Carmen Bunkers Velazquez
Pomona, CA
I have always loved being with my mom’s side of the family, the Velazquez family. I think they have always felt safe because I identify myself through my mom’s racial and ethnic identity, Mexican American, and so with them I feel that I can be who I really am. Knowing that I am from the Velazquez family also helps me feel like I can be more of who I really am in a country where my physical Whiteness brings with it so much privilege and baggage. It’s not that I don’t love my dad and the Bunkers family, I just don’t identify with them culturally I guess. It has been interesting to unpack what it means to be seen as White but to understand myself as something else. I am 28 and I sometimes feel like I am just now starting to look deeply at how race, culture and family have really shaped how I know myself.
