Between Two Worlds: Being Latino in Trump's America 

What am I supposed to look like, sound like and act like, so that people stop questioning my identity? I’ve dyed my coffee colored hair black, purple, gray, blonde and pink. Does that make me less Hispanic? I don’t have an accent but it's been pointed out that I 'over pronounce' the words guacamole and quesadilla. Yet, when I speak to my family in Spanish, sometimes the words come out in cursive and I sound like a gringa. Does that make me less of a Latina?

Each day that someone asks me "Where are you from?" I feel like I'm asked to pick a side, and the truth is I don't feel entirely qualified to be a part of either category. I always end up somewhere in between my dual citizenship, and neither label quite fits. I've wondered for a long time why so many people in this country have decided what I should be like in order to fit into their ridiculously broad categories of "Latina" and "Hispanic" and why at the end of the day most people just see us as Mexican, regardless of our background. We are grouped together into a giant category which is then ignored, unless of course its election season. That's when we go from being Latinos to The Latino Vote, suddenly people pay attention.  

This election has unearthed a lot of the questions I have had about my own Colombian identity and the ways that it has been shaped by living in this country. Latinos have long lacked visibility, we are a complex and extremely diverse group that happens to be categorized in a way that lacks nuance. Painting with such a broad brush obviously lends itself to generalizations and stereotypes, many of which people see as fact. I know I am hyper aware of how my actions fall in line or drift away from the stereotypes I hear about my own culture. Just last week I was texting my cousin about potentially interviewing her about her identity for this piece. Within seconds her response was "Here's all you need to know — Clichés: I speak Spanish, I like telenovelas, I can dance, I dress up to go anywhere.  Non clichés: I hate cleaning, I'm successful, I didn't come here by crossing the border in a truck, I don't want kids." It was surprising how quickly she came up with this list, but it shows just how present these stereotypes are in our day to day lives.

When it comes to politics, we constantly have to deal with "Hispandeing" — pandering by political candidates who are trying to win over Hispanic voters.  After walking on stage to J.Lo's "Let's Get Loud," at a rally in San Antonio, Texas, Hillary Clinton told the crowd "I gotta tell you, I love being La Hillary – I promise I will keep working on my pronunciation – but I’m not just La Hillary. I’m tu Hillary." La Hillary isn't alone in her "Hispandering," both candidates have something to say about what we are like and how to connect with us.  Donald Trump has touted his giant wall and top notch taco bowls since the first day of his campaign. When he announced  his candidacy for president, he infamously said the following about Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best….They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Any other election year, these comments would have been the end of a presidential run. But Trump tapped into a the opinions that many people have quietly held about Latinos for years and brought these sentiments out into the open.

For better or worse, these expectations of what Latinos should be like have had a deep impact on how I view my own identity, and it's made me curious about the experiences of other young latinos and how they view themselves.

Yoselin Gramajo, 23, is a small and outspoken Guatemalan. For the most part she grew up in Los Angeles but spent some of her younger years in Guatemala. She went to Princeton and now is studying to be a lawyer. There's no doubt that she's an impressive and intelligent woman, but as she frequently points out in her facebook statuses, people have a tendency to be shocked by her accomplishments. She's constantly asked to explain her success and answer people's questions about her life, "Did you get into Princeton because you're Latina?" "How did you manage to get an interview at these top law firms?" After four years at Princeton, Gramajo is used to the scrutiny, and says going to college helped her understand how other people view Latinos.

"Growing up, I mostly grew up in brown and black neighborhoods, so obviously it was very diverse," she said.  "I did know I was brown, I knew I was Latina, but at Princeton, it's the most Latina I have ever felt, the most brown I've ever felt, because of my surroundings. Being in that environment where you are one of the few, it makes you super aware of the way you talk, the way you pronounce things, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, even the most random things like your random habits."

When I talked to her, Gramajo and I bonded over the habits we didn't realize were strange until we started living with our white roommates. Little things like what cleaning products we bought and what spices we had in our cabinets set us apart. My freshman year roommate liked to point out all the, "weird latin things" I did, like eating spicy foods and liking cilantro, but thought the giant shipments of Cheerios her mother sent her every few months were totally normal.

Gramajo said going to Princeton made her more aware of how different she is from white people. When she said this it struck me because she was able to articulate a feeling I know so well. Like her, I didn't ever make much of being Latina, mostly because in Colombia I was just a person, but after moving here distinctly felt like I was suddenly no longer part of the majority. Even though Gramajo was born in the states, she doesn't think of herself as American because she knows people don't have the "little Guatemalan girl from L.A." in mind when they use that word — we are always the other. Like me, Gramajo has a hard time pinning down her multicultural identity, but she always finds herself in a position where she has to explain her background.

"I consider myself to be Latina, and central American and Guatemalan, and Latinx, so I don't think I have a static identity ethnically," she said.  "When someone asks 'What are you?' sometimes you don't want to have a 30-minute conversation about why you're Latina but not Mexican. Saying I'm Latina simplifies life a lot, even though it has its problems. And maybe that's a bad thing, why am I trying to make other people comfortable?"

Gramajo is not the only person I talked to that shared this view about their background. Thiago Fernandez, 24, is a Brazilian born NYU grad who grew up in Newark, New Jersey. He considers himself Latino, but agrees that identifying as American is difficult for him.  

