women – Letters From Liz.

Hey, guys, welcome back to TNTH.

I wanted to write this post because I believe this affects a lot of people in our generation; not just those who suffer from anxiety disorders. I’ve recently been watching a lot of people online and in my neighborhood discuss various things that have happened within the last month, and these things have been happening since the year started, to be honest. We could all pretty much admit that the first major thing in the year that had everyone’s eyes wide open was the mass shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida at Stoneman Douglas High School back in February. Since then, things have piled on top of each other since then. The latest event that has everyone in complete shock is the fact that a four-year-old girl got ran over by a car who didn’t even think twice to turning back to see what they had hit, while the mother of the child was simply tieing her shoe. Also, it’s been said that the person who ran over the kid has a family member who is in authority, and threatened the mother to call ICE on her if she pressed charges. Whether it is true or not, it’s still a goddamn scenario that could easily be played out.

One thing that hit close to home was of the incident that happened in The Bronx on June 15th. Fifteen-year-old Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz was brutally murdered in front of a bodega by a group of guys with a machete and left him on the sidewalk to die. This 15-year-old kid got himself up, ran down the back where the hospital was, and died inched away from the hospital. On top of that, the entire thing was recorded on cameras outside of the bodega with people passing by, looking at these guys drag this boy outside on the sidewalk. It’s disgusting, and extremely triggering to anyone.

What sickens me the most about these type of news events is that there is always a video of the violence happening on camera. There are two videos of two different children getting killed all over the internet, and nobody is looking away.

The news culture has become a place of the grotesque; it’s now a game of “who can report the most gruesome events of the day faster“. We see people getting shot and murdered in videos, we see people getting stabbed to death in videos, and I guess we reached a new low: watching children get killed.

As a person who constantly thinks of the “what-if” scenarios on a day-to-day basis, these type of things are extremely triggering to my well-being. Those kids in that high-school shooting didn’t know their Valentine’s Day was going to end up the way it did. Junior did not think he wasn’t going to see the next day when dropping off bus fare to a friend down the block from where he lives. That mother did not know she was going to lose her child when she put the laundry together and took her to do laundry with her. These people did not know their last days would be like the way they ended up being, and I know I am not any different. Events like this make people not want to send their children to public schools because they’re afraid that their child isn’t going to return home from school at 3pm and instead receive a phone call from the police asking to identify a child they found dead. In all honesty, people are more afraid to go out to fun events (especially after the Manchester shooting in England after Ariana Grande’s concert) because these fun events could come with a price of your life. I’m not saying things like this haven’t happened in the past, I honestly believe it’s the way news outlets report these type of things.

Let’s take the Boston Marathon bombers in 2013 for instance:

After reporting the Boston Marathon news for almost a week, most news outlets interrupted their regular programming to report live at a literal hide and seek game between the bombers and the SWAT team. They tracked the guys down and followed them, found them, surrounded them, and killed one of them in an entire day. It was literally like watching a scene from an action movie. To this day, I never understood why it was necessary to report minute by minute on a tragedy that affected hundreds and their families. Yeah, it’s news (and important news) at that, but showing such triggering an unsettling footage isn’t “letting the news be known”. It’s (to an extent) glorifying the event. It’s why so many recent mass shooters who stay alive after the incidents claim they are inspired by past mass shooters who had their name known for weeks on end and now for the rest of everyone’s lives.

Our news culture is extremely unhealthy for everyone, especially those who suffer from constant thoughts of these worst-case scenarios actually happening.

I’ve been terrified to go to certain places in my life because of the stories I hear and see on a day-to-day basis. I avoid certain areas in my own borough in NYC because of all the crazy and violent things that I hear happening there. While there are people who are able to watch these kinds of things and still live on with their lives, there are people who live in fear because of them, and it causes us to develop conditions that you wouldn’t even think of happening a couple of years ago.

I mean, I was told that I could be a possible agoraphobic.

Now, I’m not saying that you should be oblivious to the outside world and not care what goes on; that just shows your ignorance and avoidance to some really serious issues going on in the world. Plus, it’s impossible to avoid the news in this day and age where the news is on every platform and screen you interact with. Sadly, it’s something you can’t just avoid and to all intensive purposes, you shouldn’t.

What I’m saying is that if you deal with constant thoughts of worst-case scenarios and you function the way you do because of these scenarios, take some time to breathe and recollect yourself. You don’t have to read pages and pages of breaking news. You don’t need to watch these videos of the violence on every social platform. You don’t need to know, hear, and see everything about a very triggering event, and that’s completely okay. Knowing every little detail and having knowledge about an event are two different things. Inform yourself, don’t harm yourself.

