CULTURE | RACE | IDENTITY

Reflecting: When You Ask Me Where I’m From

Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash (Cerro Mime, Orocovis, Borinquen)

Learn whose land you occupy.
~ Anonymous on the internet

Traveling to over 30 countries, I got this question a lot. And nearly always, I’d give the same reply: “I’m Puerto Rican from New York City.”

This curiosity about where we’re “from” is something I’ve started thinking a lot more about since leaving the U.S. in November 2021. Returning to my ancestral motherland of Borinquen continues to remind me how important heritage is — at least, it is for me.

So, the answer to the question came in the form of a poem. It’s one I updated. Here’s a portion of it —

I will point to a map, an island archipelago
where our precious Indigenous Taino toiled
hunter-gatherers who worshiped differently
speaking a language unknown, yet
nothing about their world was “new”

When You Ask Me Where I’m From

I will tell you about beautiful African bodies
to replace murdered + diseased Native ones
more languages unfamiliar
where ancestral drumbeats remained in their souls