You're listening to Rough Translation from NPR.

I'm Gregory Warner.

Hello, Gregory and company.

My name is Vanessa Lopez.

I just listened to your episode on boxes and belonging.

And so many of you responded to our last episode about not fitting the boxes that people

try to put you in.

Vanessa Lopez sent us this story about filling out a census form and trying to answer the

questions as best she could.

So it starts when she gets the question, are you of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?

And I marked off Latino, Latina.

I'm first generation Dominican American.

And then she moves her pencil down to the next question about race.

I don't refer to myself as Afro Latina or as a white Latina.

Actually, I have a wide band of misfit friends.

We refer to ourselves as raw, racially ambiguous women.

And then I actually, I got a call from the census.

And the census was like, excuse me, ma'am, we noticed that you marked off all the boxes.

And I was like, yes.

She says yes.

As in, yes, she fits many boxes.

As a Dominican, she says she identifies with white and black and native ancestry.

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