As to those who still get very affected by these events and don’t live with these “what-if” scenarios constantly on your mind, just turning away from the media once in awhile is good for your mental health. Take time for yourself during these moments of negativity. Also, know that you can’t live your life completely avoiding the world, and we as people can only hope that we are able to live on to see our dreams and futures potentially playing out in reality.

As for those like me, we’ll be alright.

-Liz. (:

Self-Appreciation Saturdays

SAS: I Don’t Want to “Settle Down.” (6/9/18)

June 9, 2018June 9, 2018 liz

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH!

I just graduated grad school. I can’t lie, not being a student anymore is an extremely scary thought. I’ve been in school since 1998; literally for 20 years. Many of us don’t realize just how much being a student becomes a part of our personality and how it contributes to our work ethic in the long run. I know that being in school shaped me into the person I am now, and it’s scary knowing I’m going to be living a life now that doesn’t involve me being a student anymore.

I technically have to learn how to be an actual functioning adult.

I give props to those who are older (even younger) than I am and already on paths of being adults in the outside world. Many of you are living in your own places (alone or with your partner), many of you have children you absolutely adore, and many of you are either engaged and planning for a wedding or already married and living happily ever after. It’s amazing that many of you are living life the way you want to live and doing it happily.

I don’t want that type of life for myself.

When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be the person to get married, have kids, live in a big house; y’know live the type of life we thought we were able to have when we were little kids. It wasn’t until recently I thought about it again, especially being in the chapter of life I am currently in. I realized I wanted more than that for myself. I realized that getting married before 30 and having kids is just not my way of a “happy and joyous life”. I realized that just because I don’t want to have kids or get engaged right now doesn’t mean that won’t change in the future. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t, but I realized I shouldn’t feel ashamed of wanting a much more different life than the majority of people out there.

I never found myself to be the type of woman who constantly cooks, cleans, and takes care of kids. I’ve always known I wanted to be the one who was career-driven and successful and have someone who shared the same work ethic as me. I always knew in some type of way that I was meant to only take care of myself, and not because I’m “selfish”, but I literally don’t know how to take care of anyone in the way I know how to care for myself. I still have mad love, I still care about those who care about me, but I accepted that at this time and age, I do not want to have the family life everyone strives to have.

I want to be the type to travel the world. I want to be the type to be with a person who doesn’t care about getting married anytime soon or having children anytime soon and just cares about the present. I want to be the type of person who enjoys the rest of her 20’s being a bad-ass independent bitch. I want to be the type of person to be with my partner watching Family Guy until 8 at night on a rainy day eating snacks and all and not feel pressured to be talking about marriage or kids. I just want to live my life the way I know I want to live it.

So yeah, I don’t want to settle down. That doesn’t mean I want to jump in and out of situations with random dudes because “I’m too afraid of commitment”. That’s not at all what this post is about and those who share the same life goals as me shouldn’t feel like saying this is a bad thing. I’ve been with my partner for almost 9 years; commitment isn’t something foreign to me. When I mean “settle down”, I mean settling down to finally being ready put your own priorities in the back burner and care for another human being, let alone a child, anytime soon. I barely had time to get to know myself while being in grad school, I just know I want the rest of my 20’s to get to know myself better.

If you’re one of those people who feel pressured into settling down in your 20’s and feel like you have to pop out a kid because your “biological clock is ticking”, let me reassure you that you’re not the only one in this world who feels they physically and emotionally cannot take care of children, let alone their own. It’s okay to feel career-oriented and focused on yourself. It’s okay to want to wait maybe in a couple of years to have children. Maybe in this present day, you feel the way you feel and nothing at this moment is going to change that. There’s nothing wrong not wanting to settle down at this very second. Your decision is yours only and nobody has a say in what you want to do with your life.

Everyone has different paths of life, and it’s okay if yours isn’t like everyone else’s. Let’s be those “boujee aunties who travel the world and gives their nieces and nephews secret money at family gatherings to be the cool as fuck person” together!

Hey, it’s a thing.
Image result for life quotes short

-Liz (:

Self-Appreciation Saturdays

SAS: Dealing with “Period Depression.” (8/19/17)

August 19, 2017August 19, 2017 liz

Yes, “period depression” is a thing.

