Ana Pokora

Today, I was finally able to have a conversation with my mother after having my tongue literally tied for the past 5 days due to my tonsillectomy. Ever since my uncle passed away last year, we have felt so much different about going back home. She told me she spoke to my aunt today only to be more disappointed about how troublesome our old neighborhood has become along with the people. 

I find myself having this battle everyday. When I was in High School and my early stages of living in America, I was so Prideful. I loved the idea of celebrating my culture amongst other cultures but now I've become disgusted. My people are not empowering to one another, instead they put each other down. And when I look back at the years when I was prideful, I remember my closest friends shaming me for being that way. Calling me a hick or telling me to go back to my country or saying "You're in America" you shouldn't act that way.

This is the same people that I'm disgusted by, because now they want to embrace being from my country. But the thing is, they don't know anything about being from there. They don't know about living in the island for more than 365 days outside a resort surrounded by poverty and racism. In fact, it is this racism that changed my perception on love. I remember being a little girl in that same island and being told I couldn't like the Haitian kid because he was black but that I could like the American man because he had Blonde hair and Blue eyes. Since then, I vowed to never lean to any side, sometimes I think that's why I never feel any attraction towards anyone other than people like me.

My point is, my pride is gone and so is my desire to go home. My grandma used to always discourage me from moving back home and the more I think about the conversations I had with her the more I realize she was hiding these changes from me. Now that I talk to my mother and we sit and talk about the things that are wrong with our people, I sit in disbelief because we will have no progress. There is more pride coming from our people than empowerment towards one another. You walk into a train and you best belief that the old Dominican lady that is already sitting there will be criticizing you head to toe with her nasty looks. There is way too much ignorance.