Latina I am I am me

Carmen Angelica Zapata,
Santa Monica, CA.

I lived in Spain for a year after growing up in the United States and for the first time I was not other. No one yelled “speak English!” no one asked if I was legal, or if I was going to be deported. It was the first time in my life where I looked and spoke like everyone else, I was freed from my identity and was for the first time allowed to just see me.