Even before my wife and I considered having kids together people made assumptions about or children. When she was pregnant, they would look at me and say to her, "Ooh your baby's gonna have good hair". What does that mean? Good Hair?
When she was born she came out with a full head of hair. It was fine and straight. Since we didn't know her sex, when I saw her for the first time, she could have been a boy or a girl. She was fair complected with big cheeks. From day one the comparisons began, "she looks just like dad", a nurse said in the hospital. As she grew, her hair started to get curlier and curlier. I always felt she looked like her mother.
One day they were at Wal-Mart. My wife was passing the greeter. The lady looks at her and says, "What a cute baby, is she yours?" I know my wife wanted to fight this old lady. On another occasion we took her to my job so my co-workers could meet her. The baby was sitting up in her stroller and I was pushing her past the registers. Suddenly this young cashier asks my wife, "Is that your baby?" She responds with a yes Then the girl asks, "Why is he pushing the stroller?" Referring to me.
Depending on how her hair is done, she favors either ethnicity. For instance if her hair freshly washed and brushed, it's looks curly and she looks Hispanic. Sometimes she'll have a bunch of braids in it, and it makes her look African American. Once we flat ironed it, and she looked like a Dominican girl. None of that matters, she always looks like my daughter to me.
My friends and co-workers always swear she looks just like me. My wife's friends and classmates think she looks just like her. People that know us both think she looks like both. The truth is, she has my eye brows and eyes. She has her moms nose and mouth. In some of my kid pictures we resemble.
Since I'm a silly person, I even tried to come up with what her ethnicity would be called. I came up with speegro or spinnaker. Afro Latino would be accurate, but to me, that describes a Hispanic person with African ancestry. I kind of liked Mo'nique's, character in Domino, self description of Blacktina.
No matter what she decides to be or identifies with, I will do my best to ensure she knows all she can about both her ethnicity's. Not only as a people, but also her real ancestors. I will tell her about great grandparents. She's visited where her moms family is from, but someday I hope to take her to my country too. I think she will turn out just fine. She's the kind of person that will relish in being so diverse. Since she loves to dance and perform, I could see her borrowing from different musical styles from both sides of the spectrum.
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