When I was younger, my period never affected me drastically. What I mean by that is whenever I got it (and even the weeks prior to getting it), I acted normally and the symptoms of my cycle never negatively affected me. I specifically remember Obie telling me when I was younger that he never knew whenever I was going through my cycle because I never really had the stereotypical mood swings that came along with having a period.

Honestly, I think within the last 4 years, it’s gotten worse as I got older.

I think I’m one of those girls who are very in-tune with their cycles because, well, I am a woman who doesn’t neglect her period cycle for many apparent reasons. If you still are confused: I know the signs and symptoms of my cycle so well so that I know it’s my period that’s coming, and not anything else. But I digress.

Anyway, because I know my body so well, I’ve realized that as the months go by and I get older, there are better months of my cycle, and then there are absolute-shitty months that make me feel all of the things in the world. On the good months, I am able to go through my PMS week and my period week without any shift in my attitude, behavior, or emotions. On my bad months… I have to be careful about not making any rational decisions while going through it and I’ve honestly made some dumb decisions during it. Cue constant dying/bleaching/cutting my already short hair.

During this time of the month, I constantly have to tell myself that I’m feeling like this because of it. It’s not because I hate my life, it’s not because I feel ugly, and it’s not because I’m unhappy. It’s literally because the chemical imbalance in my body is completely off and it’s making me go bonkers.

But the one thing I find myself doing is being “sorry” for feeling the way I feel. Whenever I feel like I’m bothering something or being too harsh or mean whenever I’m going through my time of the month, I instantly feel bad and blame myself. In reality, whenever I’m going through my PMS and period stages, I really don’t mean what I say or how I feel. I just feel really annoyed and bothered and I think negative things whenever it’s that time, and there are only certain people in my life who understand the way I get whenever my period comes.

But even when there are people who understand your mood swings during this time, you still feel bad for being depressed and moody. Personally, it sucks.

I know it’s extremely difficult to not feel like a nuisance when you’re dealing with emotions, but you shouldn’t feel apologetic about the depression you experience during your PMS and period stages. It’s completely normal to be a little on edge– hell– to be a lot on edge, during this time of the month. It doesn’t only happen to you, but it happens to a million other women, hence why it’s completely normal to feel the way you do when you’re on your period.

What you shouldn’t do, is use your moodiness as an excuse to treat people like shit. I know for a fact I try to be aware of how I talk to people on my monthly because I hate, and I mean hate when other women are mean and nasty to me whenever they are on their periods. Also, you shouldn’t have to deal with your depression and just wait it out. Those couple of days of just pure mood swings is exhausting and draining, and no one deserves to spend a couple of days out of the month feeling like that. Take some time for yourself and actually do things that ease your mind.

Take it easy, and take care of yourself when you’re most vulnerable and uneasy.

-Liz (:

Topic Tuesdays: Random

Pros of Journaling.

May 9, 2017May 8, 2017 liz

Screenshot 2017-03-19 at 11.13.05 AM.png

For the entirety of 2016, I decided that I was going to journal write every single day until the end of the year. For the most part, I kept up worth it and the 300+ page journal I kept is now completely full of memories, moments, and simply just thoughts I had at the time. By the time the year was ended, I realize just how much journaling the entire year helped me shape into the person that I always wanted to be.

People dismiss journaling because people classify it being something that “emotional” people do to cope with their emotions. Where, yes, it’s a place where you most likely write your emotions down whenever you’re feeling them, but journaling could be s helpful when things get a little too much to handle. Nowadays, people keep bullet journals to help organize their life and make sure it keeps them on track, so it’s not always about writing to your therapist named “Diary”. I kept a daily journal for an entire year for one reason and one reason only: to make me feel better.

I came into 2016 from having such a rocky and terrifying 2015. I felt like I was slowly losing who I was and I needed to change it ASAP. I decided that I was going to keep a daily journal that would document the year 2016. 2016 was an important year for me because for the main reason that in June, I was graduating college. Who would’ve thought that there was so much more that I actually documented that are now life-long memories? It’s crazy how life works that way.

I don’t know why I stopped after 2016 was over, but I did. I noticed that towards the end of the year, my entries sounded a lot more like Facebook status updates instead of things worth documenting, but even after that – journaling really helped improve my mental health tremendously. I know everyone isn’t a writer and may not feel it be necessary to write in a notebook without a reason, but doing so helps you “talk it out” with yourself with words.

Sometimes, all you need to do is to talk out your thoughts to put them out in the world. Journaling does that while also keeping them confidential, just in case there are just some things you don’t want someone knowing like a family problem or health problem. Personally, I was going through a lot of family problems before I started writing in a journal. Although journaling didn’t help the problems go away, it did make it easier to cope and deal with my feelings in a way that didn’t make me lash out in anger.

