Most two-year-olds are unfamiliar with Ani DiFranco. But the 1990s punk-folk rocker enraptured my mom’s attention and consistently filled our car and living room with angsty music. Mom stuffed my ears with earplugs and, refusing to let a child disrupt her rockstar dreams, drug me to a DiFranco show, my first concert.

The musical influence on my life did not slow with time. I spent afternoons in elementary school watching my dad mix tracks on Protools and direct local bands in his sound booth. My father, basically a musical prodigy from birth, owned a record label and music studio in my hometown.

It seems reasonable to assume that my parents’ combined rockstar and sound engineer genes would result in a musically-inclined super genius. Instead, they ended up with me.

Even my physicality demanded an interest in music, as I certainly wasn’t athletic. My fingers, unnaturally long, are perfect for gliding across a guitar fretboard or spreading across octaves of a piano. My parents’ friends in the music community would almost always ask if I played an instrument or--even more absurd--if I could sing. I’d developed an unspoken game between myself and them, the adults. 

“No,” I would respond confidently, somewhat satisfied that I’d broken their expectation. It felt like a tiny rebellion, and it was a sure-fire way to end any boring conversation with the grown-ups.

In middle school I took free vocal lessons through a family friend. Aside from severe stage fright, I didn’t have a good reason not to try. I was more afraid to admit the fear than to face it, and my first performance was a disaster. Immediately prior, I’d hyperventilated and nearly fainted. The program director reminded me that I didn’t “have to do this.” But I did. My parents were musicians; I would be too. My sixth-grade self mustered through a rendition of Katrina and the Waves’ “Walkin’ on Sunshine” with extreme difficulty, and in a brand new Limited Too outfit, I battled through the longest four minutes of my life. 

Something, probably High School Musical, prompted me to attempt singing again a few years later. Half-expectant that he would recognize my undiscovered talent, I pressured my dad for studio time. He never offered me that record deal, despite recording countless karaoke versions of Vanessa Anne Hudgens’ solo in “Breaking Free.”

Realizing that singing would not be my life’s passion, I gave my vocal cords a break in favor of piano lessons from my dad. These sessions resulted in more time debating whether or not I’d practiced, an argument that’s easier to win with a non-resident instructor. The cycle merely resulted in a pile of unused sheet music, a dusty piano, and a building resentment toward creating music of my own.

Moving to college removed the exceptional influence, and pressure, of making music from my daily life. It reappears now only when I listen to my dad play the mandolin outside on summer nights or attend a concert of my mom’s rock cover band. 

While I can’t call myself a musician, I possess an intense appreciation for music, which I attribute to my parents. I have two blown-out car speakers, my favorite bands’ set lists and autographs, a growing vinyl collection, and carefully-curated Spotify playlists to prove it. Part of me is proud of my younger, defiant self, unwilling to accept the “expected” identity of my parents’ friends, yet I cannot deny how instrumental it still is in my character.

I decided one evening to spice up the small talk around our family dinner table and breached the topic of interracial marriage. 

“You’re not interracial,” my mom replied.

I almost dropped my fork. Emmanuel and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

“Mom, we literally are.”

“I mean--you are a little bit, but not really.”

I wanted to unleash years’ worth of anecdotal proof, but her comments were well-intentioned. I joke at times that she loves him even more than she loves me, her only biological daughter. Emmanuel took the reins instead and stated the obvious: I’m white; he’s not.

While my mom certainly knows that I’m white and understands the definition of race, she was not recognizing that our differences run much deeper. The fact that, after a week on the beach, we might look nearly the same color, is irrelevant. It is our cultures and racial experiences that have made all the difference.

It would be incorrect to ignore the effect that our skin colors have on our lives. Our education, housing, healthcare, citizenship, and even social opportunities started as distantly as possible on the spectrum of availability. What has impacted us more so, however, are the cultural differences that accompany our races. Cuban culture is especially unique in that it borrows from both African and Spanish tradition, resulting in a beautiful Afro-Carribean blend of values and traditions. When I met Emmanuel just after spending five months in Peru, I thought I was more than prepared to enter into a white/Latino relationship. Experiencing, through him, the diversity of culture within Latin America both jarred and humbled me necessarily.

To my mom’s credit, it’s deceiving on the surface. Emmanuel speaks English perfectly, wears vintage sweaters, shoots 35mm film, and listens to Tame Impala. We share many of the same interests and preferences. Those factors, however, make him no less Latino. He also wears Aeropostale flip flops around the house, washes all of our dishes with ultra speed, stays listening to salsa music, eats rice with every possible meal, infinitely values his family, etc. It still amazes me how he manages to hug every single person in almost every room he enters. (Disclaimer: I’m aware that these stereotypes do not represent every Latino person or country, but I use them as examples of the culture that I have witnessed. Plus I think they’re cute.)

Our internal differences were especially pronounced while dating. We responded differently during meal times: I’d never ask for food at his house, whereas he felt welcome to treat mi casa as su casa. For our first official month of dating, I gave him a belated card, and he showered me with thoughtful gifts--so much so that I ultimately asked him to pare down his generosity.

Even I underestimated, and still do at times, the effect that our cultural heritage has had on our worldviews, values, personalities, habits, and everything else. It is pronounced in obvious ways, like when I’m clingy at a family event because I need a translator, and in those more discreet, like the way that we process emotion within our families. In dating and marriage, it has meant and will mean constant compromises from both of us.

He must extend grace when I can’t shake my American individualist attitude, or even more commonly, when I walk into a room of Cubans and forget to kiss someone’s cheek. (Admittedly, this happens often. And as someone who’s really into personal space, I can find it uncomfortable.) I must understand when Emmanuel invites himself into a friend’s house or speaks too directly when asking for a favor. (We’ve had at-length discussions about the importance of  “softening phrases” in English, like “possibly,” “maybe” or “would you mind if.”)

These differences and compromises are real and true and deep. We see them manifest daily. There have been times that I resented our differences and wished that we could think or act more similarly. But compromising makes us better. It makes us more empathetic and adaptable towards other people and, strangely, more unified together. Thanks to Emmanuel, I understand a piece of the world a little bit more, a privilege no upbringing could have afforded me.

“The fact that, after a week on the beach, we might look nearly the same color, is irrelevant. It is our cultures and racial experiences that have made all the difference.”