Leon De Carril, Moreno y Stubner
Essay Competition - Winning Response

Being latina used to be something I was afraid to say, not ashamed, but afraid. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to use that label: I didn’t have a huge community where I grew up, I didn’t understand the stereotypical jokes about things Latino families did, and I didn’t speak Spanish. That last always made me feel the most guilty about calling myself a Latina. What kind of Latina couldn’t speak Spanish?

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It’s not to say I was ashamed of being Cuban-Puerto Rican American, on the contrary. I was very proud of the sacrifice my grandparents and parents made in order to come to America and work to provide me a happy life. But, I felt it wasn’t my place to say this outloud. This was something meant to be shared with my family and my family only. There weren’t a lot of Latinos in Stafford, Virginia, so what gave me, of all people, the right to use that label. In high school, my grandfather passed, which hit my mother hard. As an only child and Cuban immigrant, she didn’t have much family in the US beyond her parents (and a handful of other distant family members I had never met across the country). This was the first time I realized I was losing a connection to my latino identity as my Cuban grandparents aged and my remaining Puerto Rican grandmother, my Tita, was following them as well. I carried my guilt around, swearing it would be different when I went away to college. It had to be; I couldn’t keep living with a foot in two worlds, the predominantly non-latinos community I grew up in and the Latino family I adored, but not feeling like I was allowed to exist in either. 

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So, I left for college, promising to no one in particular, but to the memories of my grandparents, my parents, my cousins, and the heritage I wanted desperately to feel I was allowed to say I was. When I got to college my first year, COVID made it difficult to truly attend events or meet other latinos, but I did my best. What I could do was take language courses, which is where I fell in love with learning the Spanish language, this time officially.

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I had grown up hearing Spanish, understanding it enough to follow, but never knew the exact words to respond. I always thought I was a bad Latina because of this; my parents, my Titi, my Tita, my grandparents, they ALL could speak Spanish, but not me. I thought I didn’t deserve to have a voice in my own community. But then, I was in Spanish courses and I found other latinos: in my professors and in my classmates. They heard my stories and they related and I found out I wasn’t so alone. I didn’t want to stop finding my place in this community I had fought so hard to be a part of. So, I found out about OSU’s Spanish minor. I found out about the Translation and Interpretation Certificate. I realized I could take my years of being alone and turn it into something positive, something that might help someone in my spot not feel so alone. 

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 “Never forget where you came from, and it’s not Stafford VA. It’s the Caribbean”. That’s what my mother said to me recently. The passing of my grandmother just a few days before writing this was a hard blow; she was one of my last immediate connections to my Cuban family beyond my mom and I had so many memories associated with her and the Spanish language. Early mornings with her and my grandpa listening to the news in Spanish and her Cuban dishes and her singing in Spanish, doting. All of those were officially only memories. But my identity didn’t pass with her. I know that now. I can’t forget where I came from, and it’s not Stafford VA. It’s from my grandparent’s stories about Cuba, my Tita’s tostones, my parents’ meeting because of a Latino scholarship in college, from two Caribbean islands: Cuba and Puerto Rico.