What are you?

I’ve been asked that countless times. I have learned the dif­fer­ence in what na­tion­al­ity, ethnicity and race is – yes, they are different and people confuse them very often. I bring this up because I was just asked what my na­tion­al­ity was and I didn’t really have time to answer properly because I am currently at work.

I am American, Puer­tor­i­can and Hispanic/Latina.

Let me break it down for you.
Your na­tion­al­ity is based on where you live. Using myself as an example: I live in the United States of America therefore I am American. If I was to live in Canada, I’d be Canadian. Ok, next is Ethnicity. Ethnicity is based on your heritage, culture and where your parents are from. My parents and I were born in Puerto Rico, but we moved to the U.S when I was 1 year old. Last, but not least, race is what you are cat­e­go­rized as from your ap­pear­ance. As broad as that sounds, it’s true. Black, white, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, etc. Have you ever checked off a box on any type of paper work with those cat­e­gories? Well, that is what your race is.

Being asked the question What are you?  Seems a little broad to me and every time I am asked, I just want to go on a rant and explain it in depth, but most of the time I am usually on the go. I’ve gotten in many disputes about this with my mom and trying to help her un­der­stand all of this.

To end this, I’d like for you all to watch this video. I think it is ab­solutely perfect. It’s quite humorous, but it gets the point across nicely. Enjoy!