It’s super important to note that when I look in the mirror I see a Black woman. I can’t fathom how anyone looks at me and sees anything different. Yet, there have been many times that my light skin has been mistaken for whiteness by other Black people. I think that it’s also important to note that it’s never white folks mistaking me for white.

“Well, then what are you?” the Black woman receptionist asked me at the doctor’s office.

I had just been sent off with my file to get bloodwork done to determine an ailment when I noticed she had checked the white box under race for me. I stormed back into the office and waited to speak with her.

“You checked white for me. You didn’t even ask me,” I said.

“What’s the big deal?” she responded snatching the file from me to correct her error.

The big deal is that Black women suffer illnesses at a disproportionate rate. Latinas also have more varying medical issues than white women. Her checking white on my file made me worry that I wouldn’t be tested for things predominately affecting my actual ethnic group.

“It’s an enormous deal, thank you!” I said retrieving my file.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, an illness that affects Black women at higher rates than white women.

Perceived whiteness is not something I deal with often, but all I could think about that day is how many Black non-Latinos look just like me. How could she think I was white as if also being Latina erases my Blackness?

I could probably add 11 more manys and still not clearly depict the number of times I have found myself explaining my ancestry.

My dad was a Black American born in Louisiana with ancestry tracing back to the mid-1700s in the state. My mother was an Afro-Puerto Rican born in Harlem whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico. Because my father was a descendant of American slavery in the South, his pale skin told tales of racial intermingling.

The farthest back we can trace his ancestry lands us at the story of a British Frenchman named Pierre and a Nigerian woman named Rose, who had come to Louisiana by way of slave trading between the state and Jamaica. Rose, who was enslaved by Pierre had at least five of his children. One of their daughters, Rosalie, begat my branch of the family tree eventually bringing to the world my paternal grandmother, five generations later, in 1906.

Not much is known about my mother’s family. She often spoke of her brown-skinned father who was mistaken for African American until he was unable to speak English. That’s when they knew he was Latino, she always said. But ancestral tracing was unnecessary. My mother always knew she was Black.

A few years ago my dad and I both took DNA tests through one of those sites. When our results were returned, my Black American father was stunned to learn that I had more African ancestry than he did.

So, what makes a Puerto Rican? While not every Puerto Rican is made up of the same ethnic background, common ancestral ties include Taino or Arawak indigenous people, Africans and some form of colonizer. Because of this, I am not OK with people referring to me as half Black, because it’s incredibly inaccurate.

I am Black on both sides, I always remind people. My Blackness doesn’t negate my Latinoness and my being Latino doesn’t mean that I am not Black.

First, let’s start by asking, why do people want to say n***a so badly?

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let me take you on a journey to my freshman year at my beloved HBCU.

It was fall 2001 and Jennifer Lopez was making headlines for her song, “I’m Real,” during which she told some n***as to mind they biz, but they ain’t hear her, though.

Enter dorm conflict.

The first thing you need to know is that I was a J-Lo stan back then. I was excited to see a Boricua in such a spotlight. So, naturally, the women in my dorm, whom I had only just become friends with, rushed me with the controversy.

“She can’t say it and you can’t either!” one of them told me.

I was 18 and full of fire, so I won’t transcribe this entire memory, but let’s just say we all had a wonderful conversation about Blackness that day. It concluded in an agreement that while J-Lo was not permitted to use the word, Leslie was entitled to do so if she so pleased. Though, I will tell you I’m not vying for an opportunity to reclaim the word.

The larger conversation here is that while my newfound sisters recognized me as Black, when a racial conflict came into effect, they decided that I was no longer Black enough to stand on their side of the fence.

Many times I’ve been told that I am not Black because I am Latino, followed by some form of ‘Latinos don’t want to be Black anyway.’ That twisted thought erases so many of us who stand proudly in our Blackness. I do recognize, however, that every Latino isn’t Black. Some of you already know that I’ll be the first to call out a Latino for stepping out of line. But, the idea that because some folks don’t represent the wholeness of their identities doesn’t mean those of us who appreciate ourselves fully also fit that definition.

My Puerto Rican mother always wanted to make sure that I understood that my non-African American side didn’t make me more important than anyone who didn’t have an ‘other’ attached to their ancestry. My father didn’t want anyone to call me pretty and my mom prohibited me from grooming myself in public. Neither of my parents wanted me to feel special by way of perceived non-Blackness.

“Why do you say you’re Black?” the general manager at my former rural white American job asked me.

Deeply perplexed, she had just learned that my mother was Puerto Rican and couldn’t understand why I identify as Black.

“Why wouldn’t I say I’m Black?” I asked, making extra certain to poke out my lips and flare my nostrils just in case she missed an African feature or something.

I was being cheeky, but she was serious.

Rural Louisiana is just like it looks on TV. I haven’t watched an episode of Queen Sugar yet where I felt like a scene was exaggerated. While we know that Black folks are marginalized across the United States, the South is still king. My GM’s real question was why would you choose to be so marginalized?

I don’t choose to be marginalized. What I do choose is to be my whole self made up of everything that was given to me by my ancestors. I will neither allow any part of me to delete another part of myself nor have someone explain away my personhood. I am Latina, but I am first and foremost, Black.

I will never understand why people struggle so much with the concept, but I’m always here to serve as a real-life explainer. Happy Hispanic Heritage Month to all of the Afro-Latinos and Black Latinos across the world! I’ll be back in February to wish you all a happy Black History Month. Wepa!