“Too Latino for Gringos. Too Gringo for Latinos.” I never heard it said out loud when I was younger. But I’ve felt it my whole life.
I felt it in classrooms, when my name was mispronounced and I stopped correcting people. I felt it in Bolivia, when I visited as a kid and got teased for my Miami accent and the way I dressed.I felt it in the spaces I occupied. In the silence between my Spanish and English. In the pride of my culture and the pressure to downplay it. I felt it when my accent shifted with the setting, when my playlists went from Chichi Peralta to Jeezy, when I was told I was “well-spoken”—as if that was surprising.
I grew up navigating culture through contrasts. My dad wasn’t in the picture—I didn’t meet him until I was 26—so my sense of self came from my mom’s side of the family and the experiences, soccer fields, and friends who raised me just as much. That made my cultural compass spin differently. It wasn’t always about heritage—It was part survival, part adaptation, and part raw instinct.
I always saw being multicultural as a strength. A creative advantage. A spiritual edge. I could read the air in two languages, switch emotional tones on the fly, understand people on a level that felt deeper than just words. It wasn’t about blending in—it was about knowing when to show up fully as myself and when to listen with everything I had.
Psychologists call this cultural frame switching—the ability to shift cognitive and behavioral patterns depending on the cultural context (Hong et al., 2000). It’s linked to empathy, resilience, and flexible thinking. It explains why I could connect with just about anyone or my need to understand people—but also why, sometimes, I’d walk away wondering who I was in all of it.
Because here’s the other truth: even when you’re proud of your roots, you can still feel lost in them.
Especially when you’ve never fully known one half of who you are.
That’s a whole conversation for another day—but growing up without access to one side of my blood, my history, my story... it shaped me. It made me look for identity in other places—in values, in soccer, in faith, in the mirror. And sometimes, that mirror didn’t reflect clarity. It reflected questions.
The world doesn’t always make space for those questions. Especially not for immigrants. Especially not for men. Especially not for people who don’t check just one box.
What’s happening in LA—and across the U.S.—hurts to watch. Families are still being separated. People are still being treated like statistics. Like threats. Like they don’t belong. And I think, honestly—if I were living in the States right now, there’s a good chance I’d be harassed. Probably arrested. Possibly worse.
I say that with conviction, because I’ve lived it more than once.
Years ago, I experienced police brutality. And it wasn’t some minor incidents. It was harsh, violent, and left me questioning everything. The truth? I honestly believe the only reason I wasn’t arrested or killed any of those times was because I’m not Black—and because God was watching over me. That shook me. It made me realize how identity isn’t just about culture—it’s about survival. About perception. About how others read you before you even speak.
And even though I went to college, I didn’t graduate. But I walked away with something most degrees don’t offer—perspective. That’s what life gave me. And I hold onto it more tightly than any diploma I could’ve earned.
Because being multicultural is not always about celebration. Sometimes, it’s emotional labor. Behavioral psychologists like Benet-Martínez et al. (2002) call this Bicultural Identity Integration—the tension of trying to reconcile two cultural identities that don’t always feel compatible. When integration feels low, research shows higher stress levels, increased anxiety, and confusion about self-worth (Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013).
That pressure is multiplied for younger generations. They’re not just living in two cultures—they’re performing them online, getting judged in comments, filtered by algorithms, and edited by cultural expectations they never agreed to. Identity diffusion is more common than ever (Schwartz, 2018), and it leaves many feeling disconnected from themselves before they even get a chance to understand who they are.
But I’ve learned something in all these years of navigating that tension: Being in between doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re built to see both sides.
People like me—people like us—are bridges.
And there’s power in that.
John Leguizamo once said, “We're not just one thing. We're a mix of things. We're hyphenated Americans—and that's our strength, not our weakness.”
Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the Indigenous Guatemalan activist, spoke of “living in multiple worlds” as both a gift and a lifelong challenge.
And Barack Obama—whose identity was constantly questioned—wrote that he lived in “an unnamed space between cultures.”
But it’s in that unnamed space that we find our voice. Our rhythm. Our vision.
I’ve also learned that walking with God has helped me navigate the confusion with more peace. When the world asks me to choose a side, He reminds me I was already chosen. Even before I had the words to describe who I was, I was already known. That truth hits different when you grow up not knowing half of where you come from. Because even in those in-between spaces, I’ve never walked alone.
I’m grateful for mine. Grateful for my roots. Grateful for the friction. For the grace that’s covered me. For the privilege of perspective. And for the way mental health has become not just something I manage—but something I advocate for. Because we need to talk about this more.
So if you’ve ever felt like you’re too much, or not enough, or caught between who you are and who the world wants you to be—just know:
You are not half. You are not lost. You are whole. And you are needed.
Because in the intersection of cultures, pain, and purpose—there’s power. And in our shared humanity, there’s hope.
---
References (APA Style)
Benet-Martínez, V., Leu, J., Lee, F., & Morris, M. W. (2002). Negotiating biculturalism: Cultural frame switching in biculturals with oppositional versus compatible cultural identities. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(5), 492–516. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022102033005005
Hong, Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7), 709–720. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.7.709
Nguyen, A.-M. D., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2013). Biculturalism and adjustment: A meta-analysis. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44(1), 122–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022111435097
Schwartz, S. J. (2018). Identity in adolescence and emerging adulthood: The search for self. In D. L. DuBois & M. J. Karcher (Eds.), Handbook of youth mentoring (2nd ed., pp. 159–172). Sage Publications.
Syed, M., & Azmitia, M. (2008). A narrative approach to ethnic identity in emerging adulthood: Bringing life to the identity status model. Developmental Psychology, 44(4), 1012–1027. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.4.1012