Cuando era niña, mi mamá told me to speak in spanish cuando I couldn't say mis "r"s en inglés.  Garlic made my mouth stink from the broth I drank when sick, so I ate spicy things to soothe my throat.  Muchas veces comímos tamales por la Navidad.  Cuando era niña, creí que era mexicana, pero soy blanca.  Y tengo miedo de hablar español en frente de los nativos y no sé como mostrarlos mi habilidad real.  En el fín, soy una wera, y más que eso, soy francés, y más que eso, soy alemán, and more than that, I'm finnish.

I tried to take pride in my heritage and learn this obscure language.  I tried to find similarities in appearance and personality.  I boasted of this culture that I so wanted to love and be a part of.  I thought I'd found my viking roots but no one around me cared.  I learned "tourist finnish" and forgot it because I couldn't practice.  I read the Kalevala and laughed at old newspaper articles about the joke of "St. Uhro's Day."  I pointed out weird translations in songs due to too many syllables, but in the end, I was too many generations away from being truly finnish.

Why are there so many poems about love?  Maybe it's because when we're in love we stop searching for somewhere to belong because we've found someone to belong to.  I've found my person but not my people.  I've been to seven schools and cried each time I left because I lost those I had tried to make into my extended family.  I try to fit in with so many groups because I feel like I never fit in with just one and in the end I'm on the outskirts.  We have so few people come to holidays and none of them really ever talk with me.  I have a mother but she's an island in a sea of lost chances and forgotten ties.  We seek love to have a claim to something but I've had to learn that I can lose that, too.  I strive for heritage to make up for family dysfunction.  In the end I am white, or rather, white-washed.  I was born without ethnic belonging and have not belonged ever since.