I'm Ada Lemone, and this is The Slowdown.

I grew up in an English-speaking household, but when we would visit my paternal grandparents,

I used to love hearing my grandfather speak Spanish.

Truth be told, he believed in sticking to English.

Still, I remember him singing in Spanish how animated he'd become when his original

tongue was let loose in his mouth.

His singing always reminded me of what freedom must feel like.

All of his original music moving through him.

Regardless of what language you speak, when you do not find yourself in books or movies,

you begin to wonder where you belong.

If you do not belong to the place your parents or grandparents are from, it can seem as if

you do not belong anywhere.

There is always someone asking, where are you from?

Over and over until you may even begin to doubt where you are from.

I used to make a list of famous people who had a Mexican background, Linda Carter, who played

Wonder Woman, or Joan Baez, her long hair and even longer notes.

I thought maybe I could be like them, people who thrived in the in between.

So many people know what it's like to feel the danger of being an outsider, to be the

other.

And yet, when it's happening to us, the weight of it can feel overwhelming and crushing.

How can we thrive if we do not know where we belong?

Oddly, this space of complex belonging is where poetry thrives.

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