Panama 1-0 El Salvador

The El Salvador national team lost 1-0 to Panama last night in the World Cup qualifiers, which now means that making it to the World Cup is going to be a very tough battle. I’m heartbroken. I’m writing this from my $1,100 room in Santa Cruz, California, listening to Title Fight, and all I can think about is how my grandma immigrated to the States at 18 years old. How did I end up here? I can’t speak Spanish, and I’m studying film.

Like every mixed person out there, I have a hard time feeling a part of something. I’ll always get the dirty looks from old white people and the offhanded racist comments, but I’ll never feel fully Salvadoran.

From birth to nine years old, I lived in my dad’s white great-grandmother’s beach home in Seal Beach, California—probably one of the whitest places ever. My family might have been the only Salvadorans to live there in all of its history. As a child, I wanted straight, blonde hair so badly, and that really upsets me when I think about it now.

I’ve been around white people my whole life—most of my friends have been white, and I’ve dated white women. Sometimes I look at them, and it hits me that they’re never going to understand. It makes me wonder if there’s a limit to how close I can be with someone who will never understand such a big part of my life. I don’t know. I guess I’m writing this because watching El Salvador play, cheering for them, made me feel connected to my culture again.

The other day I was riding my vintage road bike back from the Santa Cruz Film Festival, wearing cut Dickies shorts and clogs, and I felt so disconnected from where I come from. But what I forget to realize is that my grandma and mom sacrificed so much and worked so hard so that I could be riding my vintage road bike back from the Santa Cruz Film Festival in my cut Dickies and clogs.

Thank you, Grandma, and thank you, Mom—the strongest people I’ll ever know.

Vamos Selecta.