper connections with each other that I wasn't part of.
I was back with the people I thought I belonged with...
and somehow I still didn't quite belong.
So I did what I had already gotten pretty good at doing.
I started trying to figure out what version of me would work here.
Maybe I could earn it
Maybe if I became the perfect student, I would fit in.
So I tried my hardest to get straight A's.
Because that was the right thing to do, right?
And then I got a B in math.
One fucking B.
All A's and one B.
I was so disappointed.
And yes, I still hold a little grudge against that teacher.
Not going to lie. 😂
I had tried so hard.
And somehow that B still told me:
Not enough.
Okay, fine.
Maybe sports.
Sports are a way people connect, right?
So I tried volleyball.
Except how is a five-foot-tall 12-year-old supposed to be amazing at volleyball when she also has strict parents and basically no room to practice?
Needless to say...
I didn't make the team. 😂
But that part of me wasn't done trying.
At one point, I actually pretended to be worse at English so I could get back into ESL because that's where my friends were.
And you know what?
That one actually worked. 😂
It's funny now.
But when I look at that little girl today, I don't really see a kid trying to get out of class or play some elaborate scam on the school system.
I see a kid who had successfully learned English and then realized that her "success" had separated her from the people she felt connected to.
So she found a way back.
But then I wasn't Mexican enough either
By middle school and high school, I started spending more time with Latino friends.
And you'd think that would have solved everything.
These were the people who looked like me. Their families looked more like mine. There were things we understood about each other without having to explain them.
Except I didn't completely fit there either.
When I spoke Spanish, there would sometimes be comments about how I said a word funny.
Or why I had an accent.
Or that I wasn't Mexican enough because I was born in LA instead of Mexico like many of them were.
So around white people, I felt different.
Then I found the people who looked like me and somehow I could still be different.
I couldn't be myself anywhere.
And I still wanted to belong.
For a while, that meant changing myself depending on the people around me. Making choices because connection felt more important than whether those choices actually felt like me.
Eventually, those friendships changed too.
And I went back to doing what I had learned to do best.
I stayed quiet.
Kept to myself.
Talked to a few people.
Blended into the background.
I think I gave up for a few years there.
Not on everything.
I think I just gave up trying to fit in.
Being quiet felt safer.
Funny how the same stories follow us
And the funny thing is, getting older didn't automatically make that feeling disappear.
There were still comments about the way I pronounced something.
Something sounding funny.
My accent.
I know now that many of those comments weren't necessarily intended to hurt me.
But damn.
Some of those words hurt.
Because adult me wasn't hearing them for the first time.
There was already a little girl who had learned that the way she spoke could make her different.
So again...
I got quiet.
Then I started understanding my own story
The shift didn't really happen until I started my own healing journey.
For the first time, I started learning about my experience as a first-generation Mexican American.
Because here's the thing:
Nobody taught me how to be first generation.
Nobody explained what it might feel like to grow up between two cultures.
Nobody explained what it might feel like to move from a predominantly Latino community into a predominantly white one.
Nobody explained what it would be like to learn another language while trying to make friends and figure out who the hell I was.
Nobody explained that sometimes I might feel too Mexican in one room and not Mexican enough in another.
It was just expected of me.
Adapt.
Figure it out.
Know how to react.
Know how to feel.
And when I finally started understanding that experience...
Ohhhh.
Then came the rage.
Spoiler alert: the rage came with a lot of F-bombs. 😂
Because what the fuck do you mean my little eight-year-old self had to start figuring ALL THAT shit out just to feel a glimpse of belonging?!
Wait a fucking minute.
She was eight.
She wasn't too quiet.
She was trying to figure shit out.
She wasn't ridiculous for wanting to go back to ESL.
Her friends were there.
She wasn't stupid for trying to be the perfect student, trying sports, changing the way she spoke, or trying to disappear when none of it worked.
She was trying to connect.
She was trying to belong.
And somewhere along the way, I realized something else that hurt a little more.
I had spent so much of my life wanting other people to accept me...
while at the same time pushing parts of myself away.
Rejecting parts of myself.
Changing them depending on the room I was in.
How could I ask everyone else to accept me when I wasn't even accepting all of me?
Now, I want to be careful here.
Accepting myself doesn't mean everyone else suddenly will.
People still judge. Racism exists. Culture and language matter. People make assumptions. People say hurtful shit, sometimes intentionally and sometimes without even realizing the weight of what they're saying.
I can't control all of that.
But I can stop joining them in rejecting pieces of myself.
And THAT changed things.
So where the fuck do I belong?
A lot of places.
I belong with the trees.
I belong in the mountains.
I belong in all the different places I travel to and the cultures I get the privilege of learning about.
Sometimes I think there's a little piece of me that stays behind in every place I visit.
But most importantly, I belong with my Mexican culture.
And I belong with my American culture.
How fucking lucky am I that I get to know what both feel like?
And can we talk about the fact that I learned TWO FUCKING LANGUAGES?!
What a fucking big deal.
Seriously.
Something I once experienced as evidence that I didn't fit anywhere is now something I'm incredibly proud of.
I belong where there's Latin music.
Banda.
Cumbias.
And I also belong with rock.
Country.
All the other music I love.
I belong with pozole, tacos, and mole.
And hamburgers.
Hot dogs.
Tater fucking tots, man.
😂
I belong doing Pilates and then immediately buying a ridiculously expensive iced latte afterward.
I belong watching fútbol with my family and playing lotería.
I belong exploring another country where I don't know anyone and coming home excited about all the new things I learned.
And most importantly, I belong with the people who have been consistent.
The people who genuinely understand me.
The people who give me kindness.
The people who go along with my dark humor.
Don't get me wrong.
I still have to work with that little girl sometimes.
Because being around safe people and actually letting yourself be seen by them are two different things.
That little girl learned a long time ago that being seen could lead to judgment.
Adult me has had to teach her something different.
Being seen can also lead to connection.
And maybe that's what belonging means to me now.
It isn't finding one perfect place where every single part of me fits.
It isn't choosing between being Mexican or American.
It isn't changing myself depending on which room I'm standing in.
And it definitely isn't getting all A's.
Although I'm still mad about that B.
😂
For most of my life, Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá felt like a question.
Not from here.
Not from there.
So where the fuck am I from?
Maybe I've finally figured out my answer.
De aquí y de allá.
From here and from there.
I never needed to choose.
And honestly?
It's pretty fucking great, y'all.