If you’ve ever seen West Side Story, the classic tale of the conflict between Puerto Rican and white cultures here in America, you know a little about what it was like for me growing up in the 1960s and 70s. No, I was never in a knife fight, thank goodness. But as the children of our Puerto Rican mother, Angelica Josefina Diaz, and our Illinois-born father, Harry Lovejoy, Jr., my two siblings and I were raised with an unusual and sometimes conflicting mix of cultural influences. And during that period in American history, the white culture usually came out on top.

As a native of Puerto Rico, I cherish and celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. But its importance to me doesn’t come from a solid and steady connection to my heritage – it actually comes from my fear that I’d lost that connection, and my determination to get it back.