I also wanted to start journaling to physically see the change in myself once I finished the book in a year. Although I haven’t had the time to read 365 pages of entries, I know I saw the change in just a few of the posts that I wrote. I began to write about the happy things in my life, as well as look at myself through an unbiased lens. It’s weird because I felt like journaling made me into a “real person” again because the journal had memories and moments told in my perspective, which meant I had to trust myself enough to believe these things happened the way they did.

The fact of the matter is that I was always a journal writer. I’ve kept journals since I was 9 years old, the difference between those journals and the daily one I kept was that these other journals spoke about things that happened because of other people. “Oh, this girl told a nasty rumor about me and I was so close to beating her ass at lunch today.” “Oh my god, my crush finally kissed me in the rain!” They were about moments that involved me, yeah, but these became impersonal because they never truly showcased any growing I did over the years. I actually just recently threw away a lot of my old journals because of this very reason. Why did I want to keep journals that never represented my journey?

Besides my middle school journal, the only other journal I kept was my 2016 journal.

Sometimes, journaling just shows you the journey that you forget about being on once you’ve already been there.

Because it’s already too late into 2017 to start a daily journal for the year, I’m planning to strictly keep a summer one. Because 2018 is going to be another big year for me, I might just start another daily journal then, to document that year’s accomplishments and big events that I can’t wait to actually go through.

Pick up a pen and book and start writing. Trust me, it doesn’t hurt to try. 😉

-Liz (:

Topic Tuesdays: Raw & Personal

Why “Find Our Girls” is So Important.

March 28, 2017March 28, 2017 liz

Image result for #findourgirls

There are teenage girls, specifically black and latina teenage girls, who are going missing in Washington D.C. These missing reports are linked to the ongoing issue of human and sex trafficking. These girls who go missing are most likely being sold. Human beings are being sold as sex slaves. These young girls who still have so much life to live are being SOLD AS SEX SLAVES.

Why is there little to no media coverage on it?

Why do women get the short end of the stick when they’re in danger? Why does a social media platform such as Twitter help find a girl named Kennedi who has once been kidnapped a few weeks ago in Baltimore, but not when the missing person report is initially made? Why is social media the only place out there right now concerned about these missing girls?

Don’t you guys realized these are daughters of mothers, sisters of sisters, nieces of aunts, friends of friends. These girls are not just objects that aren’t real just because you can’t feel them yourself. What would you want to do if this was someone you knew?

In any given circumstance, a disappearance of a girl never seemed to be important to media unless she was a white girl. Think back at all the famous kidnapping cases you can think of: Elizabeth Smart, Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, Jaycee Dugard. They are notably all white teenage girls. Why don’t Black & Latina women get the coverage that they deserve?

The reality of it is that “things like this happen all the time to young women”. You know, because we love getting manipulated, raped, kidnapped, killed, and all the other possible things society thinks we love!

You don’t know how real it is until it hits you.

Last night while coming home from school, I got off at my usual bus stop to wait for another bus that takes me straight home. Usually, there are other people waiting for the same bus as me and we all carry on with our lives once the bus arrives. Note: the buses run every 30 minutes, so I’m usually left waiting for 30 minutes for a bus, or I end up getting in on time. Yesterday, the bus was 10 minutes away from the bus stop I was at.

When I got off the bus, I notice this man standing alone by himself at the bus stop. I usually never stand too close to people on bus stop because I respect personal space. Anyway, I stand a good 10 feet away from this man, until I see him turn in my direction, facing me. Usually, when people do that they are trying to ask for directions – so I took my headphones to hear what he had to say. Initially, I couldn’t tell if he knew any English until I heard him actually speak English, but he was slurring his words like crazy. Oh man, he’s drunk, isn’t he? I told myself as I was trying to comprehend what the hell he was trying to say. Once I actually understood what he was trying to say, I gave him the directions and proceeded on my night. Every time he tried talking to me, he got closer to me, asking me the same question over and over in a very particular way; every bus that came by he didn’t go on. He started to talk to me even louder but in a more aggressive tone as I try to mind my own business and pay no mind to him. By the time he was close enough to me so that I was able to smell the alcohol on him, I started to feel my gut telling me to do something.

