“A rooster crows only when it sees the light … I have seen the light and I'm crowing.”
―Muhammad Ali
I was a bi-cultural kid. My father’s family is Cuban. My mother’s American, specifically Southern. I split my formative years being loved and cared for by both sides of my family. To come to terms with my dichotomy and because I had a poet’s heart, I learned to say I had one foot in the Caribbean Sea and one foot in the red clay of the Appalachian hills. It was a pretty platitude. But the reality was that I was constantly told in subtle ways that I was not enough of one or the other. Both cultures othered me. My white grandmother exoticized me as an olive-skinned beauty, and my Cuban abuela called me American because of my incorrect Spanish grammar.
If you’ve ever been to a Caribbean island or Miami (which is a Caribbean city), you will have encountered free-range roosters and chickens. They are in the plazas, on the courthouse steps, and walking down the middle of the street. They can’t be told they don’t belong there. They, especially the gallos/roosters, are noisy and sure of their right to be. A young gallo’s song is scratchy. It sounds uncertain. But the more it crows, the stronger it becomes. Its tail feathers get brighter and longer. Its strut gets, for lack of a better word, cockier.
As a young writer, exploring personal identity and seeking place were recurring themes in my works. When I chose to fully embody my Cuban-American identity—to claim it without apology for the hyphen—my writing grew confidence. The themes in my writing became more outward-looking and less inward-gazing. I began to speak and use my grammatically incorrect Spanish. Yes, I had to fight the embarrassment and shame I had carried for years. I had to learn to stop apologizing for my “bad Spanish.” But like the young rooster’s scratchy voice, I got better as I continued to practice.
My grammar is still not perfect, but it is much better, and my vocabulary has expanded. I wear my colorful feathers with pride. My Spanish is Spanglish. It is a mixture of the cultures that make me me. My song has words in two idiomas. I crow in dos languages. Like the free-roaming roosters of the Caribbean, no one can tell me I don’t belong. I belong just as I am: Kiki-ri-ki!/Cock-a-doodle-do!
Prayer
May you embrace your unique song. May you sing it with courage and strength. May you know that your voice will be a shining light to others.