I’m Mexican. That much I know. That much I can be sure of. Or can I? 

Here, in a strange land, my nationality manifests as a shield. It comes as a reflex, to protect and justify my less than perfect tongue: the brokenness of my words and the silly mistakes. It is also an impenetrable wall (Berlin?): I cannot understand them, the French and the Europeans, and they can not understand me. 

Every time my country’s name comes up, or any time I’m the one who brings it up, I get this sort of thrill like a pirate showing others their gold. And yet, how can I say I’m really proud of my country if I left Mexico the first chance I got? If all I’ve ever wanted was to leave, then all I have ever done was so I wouldn’t ever have to look back. 

So, am I a traitor? 
                Judas—patron saint of all traitors, do I qualify for your 
                ranks? I fell for the trap yet again and sold my country for the 
                measly promise of riches beyond measure. 

I often consider myself a voice for the voiceless, but who exactly are they? An instinctive sense of duty has always told me to protect my own, but have I ever really helped them? White guilt. White savior. I assimilate knowledge through my natural and political senses about the injustices that surround me: the violence of the patriarchy and the State. I fight back: kicking, screaming and slamming doors. But do I? Do I really understand any of it? Or, am I blinded by an empathy that bars me from realizing I can’t even fathom to comprehend what it’s really like to experience life outside of my golden cage? So, the question still remains: who am I fighting for? For my own or for the oppressors? 

I am not sure I know what it means to grow up Mexican. I don’t think I was raised that way. As soon as I was of age, I was shipped off to be raised by people from the other side of the world (or the ocean). For the past fifteen years, I lived on a tiny French brick island in the vibrant red, white and green sea of Mexico City. Even if I knew Mexico was home, I felt like I lived in a fortress, far far away. Locked away from my neighbors and protected from the Other by ivy-covered walls, I can’t taste my country in the food I eat, I can’t hear the songs decorating the halls. 

        Am I just an island 
        hopper? 
        Skipping over rocks 
                to avoid stepping on the lava of my 
        beautiful Mexican land 
   If I truly have nothing to show for my origins 
                then 
                Who am I? 
                Am I more than an uprooted and confused 
                girl? 
                Who am I? 

I am more. I am everything I have touched and heard. I am everyone I have ever known: I am my mother’s strength and my father’s sensibility; I am the unbridled joy and kindness of my land. I am a product of opposite, contradicting and parallel forces (North, South, East, West). I am the eye of the hurricane, where everything meets and everything is, always and at all times: always becoming but always me.