I was in this constant thought of what I should do next: If I leave to go to another bus stop 5 blocks away I might miss the bus but if I stay here any longer he might get on the bus with me and I don’t want that happening– I honestly didn’t know what to do. I sent Obie an S.O.S text to call me immediately so that at least I have someone on the other end of the conversation. So I’m just trying to have a conversation with him, and this man gets even closer; he’s about a foot away from me now and he’s now looking at me with this certain look. He just kept staring at me with his aggressive, glossy look and talking under his breath, nodding his head at me and now I’m at a loss for words; I’m tensing up and this man can see it. Obie is trying to guide me out of it, and sooner or later, I say to Obie, “Hey, where are you?” Clearly, Obie is confused as fuck, not knowing what’s going on, and I just kept saying “Where are you? I’m about to meet up with you.” Eventually, he caught on and when I was turning the corner to walk away from the bus stop, I finally told Obie that I got out of there and I was walking to a different bus stop. After what felt like forever, I got home and immediately just started crying.

The fact of the matter is, anything could’ve happened. He could’ve been aggressive to the point he pulled out a knife. He could’ve threatened me. He could’ve followed me when I walked away. Life just happens in unfortunate ways, and things could have gotten worse.

God forbid if I became just another statistic that no one spoke about.

I relate this to what’s happening in D.C. because situations like that aren’t so blatantly out there now, but they still happen all the time to young girls and women. They are in fake job offerings, drive-bys, they are in people who simply need help with directions. And nobody is taking it as seriously as it should be because “things like that happen every single day”.

Yeah, young girls getting kidnapped happen every single day. Young girls getting sexually assaulted happen every single day. Young girls running away or disappear happens every single day. BUT NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

Instead, hashtags are being made in order for top notch news platforms notice it and put it in their 10 o’clock news slot. Twitter and Facebook (as bad as social media can be for a person at times), remind everyone each and every day that these girls are still missing and are not backing down to help find them and bring them home. Instead, many women and young girls who’ve been sexually assaulted or harassed still remain silent because they know nobody cares to do them any justice. (Nah, instead people think we cry out “rape!” for the attention and want to humiliate ourselves.) Instead, many young girls and women end up dead within 72 hours because there’s simply no more we can do. Instead, we are put in the back-burner behind Kardashian/Jenner gossip, Donald Trump nonsense, and what new iPhone is coming out next.

There’s just simply no time for the safety of our girls, huh?

If only we mattered more. If only we “knew better.”

-Liz (:

Self-Appreciation Saturdays

Self-Appreciation Saturday. (3/18/17)

March 18, 2017March 17, 2017 liz

Image result for interracial relationship goals

I grew up in a neighborhood where people of different races were happily together, and lived on with their lives like normal people because they were normal people.

My father is a Hispanic man. My mother is a white woman. They came together and had me and my sister; Latina & White. But that seems to be a normality in society. Hispanic people and White people being together aren’t quickly looked at as weird because skin-color wise, they aren’t that far apart.

My partner is a black man. I am a White Hispanic woman. We get our fair shares of stares whenever we are interacting together in public, especially around “Gentrification Brooklyn”. We’ve both notice the distaste glances that people give us, as if we are living in a world where black and white people can’t be in relationships.

There’s always this stigma that society has on interracial couples that it’s not necessarily “right-looking”. I had a conversation with my partner the other day about this one time we were on the G train together and he started to notice a lot of people staring at us sitting together. Now, I don’t normally notice these things because, you know, I’m too busy being blind, but I can understand why people would stare in the first place.

Interracial Couples

I would like to say that I don’t look and stare at interracial couples, but the truth is that I do. I would look at black men with white women and think “huh, you don’t see this much in public.” I would also look at black woman with white men and think the same thing. It should be a completely normal thing to see in today’s society. It baffles me; we don’t look twice at couples who are close in skin complexion, but why do we do that with interracial couples? The truth of the matter is, we’re somehow programmed to look at the “peculiar” or the unusual. In society, we assume that Asians are suppose to date other Asians, black people are suppose to date other black people, Mexicans are suppose to date other Mexicans and so on. When you see two people who physically look nothing like, people tend to stare (It happens also when a skinny person is dating a fat person; somehow people find that weird as well).

I’ve had people look at me twice and what they’re thinking is written all over their faces: why is she with a black man, *insert stereotype of black men in here*. I see people look at my partner with what they’re thinking all over their faces as well: what is he doing with a white woman, *insert stereotype of white women in here*. It gets annoying to always see at least one person staring at you weirdly and making you feel uncomfortable. I know that after awhile, it once made me think shit, maybe we are weird looking together or maybe I’m not right for him because of the way I look and I can say it happens to the opposite sex as well.

