Latinas and Split-Identity

My name is Noemi Mangual-Rosa. I was born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and moved to the United States when I was 1.5 years old. As I've grown up, I got a lot of criticism from my family in Puerto Rico about how "gringa" I am living in Brooklyn and in Newark (which are not typical places where you find gringas anyway. Because I look a little ethnically ambiguous, I've always gotten the "where are you from" question all the time; especially when I speak. I've always been criticized for sounding "too white" to be from Newark/New York/Puerto Rico. Because of this, I struggled with assimilation; as many Latinas do. A popular Spanish phrase says "ni de aquí, ni de allá", which perfectly describes the story of thousands of Latinx who never quite fit in here or there. Identity is a particularly tough concept for Latino/as to grapple with, particularly first-generation Latinas who often find themselves split between two mindsets. I love hotdogs and hamburgers as much as I love tembleque and chuletas. My portrait represents how I am one individual under a split identity living as an American in the United States but still yearning to fit into my cultural identity back home. Additionally, being an Afro-Latina and not outwardly looking the part has also caused some further loss of identity that I had to take upon myself to learn and embrace. Through using tools such as Ancestry DNA to further identify who I am, I learned that I am 36% black, which means that my African roots hold a big part of my heritage.I stopped straightening my hair and started to understand that I am the intersection of being black and Latina and how to be unapologetic about my heritage and what it means to me. Being Afro-Latina means not having to choose; they do and should coexist.