"When I'm in the U.S. I identify as Brazilian, but if I visit my family in Brazil, I don't really identify as Brazilian, because I can tell I'm not the same as them culturally," he said. "There are moments when I definitely feel removed. For example, if I'm online and reading news about a black teenager who was shot by the police, and I see racist comments and blaming the victim or saying there is no institutional racism — that baffles me. I refuse to think that that's how this country really is, and it hurts me to see that there are so many people like that here."

Fernandez says even though the support for Trump saddens him, this election has given him hope for the future. His parents came to the U.S. during Bill Clinton's presidency and Fernandez says his family associates democratic policies with success.  He says his parents instilled in him progressive ideals that he has built on as he has become more politically active. For Fernandez, it's comforting that young people from a variety of racial backgrounds are supporting progressive candidates.

 "Going to Bernie's rally, or seeing online that millennials are really championing progressivism, and that our generation is trying to make a change — that makes me feel like I'm a part of this country, especially because it is our generation trying to make a mark on a broken system."

    Like Fernandez, Gramajo identifies as progressive politically because she feels that Democrats tend to care more about the issues that impact her life.  She says her complex background and experiences deeply impact what she cares about politically.

"At least for me, I think a huge factor of having multinational identities is that I understand and empathize with issues that other people might not," she said. "For example, even though I'm not Syrian, the refugee crisis is something I can empathize with because my parents came to the states to escape the civil war in Guatemala."

She says issues of race and class are extremely important to her because her and her relatives are personally affected by them.  "These are issues I have a personal account of and it's easier for me to perhaps be more conscious of them because it is engrained in the fabric of our experience," she said. "Once my dad was pulled over and a policeman was going to shoot him because he thought that my dad was grabbing a gun when he was getting his wallet. Obviously that impacts what I care about."  

As Gramajo says, things that for some may just be hot topics, like police brutality and immigration impact the Latino community directly. We don't have the luxury of apathy toward some of the truly contentious issues at stake in this election, they are deeply personal. Thinking about my own background, it's easy for me to see the ways in which my experiences and those of my relatives in Colombia shift how I view issues here in the states.

My family lived through a lot of turbulent moments in Colombian history. There was a time when bombings in Medellín were so common that basic things like going to the bank or taking the metro could put your life at risk. Things are much safer in Colombia now, but my relatives back home frequently tell me how scared they are for my mother and I living in the United States. To them the amount of shootings here brings them back to a traumatic moment in Colombian history and it makes them fear for our safety. Fear of this kind of violence is something my mother carries with her every day — she's always on guard. When we would go to malls in Seattle together, my mother would always remind me of what to do in case of a shooting. These memories from part of my Colombian identity and I think about them often, especially when I hear politicians talking about gun control or terrorism. For me shootings or bombings don't feel like an unlikely worst case scenario, they are part of my family's collective memory.

The issues that Fernandez and Gramajo are talking about are easy for me to resonate with, in large part because we are all young left leaning immigrants who are politically active. We are a part of the Latino vote, but Latinos as a population are extremely multidimensional. My experiences growing up in Colombia are different than Gramajo's experience in Guatemala or Fernandez's in Brazil. While there are some cultural similarities among Latinos there are also intense differences, and I sometimes find it odd that we are all grouped together. It's hard to pin down how a group will vote when it includes people of all ages, backgrounds, skin tones, and mixes together people who are conservative and religious with people who are left leaning.

There's a reason why these attempts at "Hispandering" feel so awkward and forced. From speaking in Spanish, to talking about random Latinos they met on the campaign trail, it feels like politicians are trying to target a caricature of our culture. The deeply rooted cultural differences among Latinos are often lost on people and politicians aren't immune to this. According to the last U.S. census 64 percent of the people of Hispanic origin in this country are Mexican, so it's not hard to understand that for candidates trying to win the Latino Vote, Mexicans would be the target group. That being said, when Clinton "Hispanders" by comparing herself to our abuelas or walking out to Selena's "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" at a rally, it feels laughably superficial. Gramajo pointed out when candidates "Hispander" it doesn't make her want to vote for them, it makes her feel like they are undermining her intelligence. I agree, reducing us to a quasi-common denominator isn't effective.

While on the surface this seems like a problem for the politicians to worry about and the rest of us to mock, seeing things like this constantly takes a toll. I think a lot of the anxiety that I and others have expressed about not feeling American or Latino enough comes from comparing ourselves to definitions that were not created by people who understand us. We confront other people's expectations of what a Latino is every day. When I act in a way that is not stereotypically Latino, I am the one that gets questioned, not the stereotype. When someone says I don't look Latina because I've dyed my hair blonde for example, I'm the problem, not their expectations of how a Latina should look.

I've always felt like an outsider in this country, and the Latino label didn't seem like something I had chosen for myself, but rather an identity that was placed on my by people who don't understand my culture. In a year that has been marked by hate and division, I feel like I have finally understood my connection to the Latino community. Fernandez said it best, when Trump attacks Mexicans and "bad hombres" coming over the border, it is "not just an attack on Mexicans but on all Hispanics and Latinos as well."  As a group, Latinos are connected by how people perceive us and the stereotypes we deal with daily. We are connected by empathy. For all ugliness this election has exposed, it has awakened in me a deep sense of solidarity with all Latinos, and after 14 years in this country I feel like I'm a part of a larger community.