#im afraid to do hispanic or talk about hispanic stuff as i always felt excluded from the group that i was never hispanic enough to join

[fuzziemutt]

Seeing peeps celebrate dîa de lös mûertos (just so it's not in the search) just reminds me how much of a cultural limbo i exist in

Like having a white dad who bailed out when you were a kid (leaving us from poor to poor as hell) and a Hispanic mom who tries to pass for white with internalized racism (from the racism she and her family were subjected to) and practically refused to teach us any of our culture along with growing up with only one friend who even cared to see you outside of school along with major memory issues really left me in this weird existence of not celebrating majority of things nor knowing anything about family and culture from either side

Like yeah I've made banana leaf tamales with my grandma the few times we made them together but no i don't speak Spanish nor know what counts as latin/hispanic meals as i grew up in a house where dinner was anything my slightly older brothers could make

I spent so much of my younger years surrounded by fellow latine people (and my grandma) but i hardly remember them as by 12 my mom lost her job and i didn't leave my house beyond for school where i had 1 or 2 friends until i went to college where i still only made a couple friends before quarantine hit

Plus I'm white passing due to my dad so i was never "hispanic" enough (along with not knowing fluent Spanish but i also didn't really know English either) to be included in the hispanic group of kids and still am arguably excluded today

Is this what the 3rd culture feels like ? Where you're not connected to literally anything and you're just existing

Idk this has no point i just was thinking about how disconnected i am from it all in a way

Like I didn't grow up with American white culture but did grow up with arguable white privilege in a way since i had my dad's german last name but also grew up with broken English that caused negative remarks towards me yet no other celebrations beyond birthdays and 'american' holidays yet we'd make arroz con leche as a treat and occasionally buy from Hispanic stores

My mom is an immigrant from Guatemala but i couldn't tell you anything about the place beyond worry dolls; i went there and met my great grandma once but i never knew enough Spanish to understand what anyone was saying and my mom tends to try and blend in with white people because of her internalized racism

I was close to my mom's brothers and her parents (who have been divorced since my mom was a kid and there's a whole drama there) but I feel we still were disconnected especially as the family has a lot of familial trauma and keeps their distance plus the physical distance as well given they're in another state (just one state over but still distance)

My dad's family never wanted anything to do with us because they were racist towards my mom and because we were my dad's kids and they hated him

I'm just rambling really about something I've thought about for a long while that i still don't know how to word; i just don't know who i can connect to as i never experienced what white nor hispanic peeps experienced and having severe mental illnesses never helped