How are you?
No, I am not just hispanic.
No, I am not just white.
Just no, I am Mexican-American

No, my family is not from Honduras.
Nope,  not from El Salvador.
Cuba? Really? No.
Mexico, yes.Huipana Michoacan.

Hmm.
I guess I should have known with your temper and all.
Hmm your skin color gives it away.
Hmm that's why you say your favorite food is tacos.
Will you speak some spanish for me?
Is your family immigrants?

You really don’t know that much spanish?
Like really?

You’ve for real only been to Mexico a handful of times?
Seriously?
Seriously you don’t like enchiladas?
Like what?

No, I don’t celebrate the Day of the Dead.
No, I can’t teach you spanish.
No, I was not born in Mexico.
No, Nope, and never.

I may have been there, even lived there for a while.
But it’s not my home.

It’s beautiful and magical there.
But it’s still foreign to me.

Yes it may define some part of me.
But so does my life in America.

I know the word hola and the question que pasa.
But I wouldn’t even be able to say the first stanza of this poem back to you in spanish.

Yes tacos are by far my most favorite food.
But i’ve also ain’t pizza every day of the week before.

My hispanics ancestors blood may be in me.
But their memories, traditions, and their way of life flew past me like a water passing a boulder in a river.

My life has been almost entirely in America. Nowhere else.
My life in America defines me.
Not the pleasant times in Mexico.