Guatemalan Enough: My Accent Has a Story
By Alejandra M. Silva
This year’s National Hispanic Heritage Month Theme, “Unidos, Somos Más,” was submitted by Meleny Gomez, whose message was simple but powerful: Your story matters. Your voice matters. And together, our impact is greater.
She wanted this year’s theme to remind us that we matter. We belong. Celebrate boldly.
But what does it mean to “celebrate boldly”?
Specifically, what does that mean for a first-generation Guatemalan American girl who grew up torn between two worlds? One parent fought against assimilation, determined to preserve culture and identity. The other fought just as passionately to blend in, adapt, and pursue the American Dream.
And her household wasn’t exactly your traditional marimba y tamales kind of household. There were pieces of Guatemala everywhere, but not always in the ways she thought they were supposed to look or sound. So even at home, her understanding of what it meant to be Guatemalan was complicated.
She grew up in predominantly Dominican communities before moving to Guatemala for a year, only to return to the US to a community where the Hispanic population was largely Puerto Rican and the Guatemalan families around her had only recently migrated to the area.
With Guatemalans, she felt like she had to prove she was Guatemalan. She didn’t know all the traditions. Her Spanish didn’t sound quite like theirs. She didn’t have the big extended family nearby, the shared stories, or the same immigrant experience.
She knew where her parents came from, but sometimes she wondered if that was enough to claim it as her own.
And yet, with everyone else, she was unmistakably the Guatemalan girl.
She existed somewhere in between: too American in some spaces, too Guatemalan in others, and somehow never quite enough of either.
So, like a lot of kids trying to figure out where they belong, she borrowed pieces of the places where she felt accepted.
Her cousins became the Dominicans from the old neighborhood. Their slang became her slang. Their music, humor, and rhythms became familiar. So yes… she had a little qué lo qué in her.
And at the time, being Guatemalan didn’t feel particularly “cool,” either. Guatemalans were often stereotyped as the cleaners, the service workers, the people behind the scenes.
But as she grew older, she came to understand something she couldn’t fully appreciate then: those people behind the scenes were often the backbone of our communities. They quietly created opportunities for the generations that followed.
There was never anything small about that work. There was dignity in it. There was sacrifice in it. And there was a strength in those stories that she would eventually learn to carry with pride.
But when you’re young and already struggling to figure out where you belong, you don’t always have that perspective. You gravitate toward the places where you feel accepted.
So naturally… she became Puerto Rican.
¡Wepa! She had the flag necklace. Red, white, and blue everything. She would belt out Marc Anthony’s Preciosa with the same deep sense of nostalgia as her
Puerto Rican friends - as if San Juan itself was calling her home.
Then she made some Colombian friends. They were pretty cool, too. ¿Pues, qué más pues, parce?
And somewhere along the way, there were some Ecuadorian influences thrown in
there, too.
She was collecting cultures like souvenirs.
But here’s the irony: for all the cultures she so easily embraced, she was still uncomfortable fully embracing her own.
She avoided speaking Spanish in public because she worried her diluted Guatemalan accent would give her away.
Give away what, exactly?
She probably couldn’t have told you.
Maybe that she wasn’t Guatemalan enough. Maybe that she wasn’t Latina enough. Maybe that the identity she was presenting to the world wouldn’t pass whatever test she imagined everyone else was giving her.
And when she did speak Spanish, somehow the inflection and cadence reflected whichever culture she had most recently picked up along the way.
Hell, she spent two weeks in Spain and came back with a lisp!
But beneath all of those borrowed expressions, accents, flags, and identities was a culture she hadn’t yet learned how to claim for herself.
It wasn’t until later in her young adult life that she began to understand the power of the culture running through the veins of her ancestors.
She came to understand the despair and fear experienced by one parent as a result of the Guatemalan Civil War, and the tremendous pride the other carried for Guatemala’s history, family roots, and traditions.
And with age came perspective.
She began to appreciate a country shaped by deep Indigenous roots, rich traditions, resilience, and a complicated history. She began to understand that the very things she once thought made her “not Guatemalan enough” were actually part of a much bigger story. She understood that the service workers were the backbone of our community.
Most importantly, she stopped trying to force herself into one singular identity.
Because maybe identity was never supposed to work that way.
Maybe she didn’t have to choose between being Guatemalan and being American.
Maybe loving bachata didn’t make her less Guatemalan. Maybe yelling ¡Wepa! didn’t require a Puerto Rican birth certificate. Maybe the Dominican slang, Colombian expressions, Ecuadorian influences, and every community that had welcomed her along the way hadn’t diluted her identity.
They had helped shape it.
And she realized that, in many ways, her story represented a microcosm of what the Hispanic community looks like today.
We come from different countries. We have different accents, foods, traditions, music, histories, and experiences. Even the Spanish we speak can sound completely different from one person to the next.
But beneath those differences are values that have connected us across countries, generations, and communities: family, faith, community, hard work, service, and sacrifice.
Those were the values that had allowed her to navigate this multicultural journey all along.
Because whether she was surrounded by Guatemalans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Ecuadorians—or some beautiful combination of all of them—there was something familiar. Somehow, it always felt a little like home.
And eventually, she stopped feeling like an imposter.
She stopped asking whether she was Guatemalan enough.
She stopped believing she needed permission to claim the different pieces of herself.
She embraced the Guatemalan.
The Dominican influences.
The Puerto Rican influences.
The Colombian.
And yes, the Ecuadorian, too.
Not because she was confused about who she was, but because she finally understood
who she was. She was all of the experiences that had shaped her.
And somewhere along that journey, she finally stopped talking about that little girl as if she were somebody else.
Because she was me. And I am her.
Now, my Spanish accent still varies sometimes, and sometimes it’s… not very good-looking.
But I don’t let that deter me anymore.
First- and second-generation kids like us sometimes get labeled the “no sabo” kids because we’re close enough to the culture that people expect us to get everything exactly right, yet far enough removed that sometimes… we simply don’t.
But maybe what we get wrong doesn’t make us any less connected to where we come from.
Maybe our imperfect Spanish, blended accents, and mixed traditions are simply evidence of the journey—the distance our families traveled, the sacrifices they made, and the lives they worked to build for us.
And Meleny Gomez offered a perspective that completely reframes that experience – she says that we are our ancestors’ answered prayers.
Think about that.
The generations before us endured hardship, uncertainty, sacrifice, and displacement with the hope that those who came after them might have opportunities they never did.
And here we are.
So lean in.
Embrace the differences. Celebrate the commonalities. Honor the experiences we’ve molded together, and every piece of ourselves that brought us here.
But don’t stop at celebrating.
Be seen. Be heard. Show up.
Show up with your whole story.
Speak the language - even when the accent isn’t perfect.
Wear the flag.
Share the traditions.
Tell the stories.
Say the name of the country your family came from with pride.
And then make room for someone else to do the same.
Because every time we show up authentically, we make it a little easier for the next generation to show up without questioning whether they are enough, whether they belong, or whether their story deserves to be told.
We are not required to look the same, sound the same, or share the same story in order to stand together.
In fact, that is our superpower.
So take up space.
Open doors.
Bring others with you.
And never shrink the parts of yourself that your ancestors fought so hard to preserve—or sacrificed so much to give you the freedom to become.
As Meleny reminded us, in an era that can already feel so divided, unity is our greatest strength.
So celebrate where you come from.
Celebrate who you’ve become.
And give the next generation the courage to do the same.
Be seen. Be heard. Show up. Celebrate boldly. Because alone, our stories are
powerful.
But Unidos… unidos somos más.
Pa ‘lante!
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