Where Are You From

"Do you mean where do I live?” “No. Where are you from?”
“Do you mean where was I raised?” “No. Where are YOU from?”

“What hospital was I born in? Where is my family from? What is my background? What are you asking me?”

Why has that question become one that can never get one straight answer? Why does it take so long for most of us to actually answer it or to get the answer we’re looking for? What about thinking of it this way: what if there isn’t just one straight answer? What if the answer we’re looking for has more to offer than what we originally thought?


You can’t possibly deny that at least once (and that’s at a bare minimum) you’ve been asked the question “Where are you from?” How do you respond? Do you say where your hometown is? Do you say where you are currently living? Do you respond with your birthplace or the nationality you most closely identify with? What if the answer were as simple as stating your race? Are you Black, White, Asian, Hispanic etc.? Is that enough?

We have all grown accustomed to being classified into different sets of groups. The groups of race, nation we identify with or were born in, language we speak, or place where we currently live. For example, I’m from Queens, New York. I’m Hispanic or Latino (which is an entirely different debate on its own). I’m Spanish (another argument to be discussed). I’m Dominican, I’m Puerto Rican. But where are you truly from? Do you ever stop and take a moment to really think about this. Well, whatever your answer to that question may be, take a second or two now to answer this one. Before you, before your parents or their parents were ever born, where were your ancestors? If you trace your lineage all the way back to the first people who created your family tree, where did they grow their roots?

This doesn’t only pertain to our Black Latino community. This pertains to every race, color, creed, nationality, gender, community, individual, person, and human out there. If we choose to close our minds and center them solely on the minute details of our origin, we are depriving ourselves and others of all the knowledge and understanding they can gain from learning about where we are truly from. We are not just a number in the archives of a government, or a name in the files and paperwork of a hospital. We are not just a color amongst a rainbow of colors. We are not just a him or a her. I believe, we are not just from one land.

Throughout history, humans have been known to intermingle, if you will, and interconnect with others resulting in creations of new generations of mixed people and heritages. I believe we can all go back and find at least one family member who has had children with someone other than one of their own race or nationality, regardless of what anyone’s feelings are about that. Wouldn’t this mean that the generations to follow are more than just what their mother is/was? Are you not part of both parents’ families? So where are you from?

We must educate ourselves to find the real answer to that question.
 
Rosa Soto- Administrative Director of the Black Latina Movement
Guest Blogger