So, how do you prevent it?

Sadly, you can’t stop people from looking at you and you can’t stop people from thinking what they think; there’s no gray in a world where people always assume everything is black and white. While there will be people telling you that you and your partner look “weird together” or they widen their eyes when you introduce your partner to friends and family, there’s really no way to prevent it unless you guys have each other’s back when shit like that happens.

Lemme give you guys an example.

Although I am a Latina, I don’t usually see that side of my family where it’s remotely diverse in races and such. I’m closer to my mother’s side of the family, who in a way are not so diverse. In other words, my mother’s side of the family married within the same ethnicity; Italian (my mother was an exception). Like I said earlier, people don’t necessarily question a couple when their close in skin complexion, and my parents are pretty close in skin color. What my mother’s side of the family doesn’t really have are family members in interracial relationships. Technically, I’d be the first. So my partner and I haven’t met extended family yet because we just aren’t at that stage of things yet (we take things extremely slow). I know when the time comes where my partner is going to have to meet extended family as such, things are going to personally feel really awkward for me, because Italian personalities are just… extra. Without even acknowledging it, there’s a slight chance someone might say something that has racist undertones, and I personally don’t know how I will handle it because we, as a couple, never had to deal with something like that. What I do know, though, is that I’m going to stick up for my partner if something like that were to happen, because people love to fuck things up and watch it fall.

The reality and truth of it all is that if people see gaps and spaces in something, they will try to poke in it and see how far they can intrude before it ultimately breaks. People will say white men and white women “could do better than dating a black man/woman” due to whatever nonsense they believe about black people. People will also say that black men and black women “should avoid dating outside their race because white people are ruining black men/women”. Whatever the nonsense may be, as an interracial couple you have to have your shit put together and stick together so well, that the people you interact with wouldn’t dare try to ruin things.

And it’s extremely important to be put together in today’s America.

In a world where racism rises more and more each day like it’s the fucking 1950’s all over again, you and your partner need to be there for each other. I am extremely protective of my partner in a sense where if someone tries to say some racist shit or spit out a stereotypical statement, I’m coming for you. Black people, specifically black men, have such a stigma forever stamped on their backs for being “thugs” or “troublemakers” that people will try to throw in your face to “look out for you” when really they’re just undeniably racist.

I once had a white friend tell me once that my partner wasn’t right for me for “reasons” after expressing my partner numerous time to this person. This friend didn’t need to say anything more when they automatically assumed something about my partner because of his skin color. Some people are just close-minded as fuck.

Interracial couples are just always going to be that thing in the list of “peculiar things” because of the stigma that people believe about it. The only thing people will praise about it is the “biracial babies that look exotic and beautiful”. Girl, if you don’t go somewhere with that mess…

But I digress.

Interracial dating is a beautiful thing, and I can speak through experience. You begin to try new things and explore new places. I can definitely say that my partner has showed me a lot of music and genres of it that I didn’t know prior to him, and I think I can say the same thing for him. For other couples, it could be new exploration in culture, tradition, food, manners, religion – pretty much anything. Combining people of different backgrounds is always a great thing to experience, so why not do it with the person you love?

I know I am. ♥

-Liz (:

Topic Tuesdays: Raw & Personal

Being a “White-Hispanic” in Today’s Society.

March 14, 2017March 14, 2017 liz

Image result for half italian half puerto rican flags

My skin is white, but half my blood is Latina.

The lack of knowing and speaking the language makes me “less” of a Latina. The lack of complete knowledge and embrace of my culture makes me “less” of a Latina. My skin, my voice, my style, makes me “less” of a Latina.

Society sometimes forgets that I am half Puerto Rican because I am not “Latina” enough, and because of that, people tend to classify me as being the part of the group of white people who are internally racist and arrogant without even knowing it because of their whiteness. You know, those “reverse racism exists, all lives matter, I don’t see color, I see humans” type of whiteness?

That part of whiteness is whiteness that I even I say white people are stupid as hell.

I will admit that because I am half white, I do have “white privilege” embedded in me. I’ve had friends in the past, of different ethnicity and race, in light of the Trayvon Martin case, tell me they feel safer around me because “they wouldn’t be suspicious and shoot down and kill a white girl.”

It saddens me to think that the beautifully diverse people I call my friends are targets in today’s society, but people will assume I don’t think like that because to the outside world, I am just “white.”

Continue reading “Being a “White-Hispanic” in Today’s Society.” →