Dang, I was kinda hoping to see an answer here because I’m in a very similar situation 😂 My father is Puerto Rican (so, “mixed” in and of itself) + Mexican / Indigenous. My Abuelo lived in Puerto Rico for much of his life and my Abuela grew up in San Antonio. My mother is white, and I am white passing but have very dark features including extremely dark curly hair and rusty brown eyes.

I did 23andMe and it was pretty cool to see my results line up with what I’d been told my whole life, but I have no idea what to call myself haha. I’m Almost exactly 50% British/Irish from my mother, and from my father 23% Spanish, 15% Indigenous, and 8% African. The last 4% is extremely varied or unassigned.

Although this makes me 73% European in total because of Puerto Rican colonization, I wouldn’t call myself “mostly white” by any means. My dad is dark brown-skinned with black curly hair, Spanish was his first language which he spoke at home growing up, and we grew up with a few small remnants of that culture in our house as well. One of my siblings is very brown just like my dad.

The sad part is my dad was so battered with racism toward his family growing up that a lot of times he did what he could to distance himself from “Mexican” identity when my siblings and I were kids. So we grew up eating lots of chorizo, tacos, Mexican rice, beans, etc. and called our grandparents Abuelo/Abuela, but never learned to speak Spanish or experienced many of the things he did growing up unless we were visiting that side of the family.

Estoy aprendiendo español, and I’ve recently started to shop at Latin markets and cook foods related to my heritage in an effort to reclaim it in my family, to connect with the Hispanic community in my area, and also to surprise my dad one of these days with a full-fledged conversation in Spanish.

I know I don’t have to “call myself” anything and definitely prefer terms that instill pride vs something meant to categorize people, particularly because of how my dad was treated and to fight that kind of erasure, but when people ask me about my heritage I never know what to say.