Italian | Dominican
I identify as mixed-race; proudly European, Latino and Brown. I was born and bred in New York City so I am very much a New Yorker, but after years in London, I consider myself a Londoner too. I'm a bit of everything and nothing, you see!
My Mother is a White Italian, precisely from the city of Genova in the north. My Father is from the town of Bonao in the Dominican Republic and is of mixed heritage; mainly Spanish, African, Indigenous Taino and Sephardic Jew. They met in the only place it could happen - New York City! My Mother was studying at the local university and my Father was working. They met on the job and my Father knew right when he met my Mother that she was ‘the one’. My Mother was extremely resistant to him but ended up giving in to his charms when she realised he was a good guy. It wasn't easy for my Mother when she said she wanted to marry my Father.
My Mother's family were very much against it, to the point they took her back to Italy to keep her away from my Father. But my Father somehow managed to get her to fly to the Dominican Republic where they got married. Her family was so upset they refused to speak to her for 3 years. In fact, I was three years old when I first met my Italian relatives and family. It was purely down to the colour of my Father's skin. But my parents loved each other, and ultimately that's what brought her family back. Today, my Italian family adore my father beyond compare!
Growing up, despite being tri-cultural (Italian, Dominican and American), I grew up with my Italian culture being far more dominant in my life. We spoke both Italian and English at home. I grew up travelling between Italy and the States often and I grew up connected to the Italian community in New York. My Father loved Italian culture and let my Mother have her way with us so we grew up very Italian, but there were still Dominican and Hispanic elements at home. My Father was the main cook so the house was full of both Latino ‘sabor’ along with traditional Italian fare. And the TV was almost the United Nations, playing Italian news, Latin American soap operas and American films!
My parents raised my brothers and I comfortably to believe we were equally our identities; Italian, Dominican and American. After all, we also had all three passports! But acceptance was extremely difficult. The Italian community in America had a hard time accepting us because of our Hispanic surnames and when we were in Italy, we found we had to constantly justify our ‘Italianness’ almost daily.
While Italy thought of us as ‘too Brown’, the Dominican Republic and Dominican community were worse as I spoke Spanish with an Italian accent and we were considered ‘too European’ and oddly ‘too White’ to be Dominican.
To make it even more confusing, because we grew up in such an Italian setting in America, we found ourselves at odds even in America, ‘too foreign’ in the country of my birth.
Being rejected by my cultures has always been a source of sadness growing up, but I learned to channel this desire to belong through learning other languages and getting to know other cultures. That was the beauty of growing up in New York was being exposed to people from all over the world and living right beside them. This desire to understand other cultures then led me to work in foreign affairs. Over the course of almost 15 years, my work has led me to living and working across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, working within the UN system and learning almost five other languages apart from the ones that are mine (Italian, Spanish and English). Many called me a chameleon. For a long time, I tried to suppress my Hispanic identity. I used to downplay my Latino side in the US and Italy because nobody would acknowledge me for my Italian side at all, and it used to bother me. When I look back to it, I don't understand why I did that growing up, but I do believe strongly it was because I was made to feel less than for being mixed, especially in both the States and Italy.
In Italy, being mixed-race was like a weight on my shoulders, a block whenever I introduced myself and my name or last name suddenly made the other realise that I'm not Italian like them, but half. In the US, it was more sinister. It was because Hispanics endured a lot of racism. I was told by a teacher in grade school once that I was lucky to be half European because ‘Latin America doesn't have culture like Europe’. I was once told I was too Brown to be Italian in school and a teacher in Middle School once told me that Hispanics had a lower chance of going to university, so it was better if I focused on a trade. Thank God my parents instilled self-worth to me or else it would've crippled me. But those comments haunted me. It wasn't until I went to university for my undergrad in the States and took a Latin American Humanities Course. For the first time, I discovered Frida Kahlo, Pablo Neruda, Julia Alvarez and so many Latin American Artists and Writers. I learned about Latin American History and culture. Latin American film. For the first time in my life, I realised that on both sides, I came from vibrant colours.
