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I was born in the Dominican Republic, the child of young parents whose lives soon moved in different directions. They divorced when I was just a year old, and both eventually left for the United States — separately, with separate dreams — while I stayed behind in the care of my maternal grandparents.
For six years, my world was the warm, familiar rhythm of my grandparents’ home. I knew the smell of ripe avocados in the backyard, the chatter of neighbors in the street, and the comfort of being surrounded by people who spoke and understood me.
And then, one day, my life shifted.
A Mother’s Return
When my mother came back for me, she was no longer the woman I faintly remembered. My mind, blessed and cursed with hyperthymesia, recalls every detail as if it were yesterday: her blue azure suit, crisp white blouse, black heels, and dark brown, mid-length hair curled perfectly. Her lips were painted a bold red. She had a young boy with her — my new brother — and, in a few days, I met my first stepfather.
What I remember most, though, was the moment she told me I was leaving. I didn’t want to go to the United States.
The morning of our departure, I tried to climb the avocado tree in the backyard, desperate to stay. When that failed, I hid under my bed until the neighbors found me and lifted it away. I clung to my grandmother with all my strength, but my mother pulled me into the waiting car. Through the rear window, I watched my grandmother’s figure grow smaller and smaller until she disappeared completely.
My First Winter
I don’t remember the plane ride, but I remember waking up in our Bronx apartment to the sound of “Super Cacu, DESPIERTA!” — the booming morning radio show my new family loved. The air was cold enough to sting my cheeks. And then I saw it: tiny white crystals drifting from the sky. Snow. I had only ever seen it in the movie La Blanca Navidad (“White Christmas”). In my child’s mind, I thought I had stepped straight into a movie set.
But the magic faded quickly.
A Language That Sounded Like Crumpling Paper
I couldn’t understand the people around me. Their words didn’t sound like words at all — they sounded like paper being crumpled in someone’s hands. “What is this?” I asked my mother. “It’s In-glishhh,” she said, drawing out the syllables.
On my first day of public school, a warm, smiling woman greeted me: short, light brown hair, hazel eyes, a beige pantsuit, and black ballet flats. “Welcome to your first day in America,” she said brightly. I smiled back, not understanding a word.
I was placed in an ESL (English as a Second Language) class. My stepfather hated the idea, insisting I’d never learn “proper English” there. Within days, I was moved into a regular English class — where I sat silently in the back while my classmates laughed at my quietness and my accent.
Finding My Voice — and Being Mocked for It
At home, life changed rapidly. My mother divorced, remarried, and I found myself retreating into the black-and-white comfort of old Disney Channel sitcoms: Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, and The Patty Duke Show. From these, I learned a different kind of English — polished, precise, almost theatrical. I picked up phrases like, “Dare I say,” “Heavens no,” and “I fancy that.”
When neighbors asked about my way of speaking, I told them it was “American British.” In truth, I had unknowingly adopted a Transatlantic accent — something I wouldn’t identify by name until high school.
But to my classmates, I “talked like a white boy.” The teasing turned to shoving, the shoving to outright fights. I never stopped defending myself, but the bullying didn’t truly end until my mother enrolled me in Saint Peter and Paul Catholic School, just one block from the garment factory she and my stepfather ran.
Déjà Vu in Reverse
When I was 11, my parents decided to return to the Dominican Republic to expand their garment business. Once again, I was the outsider. My Spanish was fluent but tinged with the “wrong” rhythm, the mark of a “gringo.” The mocking felt eerily familiar, just in a different language.
Things improved only after my mother placed me in a private bilingual school. There, my hybrid accent was less a punchline and more a curiosity.
Full Circle in New York
At 16, we moved back to New York, and I enrolled in the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan. It was there that I discovered the magic of reading when I wrote a book report on The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Books became my refuge — and my constant companions.
College at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) was even better. No one cared where I was from or how I spoke. It was about skill, creativity, and the drive to succeed. I learned to adapt my voice to any place I found myself — whether the South Bronx, California, the American South, or Europe.
The Accent That Became Me
Today, my way of speaking is a blend of all the places I’ve been, all the people I’ve been. What started as mimicry became authenticity. I am not just one place or one culture; I am all of them at once.
For immigrants like me, assimilation isn’t about erasing our roots. It’s about weaving them together into something new — a hybrid identity that carries the weight of where we’ve been and the promise of where we’re going.
Every time I open my mouth, I speak as that child who once felt caught between two worlds. But now, I know: that’s exactly where I belong.
