Natalia Naman Temesgen: Reclaiming one's cultural identity

We are in the middle of Hispanic Heritage month, which interestingly runs over two months from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. When the annual observation began in 1968, Sept. 15 was chosen as the start date because it is the anniversary of independence for a handful of Latin American countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Here in town, we kicked off Hispanic Heritage month with the Tri-City Latino Festival in downtown Columbus on Sept. 12. It was a full day of delicious food, live music, much dancing, activities for children and adults, and a representation of the multitudes of individuals who identify as Hispanic and/or Latino.

I remember spending time with my grandpa as a little girl. He and my grandma often watched my younger sister and me at their home in Queens, N.Y., while my parents worked. Granpe, as I dubbed him, was Puerto Rican -- or more accurately, Nuyorican. His parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico and he grew up in a largely Puerto Rican environment, even in the middle of an American city.

He shared with me his love of planes, ham radio and good music. And inadvertently or otherwise, he shared some of his Puerto Rican heritage.

He passed away when I was still quite young, and as I grew up, I wondered what that small piece of Hispanic heritage should mean to me, if anything at all. I didn't speak Spanish, didn't listen to bachata or dance salsa, and frankly I was growing up in Columbus, Ga., which -- even more, at that time -- seemed to be a city made up of blacks and whites with very little consciousness of variance beyond those categories. I self-identified as black, as I do today, and spent little time thinking further about my cultural identity.

But in college, as my perspective grew, I began

to unpack Granpe's heritage and claim parts of it as my own.

I remember attending my first Puerto Rican Day parade in New York City. It was an immense spectacle to behold, as I quickly found myself subsumed in a crowd of people of all colors, shapes and sizes dancing and waving flags from various countries. I remember learning the Spanish word for "flag" that day, because "bandera, bandera!" was chanted regularly over the drumbeats.

I don't know that much changed that day on a tangible level, but I left that event feeling like I finally understood a part of who I was. My heritage was one that didn't require fluency in a certain language or knowledge of specific traditions. It was whatever I was -- no stereotypical, one-size-fits-all title, but a facet of a person.

I'm so glad the Latino Festival is becoming a local tradition, because I think of all the young people -- those who self-identify as Latino and those who don't -- coming together to realize that culture is a beautiful garment that groups of people wear. But ultimately, under all of those garments are people. We can see ourselves reflected back in all sorts of beautiful ways when we celebrate our cultural differences.

Natalia Naman Temesgen is an independent contractor. Contact her at nntemesgen@gmail.com

This story was originally published September 26, 2015 at 9:04 PM with the headline "Natalia Naman Temesgen: Reclaiming one's cultural identity ."