Alix Sotomayor,
Boone, NC.

I have always felt suspended between two worlds, since my ethnicity is widely varied (like that of most Americans). I am mostly (~70%) white, of Scots-Irish and English descent, but also have a chunk (25%) of Puerto Rican heritage (the missing ~5% comes from smidges of Native American and German ancestry). I have never been sure what to call myself. I hate the idea of being ‘white’ or ‘American’, because of all the negative associations those titles impiy internationally, but also feel like a bit of a liar when I tell people I’m Puerto Rican. I’ve never been to the island and have met only a few of my Puerto Rican relatives. I’ve made a steadfast attempt to learn Spanish, because it’s a gorgeous language – but somehow it still doesn’t feel like enough. I’ve always identified ethnically more with the Puerto Rican part of myself more than any other segment of my heritage, but feel more culturally Swiss/German, because all of our holiday traditions come from my mother’s side of the family (the white side). And I think I’m in the majority in feeling this way, since many young people in America now come from such splintered backgrounds that they can’t rightly claim to be any one of them. Facing and answering the question of what your ethnicity is extremely hard for these young Americans of fragmented heritage. I’ve often found myself wishing I was the child of second-generation immigrants from somewhere exotic just so that I wouldn’t have to worry about what I am, what cultural traditions I should be assimilating/carrying on, and things like that.