I've had the fortune of having lived in all three of my countries. I have lived in Italy and the US the most but most recently I spent a good portion of last year in the Dominican Republic. In fact, in 2021, I spent time living mainly between the US, Italy and the DR. In a way I was searching for belonging and being home. I wanted to be among ‘my people’ in a way. But I was always the Black sheep in all of them; too foreign for America, too Brown for Italy and too White for the Dominican Republic. Where in the past this would hurt me, I've let it go. I've realised home is no longer a place, but instead in the hearts of those people who love you for who you are. And I've realised that the majority of them are in London, so I came back. Being mixed-race has been my greatest strength and the greatest gift I've ever received. It's been my super power. Being of three worlds has given me the gift of empathy, to understand and not pass judgement on others. In the past, I would've found it a burden, but now, it's my greatest asset. I was never born to be one thing. Much like the trinity, I am three things all sewn into one. That which makes me, me!
Growing up, I always searched hard to find someone who was like me; tricultural, transnational and....different. In the same way I was. But there never really someone who was and for the longest time, I felt completely alone.
Things shifted for me through my work. I have worked for years within the international system, including the UN and travelling loads. I'm a humanitarian Diplomat with my own consultancy firm in London, Pax Tecum Global, where I advise businesses on how to engage with other countries. A gift and ability I learned from being mixed! I'm becoming recognised in my knowledge of other countries and how to work with them through business and diplomacy, which has led me to speak at so many places such as King's College, University of Edinburgh and even on the TEDx stage. The most common comment I get is from other mixed people who tell me how proud they are to see someone mixed in a work they thought they couldn't belong too.
And that's the thing about my job, especially in London, you don't see many mixed-race, queer, Brown people at top. And if they are, they came from a privileged class that was really disconnected with everyday life. And when they do, they are made to really hide parts of themselves in order to be ‘accepted’. But I've never been accepted by anyone, neither from society.
I think this fearlessness and this audacity to be unapologetically myself is what made me realise I could make a difference. I grew up feeling alone and wishing there was someone out there like me who could inspire me. But instead of searching for that person, I can be that person instead. And maybe, in the struggle to be myself, I can change and inspire others to be a little bolder. And while my work is about bringing countries and governments together, maybe my own image can bring hearts more together as well. By accepting and seeking to understand themselves.
The biggest challenge to tackling racial inequality is the lack of listening and understanding. In the US, there is a war between the Black Lives Matters Movement and the Republican Party as they are making it a pure ‘us vs them’ context. Many Americans aren't taking the time to listen to coloured people in the United States and understand their grievances and what the society has done to really belittle their existence. At the same token, many coloured people are refusing to sit with White people and help educate or advocate hard on fostering dialogue. There is so much anger on both sides and desire to commit violence that it is breaking my heart. Ignorance is the biggest block to any form of peace and inequality, no matter the dynamics.
I retain aspects of my cultures where I can. I am very Italian, I need my espresso in the morning, I go back to Italy often, food is my life and I see the world through Italian eyes. I get passionate when ‘gli azzurri’ are playing and I get nostalgic for Italy the most. But there are things that make me quite Dominican . As Italian as I am, comfort food for me will always be ‘arroz con habichulas’ (rice and beans). I love bachata and I love cooking fragrant Dominican dishes like ‘locrios’ (a cross between Spanish paella and West African Jollof rice), Sancocho (a Dominican stew) and dulce de habichuela (a traditional bean pudding for easter).
There is always something I do every day that reminds me of my roots, especially when I travel. That's when I need it the most because when I travel, I absorb so much of the local culture, that I forget myself at times. I remember once being in Ghana for work and a colleague managed to find for me an Italian coffee house serving Illy coffee and coffee just like the bars in Italy. I ran to that place like it was nobody's business as I had spent two weeks drinking the instant coffee, driving me insane! Sitting down with a cappuccino and a cornetto while closing my eyes as I listened to Juan Luis Guerra's ‘Palomita Blanca’ on my iPhone. I was in the middle of Africa but for those moments, I was transported back home. And I remember tears coming down my eyes. It was a moment like Proust's madeleine, it grounded me and reminded me of colours of home that I always carry with me. I remember my heart feeling so full. These rituals give me the energy to take on anything - so yeah, being mixed-race is indeed my superpower!