Yuh Gyal!

As a Latina, who's nationality is Dutch and was born on Sint Maarten. I've always received the question of who do I identify as? Dominican, Sint Maartener or Dutch?

I was born in Sint Maarten(SXM, will reference it this way from now on, I know super lazy), the friendly Island in the Caribbean, half Dutch half French. I lived there till I was 5 years old. Mind you my memory is the absolute worse, so I don't remember much from those 5 years.

I came down to The Netherlands at 5 years old. Actually, I celebrated my 5th birthday when I arrived there. In SXM, I went to an English school. I had to go to school at some point, in The Netherlands. An English-speaking girl, that knows nothing in Dutch. Picture that.

Luckily I had a lot of help from both regular teachers and afternoon school teachers. I learned Dutch instantly and even had their authentic accent. Or so I remember. Like I said my memory is horrid.

I finally find myself in my last primary school, De Catamaran. Where, alongside my mother's guidance, I was shaped into place. I don't want to say shaped into who I am, because I'm far from who I was back then, but I still am that little girl.

Looking back at those years in primary school, I realized how peaceful and simple everything was. Literally no hindrance in my life. I had it easy, in my opinion. I never got hit as a kid, mostly because I behaved well. I only really got on my ass for talking too much in class. I was very talkative, with everyone. Remove me from 1 group and I speak to the next. I was very social and likable, no one had something bad to say about me. Like I said, my mother's guidance shaped me. She taught me how to be well-mannered. I drizzled some obnoxious into the mix and became a teacher's nightmare; the one who won't stay quiet.

Puberty though, that one hit me a bit harder than I would've liked. In all the wrong ways. I started to overthink more than I used to as a kid. I was getting self-conscious about everything on my body. I started to be timid. Before when my craziness was prominent, my cautiousness came to take over. There where my talkative ways came to play, my quietness came to destroy. I won't lie to you, I was always shy, but to a point. My puberty made me not talk even when spoken to, giggles, or nods. I became self-conscious about the way I speak, the way I smell, etc.

Now, I only did one year of high school in The Netherlands, before we had to move back to SXM. I had become the most cheese version, "verkaast" as they say, of myself by then. So imagine the culture shock I went through starting my second year of High School in MPC, Milton Peters College.

Let me dissect that for you. I, a 13-year-old shy Dutch girl, who knows broken English from the first 5 years of her life and some tv shows, has now entered a different culture altogether in the second year of high school. Meaning, people have already formulated friendships and relationships. Now add that I don't speak English fluently and can barely say a full sentence without the common "uh".

For some reason, my homeroom teacher decided he wanted to emphasize our introductions by bringing each student to the front of the class, while everyone stares at us. "Amazing?" you might NOT think. That's every shy person's nightmare. And on my first day of being in school too.

So I introduced myself in front of the class. People had comments about all the introductions. One comment about my introduction made me relax into the experience I was having.

"She has a nice smile." I won't lie to you, as a little girl I used to always think the SXM people were dangerous, people who I wouldn't like to be associated with. Because that's the prejudice we have against those we know nothing about. When I lived in The Netherlands, every summer I would go to SXM or the Dominican Republic to be with my family. I never talked with the locals. So the only information I had about them, was through word of mouth. And that was mostly criminal subjects. So when I heard that comment about my smile, I felt a lot more at ease.

Through those years of high school I have adapted to the culture nicely. To them, I sound American and to the outside, I sound Caribbean. I always find myself in between the pages. Born and raised for 10 years in SXM, but not consecutively. Raised for 8 in The Netherlands. And now living in The Netherlands, as a predominantly English-thinking Latina, who knows three languages very poorly, but at least she knows them, right?

Now you may ask me, "Who do I identify as?" Dominican, Sint Maartener or Dutch? And the answer is; a mix of all. Because that is literally who I am. A mix of three totally different cultures. Because even though two are Caribbean. They are not one or the same.

So I definitely am an island gyal, maar toch wel verkaast y un poco de todo!

That's yuh gyal in a nutshell, not really, but basics first. Tell me about yourself and/or your identity crisis.