This is the Pre DNA results post

Alrighty, so....

Last night was Super Bowl LIV and the half time show had Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.
I was already feeling proud of them being on this big stage with such large viewership, but after seeing the show, I felt even more proud of being "one of them". But, am I "one of them"?
Here the "them" is Latina women. Women who identify as Latinas or Latino American. Shakira was born in Colombia to a family that also had Lebanese roots. Jennifer Lopez was born in the US to Puerto Rican parents. I was born in Costa Rica, to Costa Rican parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents (Ok, my one grandfather was born in Honduras with Spanish and Mayan ancestry). And yet, I look nothing like Shaki or JLo. This has been a consistent issue for me. Ever since I can remember, in Costa Rica very often people who had just met me spoke to me in English. This made me feel like an outsider. It does not help that women are constantly harassed on the streets for being... well, women. I also stood taller and whiter than most people. I also have blue eyes. Even though many people in Costa Rica are whiter and have blue eyes, we are not the norm. I also happen to be whiter than those white people.
Most people have heard me talk about the relief that was for me to move to NYC and to be part of the "mass". To be able to blend was great. Anonymity felt like freedom. But what happens when I open my mouth? Most people are able to tell that I have an accent. Very few people realize that the accent comes from growing up speaking Spanish. Most people think I am Polish or Russian, groups who live in the region I live. My phenotype, to get technical, is that of someone who should have been born north, way north of the equator. My genotype is currently being analyzed by Ancestry.com (thanks to a Christmas present). I have never been too curious in finding out how I happened to be me. Both my grandmothers were blond haired and blue eyed. I know one set of my great-grandmother's grand-parents were a German man and an Equatorian woman. I do not know on my father's side why was my grandmother so white and blond. But now that I have entered the process of finding out the origin of my genotype, I am curious. Not of what is obvious, but about what is not obvious. Am I also afro-american? Am I also part of the indigenous people in the Central American region? I want to know. I want to share commonalities with Shakira and JLo without feeling like an imposter. After all, I bet we all grew up eating rice and beans, cafe con leche for breakfast. We all dance since little, we all speak Spanish.
See, that has been a theme in my life, feeling like "I don't truly fit". Too white for the Latinx, to Latina for the whites. I think that "mixed raced" people (not at term that I like, there is no such thing as race... etc...etc) have a similar plight I have read. But I am not mixed as far as I know. I am 100% Costa Rican. But let't see what is the regional ancestry of my DNA. Not that it will necessarily change anything, but it might help to make me feel that I am who I am and that it is ok.
I have declared 2020 as the year of me not apologizing for who I am or what I think.
There will be a post DNA test results post, I think.