While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me.

...being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about.

Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?

The tension between people is palpable, and the ideal of what it means to be and look American becomes a preoccupation to folks around the country, including me.

I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.

Our identities are as fluid as our personal experiences are diverse.

Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.

Perhaps finding out that we carry New World history in our genes will transcend racial checkboxes altogether and enable Latino-Americans to rethink what America is supposed to look like.