This year’s Hispanic Heritage Month feels different. It is filled with not only the joy and orgullo of celebrating our culture, but also the weight of fear, this fear of being othered, of being silenced, of being chased.
When I first came to Hopkins, I carried pride like a banner. To be Latino, to be part of a culture that sings even in sorrow and finds color in struggle, felt like a home away from home. I thought of my island, Puerto Rico, the smell of sofrito in the kitchen, the pulse of salsa and reggaetón, the sound of the coquí at night. I felt grounded. To belong to a community of people who rebuild after every storm, who carry joy and resilience in equal measure, was to feel unshakable.
But now, the atmosphere feels more complicated. I see my friends carry their green cards to dinner, a tiny seal that separates them from others. I recognize my privilege as someone who can pass, unnoticed, in a country that often rejects what it does not understand. You hear it in the way people laugh at accents. You feel it in the casual comments laced with bias, offered as if you are expected to nod in agreement. These things press heavily on the heart, heavy with the tears of generations, as if they have not mattered at all. Every whisper of resilience is a whisper for a reason. I nod at people, I smile, but inside, there is still the deep burn of being treated differently simply for who I am…