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Identity Theft


We go around thinking that what’s in our pockets and purses are safe.

You never look behind you to see if you are going to get snuck upon and get your information stolen.  Once that happens, you have to go through procedures to get your identity back.  Such as: calling the company in which you have bills with to cancel payments that have not been made by you, getting in touch with authorities to report stolen items and starting all over again.

But what if the identity theft is yourself?  Let me explain.  I am proud African-American female who loves the culture of Latinos.  For many years, I stopped associating with the black side because I felt like it was pretty much degrading.  I felt lost in my journey in becoming myself.  I would check out books about the culture and city of Puerto Rico, order a subscription to my favorite magazine with Spanish writing and walk around the house speaking  the language.  I said to myself when I was younger watching Sesame Street that when I became older that I would take a Spanish class.  Little did I know that there would be a class when I got older.

At 16 years of age, I took a Spanish class which I really enjoyed taking.

I remembered in the third grade, a friend of mine taught me the numbers in Spanish to 100.  My high school teacher’s names was Mrs. Haley originally from Madrid.  I had fun in the class and that seemed to be the most important class to me~nothing else mattered.  I passed the class with honors with the opportunity to take the honors course but, had to drop out because I received a job.  Once in college, I took a Spanish class again and within that next semester, I took a French course.  It has always been said that once you learn one language, the second language is easier to learn.

Once again, when I took the Spanish class in college, I started the think about how I love and miss being a part of that culture; and it began again.  I wanted nothing to do with the black side of me.  I even went as far as wanting to date only Puerto Rican and Latin men.  If I wasn’t able to do that, I would try to date men who “looked” Puerto Rican/and or Latin.

During the time that the movie “Roots” was showing, the network shown a genealogy testing that could be done to get the result on where your ancestors come from.  I found some interesting information with my family history.  What was found that large numbers of my ancestors were sold to traders who brought them to Latin  America.  The ancestors on my maternal grandmother’s side are from Yoruba so the Yoruba culture remains  influential in Brazil and Cuba where Candomble’ and Sateria religious practices carry Yoruba traditions.

So, I suppose that I wasn’t too far off in getting my identity stolen.  I just had to learn how to maintain my identity by protecting it.

 

Stacey Barlow is a contributing blogger for JenningsWire.