Where I’m From…

Standing tall like a statue at an outright 4 foot 11 inches, with long black hair like coal, and vast honey eyes that can tell the tell the future– would keep anyone wonder where I’m from.

They use to ask when I moved to the suburbs of Levittown, Long Island– they would ask all the time, “why do you talk like you do? why is your hair so dark?”.  Oh yes, someone else would be offended by such question. I mean where I’m from you would get the stank face like “Excuse me?” but I would entertain them. Would they know where Ecuador was on the map? or maybe if I told them Bushwick Brooklyn would they have a clue? You know Myrtle Avenue next to the M train line? I doubt it.

Where I’m from, you knew what time it was when you looked at the M train– “Next stop St. Nicholas Avenue, Watch out for the closing doors!” when you were having a conversations, “Wait, wait, the train is coming!” just give it a minute and continue about your ways. I felt bad for my grandmother because she was so used to the quite in Ecuador “Ya estoy cansada de este train, me voy pa mi casa” (“I am tired of that train, I can not wait to go to my house”)  she had one foot over here and one foot over there, it is like the best of both worlds next door from me.

Where I am from, You didn’t have to travel far to get the best of every world. A little bit of Puerto Rico with flags as part of their appeal, the Dominican’s dancing in the bodegas, the Haitis hanging out playing cards in from their apartment.

So why I talk how I do? and why I stand tall and proud? Sprinkled with flavor that I am just shaking around wherever I go, it is because where I’m from. I take proud and I carry it on my shelf.